Red Flint?

[crosslandkelly]

Not sure if this is the correct forum, mods please feel free to move thread.
While out foraging on the Suffolk Boone weekend, I picked up a red stone that looked interesting. The fields around here are full of chalk, brown and black flint, the black flint is especially good for producing sparks against a steel. This red stone, flint? was a lot easier to break down into usable sized pieces than the black flint, but produced an impressive set of sparks, as good as, if not better than the flint. Would anyone here be able to ID this stone. Thanks in advance.

 

[Goatboy]

Nice looking stone Mr. Kelly. There's a pond not far from Stonehenge that turns flint that colour. They reckon the grove and pond was used for religious purposes back in the day.
Have it's name written down somewhere so you can read up on it, will try to dig it out for you.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Thanks, so it could be stained, never heard of that.

 

[Tengu]

Chert is flint from limestone rather than chalk

It is brown or white

 

[redneck]

It actually looks like a piece of jasper

 

[crosslandkelly]

It seems more crumbly than Flint. Do Chert or Jasper throw good sparks? Thanks for your replies.

 

[demographic]

A while ago I was working on a site in Lambeth, London and I've never seen as much flint in my life. There was masses of the stuff there.
There was some with a red tinge to it there as well.

 

[dewi]

Isn't it just red flint? I'm pretty sure flint can be any number of different colours and is usually effected by the surrounding ground (metal oxides and the like).

 

[crosslandkelly]

Thanks for the info guys, I had only been aware of brown/black flint up till now. It definitely seemed a weaker kind of stone, easier to break, bur great sparks.

 

[redneck]

The jasper I find here tends to break into pieces rather than chip the way flint does, it is also totally opaque where flint has a slight translucency to it near the edges, it throws the best sparks of any stone I've used though flint, chalcedony, chert and jasper are practically the same stone as they're all silicone dioxide based.

 

[crosslandkelly]

The jasper I find here tends to break into pieces rather than chip the way flint does, it is also totally opaque where flint has a slight translucency to it near the edges, it throws the best sparks of any stone I've used though flint, chalcedony, chert and jasper are practically the same stone as they're all silicone dioxide based.

Thanks redneck. I would say you've nailed it. Thank for all the replies, it's hard to get an ID of it from my woeful description and bad pics.

 

[Goatboy]

I'm having trouble finding my notes but the site was about two km south east if Stonehenge at a Mesolithic encampment. Flint absorbed iron oxides from the water and when it was pulled out within the space of a couple of hours it turned a violent pink colour. Seemingly due to a rare type of algae in the water causing the reaction. Would've been seen as pretty magical (still does to me) a stone to makes fires, tools and turns pink. What's not magic about that.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Palaeocory]

Flint can get really red (and pale grey) if it's been burnt. Are there little grey cracking patterns on it anywhere, or tiny circular flakes that have come off? If you can get a really nice macro shot closer to the material and from the sides it'd help identify. Also, if you great into it is it a different colour? If the outside it patinated it can throw you off.

 

[crosslandkelly]

I don't think it has been burnt and it seems to be the same colour all the way through. I'll have to wait until next month to get a better photo, as I left it at the camp.
Thanks for your input.

 

[Paul W]

Burnt flint looks quite different and it doesn't look like the stained flint mentioned above (I put a vid of it on my youtube channel [link below]), I'd have to agree with Jasper having worked with it a lot. However I've never heard of Jasper in England and definitely not chalky Suffolk, plenty in Wales and Scotland though.

[video=youtube;IcO8G-9zdO8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcO8G-9zdO8[/video]

 

[crosslandkelly]

Thanks for that, I remember watching that programme. Fascinating.