Sorry to hear you pet is ill, Steve. This sounds like Lawrencite Disease. It is
contagious and your pet should be quarantined and handled only with latex or cotton gloves as it is a condition you can inadvertently transfer to healthly members in the cage. This comes from the mineral lawrencite: Iron Nickle Chloride. (Fe, Ni) Cl2 is a loosely bonded molecule that is in constant exchange: chlorine gives up its iron ion to the hydroxal ion then goes and gets another iron or nickle atom-- which it will also be lost to water from the air. The chlorine ions are "hygroscopic": that is they pull water out of the atmosphere. The H2O binds with the iron to form iron oxide aka rust and the H2 is liberated as gas. The chlorine ions are a catalyst-- they are not consumed in the continuous reaction like other chemical reactions are. The also won't wash away easily. Therefore minor chlorine contamination can consume an entire meteorite over time. Interesting to note, the mineral lawrenceite, was originally identified in one of the iron meteorites from Alabama in the late 1877 <http://webmineral.com/data/Lawrencite.shtml> >From the mineral data page on lawrencite: Comments: Capillary tube of lawrencite solution with opaque oxidized precipitates, derived from hydrosocpically absorbing water from the air by solid lawrencite, collected from an oozing meteorite. I think camel sweat is certainly a potential source of chlorine ions not to mention random handling with bare hands. This must be kept in mind when adopting NWAs. The lawrencite appears in solution as an "ooze". It has high surface tension and the smaller blobs are typically a golden iridescent ovoid. When I first found them on my specimens I thought they were insect eggs. Yes, the treatment is to completely go through the cycle of washing, soaking in sodium hydroxide, washing again and drying, etc. Good Luck. Elton ----- Original Message ---- > From: steve arnold <stevenarnold60...@yahoo.com> > Subject: [meteorite-list] bleeding in stoneys > > Hi list.I got a unclassed 82 gram endcut that bleeds. I know we have gone > down > this road before,but what really causes this? > Steve R.Arnold, Chicago! > http://Chicagometeorites.com/ > ebay:Illinoismeteorites ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list