Rock ID please

The whole outside of the thing is metallic looking almost like it has been plated, but is clearly naturally occurring. The garnets in the bottom 2 pics are only 1 to 2 mm in size. The metallic stuff is surrounding them on the surface of the rock but my camera doesn't handle reflective surfaces very well.
Pic #4 shows a very close up of the surface, but doesn't show the luster. As you can see, it is not an overly smooth coating of shiny material. I've looked at it under 10X magnification and don't see the normal structure of Pyrite, although to the naked eye one would think it is Pyrite or Mica covering the surface.
At first glance of the surface, one would be reminded of a Meteorite. Definitely the most unusual rock I have ever seen!

I will try to get some better pics later this week

Th., 12/26/13 @ approx. 04:07p.m. E.S.T. (T.U.S.O.A.)

Radio,

It is a beautiful, fascinating, and mysterious rock. It kind of reminds me of a hamburger.

I thought I'd be clever and look under the garnet "article" in a book I have... "The Audubon Society Field Guide of North American Rocks and Minerals (third edition)". I quickly learned that I wasn't very clever at all. The garnet "article" is several pages long with several varieties of garnet covered and a mind-boggling amount of very technical information as to the types of rock environments in which these varieties occur. Still, I looked it through and here are a few guesses that you can then research furthur on your own if you like. I'll be honest; I'm kind of "writing out of my arse" here.

It seems that the garnets are of the type known as `pyrope'. These often occur in the plutonic rock, peridotite. The book's "article" on peridotite mentions a mica peridotite called kimberlite from which diamond(s) is/are mined, but gives no more information on kimberlite. Some peridotites, if I read and understood correctly, can metamorphosize into serpentinite. The book's "article" on serpentinite seems to really describe the outer matrix of your mystery rock.

There are a couple of problems with the serpentinite theory. The book has color plates of both peridotite and serpentinite, and the peridotite sample, though not smooth and rounded like your mystery rock, more resembles it. Also, with that substantial, intact vein of quartz-like material running through the middle of your rock, it doesn't appear to have been metamorphosized.

Look into peridotite and see what you think. I hope all this helps.

--Rick E.

I've seen lots of Serpentine and this bears no resemblance to any I have seen.  I just looked up Peridotite and while a a couple of features vaguely resemble it, the overall appearance is quite different.  The black material that sandwiches the orangish/reddish/pinkish vein in the center is very hard.  I'm also not convinced the vein is Quartz either, but it is about the same hardness or even a bit more
It has too many unique features to be just a "rock" and I may never find out what it is.  I couldn't tell you how many tons of Leaverite I have waded through, tossed aside and cussed at in the last 30 years since being bitten by the dreaded Rockasaurus Houndinger Buggii. 

Thanks for all the input

I will try to get some better photos of it when i get a chance

I might have it sorta figured out.  The outside resembles Mica Schist with the little Garnets on the outside.  The orangish/reddish/pinkish vein in the center is still throwing me for a loop.  Anyone ever see garnet in a vein formation like that?  I did another search and saw some other specimens that said the crystals under the surface were Staurolite, but none I saw had a vein of Quartz, Garnet or whatever the heck it is running through it

Fr., 12/27/13 @ approx. 10:22a.m. E.S.T. (T.U.S.O.A.)

Radio,

I'm betting that even if you could get rich from it, you still wouldn't sell it. It's too unique, beautiful, and mysterious to part with.

--R.H.E.

I think it is garnet + some sort of schist. It could very well be a mica schist. Tremolite schist, graphite schist and chlorite schists are other possibilities. You may want to google some images of various garnet + schists to narrow it down.

Chertaceous, this is not Kimberlite. First off pyropes associated with diamond pipes contain chrome, and are ruby-red unlike the very abundant brownish iron pyropes. I question whether the tiny garnets in these images are pyropes anyhow. They may contain some pyrope but are probably mixtures with other garnet species like spessartite, almandine and others. You can't ID garnets without technical data like R.I,, S.G., spectra etc. I know: I've spent 15 years studying them and they are very complicated.

We can speculate all we like based on images but the only way this specimen is likely to be positively identified is in a properly-equipped lab run by expert mineralogists.

If you've polished the vein material it might be possible to get a refractive index reading. That could narrow the possibilities down a lot. So would a spectroscope test if one could get enough light through it. But pictures on-line aren't going to ID it. You're highly unlikely to find a schist with vein material exactly like it.

Rick

Su., 12/29/13 @ approx. 02:56p.m. E.S.T. (T.U.S.O.A.)

All,

I cannot make any guesstimates as to what the crystaline vein is running through the mystery rock or why it is there. However, from reviewing your various posts, "The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals", and of course, The Internet, a rather hard, sub-variety of schist known as `garnet-mica schist' seems a likely candidate for the outer matrix. That's no great, astounding, insight or revelation, I know, but it may help narrow things down a little bit.

--Rick E.