The Wolfsegg Iron, also known as the Salzburg Cube, is a small cuboid mass of iron that was found buried in

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

lignite in Wolfsegg am Hausruck,

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, in 1885. It weighs 785 grams (1 lb 12 oz) and measures (2¾" x 2¾" x 1¾"). Four of its sides are roughly flat, while the two remaining sides (opposite each other) are convex. A fairly deep groove is incised all the way around the object, about mid-way up its height. The Wolfsegg Iron became notable when it was claimed to be an

out-of-place artifact An out-of-place artifact (OOPArt or oopart) is an artifact of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest found in an unusual context, which challenges conventional historical chronology by its presence in that context. Such artifact ...

: a worked iron cube found buried in a 20-million-year-old coal seam. It was originally identified by scientists as being of meteoric origin, a suggestion later ruled out by analysis. It seems most likely that it is a piece of cast iron used as ballast in mining machinery, deposited during mining efforts before it was found apparently within the seam.

History

Early descriptions of the object appeared in contemporary editions of the scientific journals ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' and '' L'Astronomie'', the object identified by scientists as being a fossil meteorite. It was reported that the object was discovered when a workman at the Braun iron foundry in Schöndorf, Austria, was breaking up a block of lignite that had been mined at Wolfsegg. In 1886, mining engineer Adolf Gurlt reported on the object to the Natural History Society of Bonn, noting that the object was coated with a thin layer of rust, was made of iron, and had a specific gravity of 7.75. A plaster cast was made of the object shortly before the end of the 19th century, as the original had suffered from being handled, and had had samples cut from it by researchers.

Analysis

The object was analysed in 1966–1967 by the ''Vienna Naturhistorisches Museum'' using electron beam micro-analysis, which found no traces of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

, chromium or

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

in the iron, suggesting that it was not of meteoric origin, while the lack of sulfur indicated that it is not a

pyrite The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue giv ...

. Because of its low

magnesium Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic ta ...

content, Dr. Gero Kurat of the museum and Dr. Rudolf Grill of the Federal Geological Office in Vienna thought that it might be cast iron, Grill suggesting that similar rough lumps had been used as ballast in early mining machinery. The cast is currently kept in the ''Oberösterreichischen Landesmuseen'' in Linz, Austria, where the original object was also exhibited from 1950 to 1958, while the original cuboid is held by the ''Heimathaus Museum'' of

Vöcklabruck Vöcklabruck () is the administrative center of the Vöcklabruck district, Austria. It is located in the western part of Upper Austria, close to the A1 Autobahn as well as the B1 highway. Vöcklabruck's name derives from the River Vöckla which ...

, Austria.

Out-of-place artifact

The Wolfsegg Iron is claimed by some as an

(OOPArt), and it is often stated as a fact in paranormal literature that it disappeared without trace in 1910, from the Salzburg Museum. In fact, as mentioned, it is at the ''Heimathaus Museum'' in Vöcklabruck, Austria, which is where the photo was taken. It has also erroneously been described as "a perfectly machined steel cube".

Notes

{{reflist, refs= {{cite journal , url=http://www.dbc.wroc.pl/Content/16426/nature_vol_35_889.djvu , title=Notes , journal=

, date=11 November 1886 , volume=35 , issue=889 , page=36 , doi=10.1038/035034a0, bibcode=1886Natur..35...34. {{cite journal , url=https://archive.org/stream/lastronomie02flamgoog#page/n132/mode/1up , title=Uranolithe fossile, trans-title=Uranolithic fossil , journal=L'Astronomie , year=1888 , volume=10 , issue=7 , page=114, language=fr Forteana Upper Austria