This sounds funny but it’s true. I found a big Quartz rock in the woods, buried. It took a few hours work to raise it above ground, it was down about 2ft. 1/8" at a time. It was covered in dirt of course, not so pretty except where I cleaned it. We rolled it down the mountain and used a large tractor to move it home. We had to make a road first cutting down trees. It seemed to weigh a few hundred pounds. It’s sorta spherical, but more like a cube. Somewhere between those two. I calculated the total mass using 2.66g/cm3. It’s 2ft in diameter. I calculated 900lbs. Certainly between 700-1000. Is that math correct? How could we move something 900lbs? Can 2 men do it with only a stick?
How did you use the stick?
“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” – Archimedes
Cool story bro
2 feet in diameter gives a radius of about 30 cm.
The volume of a sphere is V = (4/3) × pi × r3.
That gives a volume of 113,097 cm3.
A density of 2.66 gm per cm3 gives a weight of 300 kg, or about 660 pounds.
If it was a cube it would have a volume of about 216,000 cm3, and a weight of 575 kg, or 1,265 pounds.
A couple of weeks ago I had to move what was probably a similar weight of basalt between two of us. We couldn’t have lifted it directly, but were able to push it on a pallet and could probably have lifted it with a lever.
It was an Adventure! Took 3 days. Cleaned it up. Beautiful crystals!
We used it as a lever with a small rock as a fulcrum. At the most we only lifted it 1/8" at a time putting another rock under it around the edges of the hole. Keep in mind it’s rather spherical. Just one final push and it rolled down the mountain. Clearly a big tractor can lift 900lbs in the bucket. It just didn’t feel like 900lbs. I have some experience with the weight of big motorcycles, cars, horses and huge garden sheds. I’m surprised at my calculation results. I have rolled rocks the size of a car in CA, but we had a hydraulic jack with a limit of 5 tons. Often we have exceeded that limit. That’s the only way I can judge weight in that range. Jack failure. I’m surprised we could do it with a stick. In CA the slope is much steeper, sometimes just a push is all it takes. Here’s my theory: It’s partly hollow inside! It’s easy enough to calculate volume using water displacement. But I don’t have a scale.
How can I weigh it?
How do you cut quartz to make beautiful crystals?
Should I leave it alone?
There used to be a rail siding in Elizabeth, GA where trains from Tate, GA would dump ‘blocks’ of marble quarried from there for use in tombstones, construction etc. It had long gone out of use by the time I found a rectangular section 2’x18"x18" of strawberry marble there. Moving that was a bitch but it made a good endtable. You did not want to stub your toe on it in the dark though.
Could you post a picture of it? I’d love to see a picture of a huge chunk of quartz in the wild.
Will post when it’s weighed and moved to the garden. Before/If I cut it.
So, we’re never going to see a picture of the “crystal.”
Joe
[ol]
[li]Weigh yourself on bathroom scale.[/li][li]Pick up rock.[/li][li]Weigh yourself again, while holding rock.[/li][li]Subtract first weight from second.[/li][li]This number is the weight of the rock.[/li][/ol]
No. You will also need a carrot.
I’ve done a lot of trail building in the mountains of NH. We build rock steps and staircases by moving rocks with 5’ long metal pry bars. You’d be surprised how bit a rock you can move by yourself by positioning the fulcrum in the right place and using the full length of the bar. I’ve moved rocks bigger than yours by myself but we take pains to try to only move them downhill if at all possible. With two people and two bars, coordinated effort and small movements, you’d be amazed at what you can do.
Is there truck weighing station nearby? They might let you weigh it, with help from a friend’s pickup truck.
How about a landscaping supply store?
Here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, we have a local business that sells stone - variously by weight, volume, or number of containers/pallets purchased. For ordinary citizens like me that are just going to purchase enough Arizona River Rock to finish the border around the front planter, the procedure is similar to the “bathroom scale method” kayaker describes: you have your vehicle weighed, bag up the rocks you want, get your vehicle weighed again, and they charge you based on the difference.
Of course, I’m only explaining this to expose what you need to know, sbright33: a business like that is going to have a large scale capable of weighing your rock, and if you ask nicely, they’ll probably help you use it free of charge.
But also, yeah, we need to see pictures. 
A mysterious crystal found buried in the woods?
Perhaps you should just stand near it for a few hours. You may pick up a few superpowers such as super strength to aid in your efforts.
Caution: You may also be invaded by an alien intelligence bent on world domination.
[QUOTE=sbright33]
How could we move something 900lbs? Can 2 men do it with only a stick?
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Nice.
Is it white quartz, smokey, clear? After cleaning it you may want to try putting some strong illumination on the backside to see if it reveals anything, clevage planes or whatever, within.
As other’s have stated, you merely employed mechanical advantage.
What you traded off in lightening the load of quartz using a lever/fulcrum, you lost in the distance you raised it from the earth with each input of effort (work/energy) you put into the lever. Which then, of course increases the time it would take to raise it, had you been strong enough to lift it in one go.
IOW: All of the above can be controlled as to where you put the fulcrum. Closer to the rock, the more strength you’ll need on the end of the lever, but the rock will raise higher as opposed to placing the fulcrum further away from the rock, thereby lightening the load, but only raising it a fraction of the fulcrum placed closer to the rock.
As far as wanting to know with more accuracy the weight of the rock, it depends on how much more effort and time you feel it’s worth to figure out. I’d say you’re in the ballpark — ~700-1,000 lbs…
The best way, as you mentioned, is to use water displacement, to get an accurate measure of the volume. Then use your density calculation. Of course, if you really think it’s a hollow quartz geode, then you’d need to actually weigh it, and compare the weight with your more accurate volume measurements; if there’s a big enough disparity, then you’re onto something (barring any impurities in the quartz of substantially different densities). So it might be worth the effort to weigh it (can you find a someone with a fork-lift scale?), if you’re thinking about cutting it to expose any internal structure.
Would love to see a pic.
So how did you find this big rock, buried two feet under, in the woods? Why were you digging in the woods in the first place? Were you “in the woods,” or on a trail or road? How did you know to dig there, if it was two feet under?
If it was roughly 2’ in diameter, perhaps he spotted a bit of it exposed above the surface?
When I was a teen, we camped at a site in South Dakota near the Badlands. Me and my sisters climbed a huge, steep, moderately wooded hill spotting and collecting all sorts of quartz rocks in the dirt, and some clearly bigger ones buried, but peaking out like the tip of an iceberg.
You have to dig deeper than 2’ or wild animals are likely to get to the body.