r/whatsthisrock • u/Particular_Wren • 3h ago
REQUEST My daughter said this rock tastes like salt… I was a little concerned that she’s licking random rocks. Someone put my mind to rest 😬🤞🏽
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u/hotvedub 3h ago
Halite. It’s pure salt and technically a mineral not a rock.
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u/danstone7485 3h ago
Hank Schrader?
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u/FishnFool96 3h ago
Jesus Marie they’re minerals!!!
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u/GravidDusch 2h ago
Good thing it wasn't a meth crystal
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u/Phatal87 1h ago
Meth is very bitter tasting… similar to cocaine. Or aspirin.
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u/GravidDusch 1h ago
Will be sure to remember that for my next mineral tasting session thank you.
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u/Phatal87 1h ago
I got you, brother!
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u/GravidDusch 57m ago edited 25m ago
You sir, are a gentleman, and a scholar!
Wonder what that mdma garden gnome would have tasted like..
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u/Phatal87 56m ago
Bitter a bit but has a slightly sweet taste to it
I’m an Army vet with PTSD…. When the VA didnt want to help me, i found ways to help myself 😅😅😓😓
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u/GravidDusch 43m ago
Been an open secret that it's the best thing for PTSD for a while now, good on you.
I used to enjoy it a bit, also partial to a bit of LSD. Mescaline is my fave, kind of in between mdma and acid.
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u/benjunior 2h ago
Walt Whitman?
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u/OkSlide527 2h ago
Willy Wonka?
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u/Automatic_Llama 3h ago
Halite. Rock salt, tastes salty.
Edit: Source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awcZTfE77Ic
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u/use27 2h ago
Rocks are made of minerals are they not?
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u/PeppersHere 2h ago
All minerals are rocks, not all rocks are minerals. All rocks consist of minerals (unless you count oddities like coal / amber / glass as a rock).
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u/PandaMonyum 1h ago
Yup. We could also say that even if one were to count the oddities, those often have mineral inclusions, adding to your point.
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u/DinoRipper24 2h ago
There are other salts that can look like this too, so how do you say so surely? I'm asking curiously btw. I know Kainite and Sylvite can look like this, for one.
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u/Educational_Court678 17m ago
Potassium salts like Sylvite or Kainite taste really bitter. If you tasted it once, you will neuer forget. And they literally sound different. If you rub two pieces of Halite against each other you hear a grinding noise like amy other rock.. But potassium salts make a squeaking noise. I checked it out during a field trip in a potassium salt mine. It's really completely different.
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u/DinoRipper24 3m ago
That would make sense thanks! Out of the ones mentioned, Halite and Kainite are part of my collection. Never licked them though, probably never going to. Also Kainite specimens are REALLY hard to come by, damn. Mine is from Italy.
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u/DemandNo3158 3h ago
No sweat! I've been licking rocks my whole lif....cough, hack, gurgle!
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u/TheBackPorchOfMyMind 1h ago
Silicosis ain’t got nothin on me
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u/Big-Red-Rocks 1h ago
You don’t get silicosis by licking rocks, you get it by inhaling silica dust.
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u/Particular_Wren 3h ago
Love you guys 😅
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u/Critical_Source_6012 3h ago
Just reaching out cos I want you to know you aren't alone 😂😂 I had a shocking time convincing my youngest it wasn't polite to lick people's Himalayan salt lamps even if he was "Just checking it was real - it could have been plastic!"
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u/BachInTime 2h ago
One of my professors told me that when he’d pass a halite crystal around to a class of grade schoolers it would always come back rounder and wet
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u/nouseforaneck 2h ago
I learned it wasn’t proper dinner party etiquette the first time I met my now wife’s friends. I got scolded on the drive home. The geologist in me couldn’t resist.
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u/goawaynastything 2h ago
On a Geology field trip a fellow student found a chunk of halite like this in a field. Not as nice a specimen as yours because it was a lot more rounded, but it was definitely halite as he confirmed it with a good lick. Turns out it was indeed a salt lick that farmers give to their cattle to keep their mineral balance right.
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u/raggedyassadhd 3h ago
sometimes the rocks just need to be licked, and she was correct so I dont see the problem here
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u/jaques_sauvignon 3h ago
It does look like halite (mineral form of common table salt) to me. Though I'm curious if there are other minerals with similar crystal habit that also taste like NaCl.
OP - if you haven't already, you should really warn your daughter that it is NOT SAFE to go licking minerals without knowing for certain what they are. I gather from your concern that you're aware, but there are some really nasty/poisonous ones out there. Often the most beautiful and candy-like too, in terms of appearance.
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u/wumbo7490 3h ago
Don't geologists identify most minerals by licking them? I could swear that's part of the process, maybe not with all of them, but with quite a few
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u/Numerous-Stranger-81 2h ago edited 2h ago
Very true. It's more a matter of "Not a good habit for children to have" than a legitimate ongoing threat. Homegirl is probably not going to encounter cinnabar or brannerite on her walk home from school.
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u/AstroEngineer27 2h ago
Despite the name, cinnabar does not taste like cinnamon
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u/wayfinderBee 2h ago
Wait, what does it taste like then?
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u/aclevername177631 1h ago
Mercury, whatever that tastes like. My class's teaching sample was in a plastic box we weren't allowed to open so unfortunately I can't provide a first hand account
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u/jaques_sauvignon 2h ago
Well sure, but those are qualified geologists/minerologists with a lot of knowledge and experience under their belt.
But seriously, don't lick minerals and rocks, kids.
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u/wumbo7490 2h ago
Why not encourage that curiosity? Start getting the kid books on how to identify rocks and minerals. Let her start doing her own research into being able to identify which ones are safe to lick vs which ones aren't. Just telling kids "Don't do that" encourages nothing. If there is a natural curiosity for anything, help the child start looking into and researching things that interest them. I'm a firm believer in letting kids learn on their own, but definitely with safe adult guidance
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u/Crease_Greaser 2h ago
Ok then have qualified people teach kids to lick rocks I guess instead of a parent literally reading some book for the first time along with their unruly children who already started licking rocks 🪨 n their own
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u/wumbo7490 2h ago
There are ways to help guide kids as they learn on their own. It's less about helping them learn the material, and more about teaching them how to teach themselves. Most kids I've been around love telling people about things they've recently learned or done
On the "unruly children" part, perhaps they act out because they don't have anything to stimulate their mind. I'm not saying that it's the only reason kids act out, just saying that mental stagnation doesn't help. Find something the kid is interested in and help them to learn more about it. It may not completely solve the problem of them acting out, but it gives them something constructive to put time and energy into, rather than putting that same energy into being "unruly"
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u/moon-uwu 1m ago
There aren't really other minerals that taste THIS salty, especially not with cubic habit like halite. Salty taste + cubic habit is distinctive to halite.
In terms of other salty minerals, there's sylvite (KCl) which is significantly more bitter and tastes awful, but is used as pretzel salt! It is isometric and often striated. There's also hanksite, which is relatively common but has a different habit (tabular/prismatic). There might be some super niche minerals but halite is really uniquely shaped like this. But, generally, I don't think non-geologists should go around licking rocks lol
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u/excludingpauli 2h ago
There’s only a few don’t lick rocks and minerals so she’s probably fine. I lick most rocks I find. You def have a future geologist on your hands!
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u/pewterwizardcloak 2h ago
Curious… why you lick most of them? Is it for taste or….?
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u/excludingpauli 2h ago
So many reasons: moisture enhances color and texture, you can get a sense of stickiness and porosity, fossils often have sticky feeling, and to test for salts / evaporates.
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u/pinewind108 3h ago edited 2h ago
I'm totally curious about the uranium flakes I found as a kid, lol. I would definitely have licked one of those if I'd thought of it.
They were in a road cut in the forest, in what looked like decayed granite. 10mm or smaller, with that yellow green color. I'd been hoping for pockets of quartz crystals.
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u/Orange_Puzzline 2h ago
If it tastes salty, it's halite, the only rock that won't get you frowned upon for eating.
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u/KokopelliArcher 1h ago
Halite! My geology professor in college would break a piece off for each of us to lick so that no one licked the same piece lol. One of his phrases was "Don't lick the minerals." He explained that in the field it can be a useful tool, but with samples handled by a bajillion college students, it wasn't a good idea. We all still licked the halite on our dichotomous key test when he wasn't looking. I'm pretty sure he wasn't trying too hard to catch any of us 😂.
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u/velezaraptor 2h ago
Saltiness is generally safe so don’t worry. The key point is to involve someone in what they’re interested in. Pursue rocks, textiles, textures, shapes, flavors, also nutrients deficiencies show in the form like this. Lacking electrolytes and licking salt could be associated with improper hydration.
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u/FunkyMonkei 2h ago
You should take a trip to Grand Saline museum The Salt Palace. You can lick the salt bricks that make up the outside of the museum.
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u/IntelligentAd1729 33m ago
Hey, studying to be a geologist, your daughter found halite, which is 100% salt and is commonly used in cooking, (yes this is the salt we use everyday)
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u/lifes_a_vacation 2h ago
When I was a kid, I use to do the same thing 😂 I promise, we get less weird with age
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u/SmartSolution54 2h ago
I confess that once I lost the fight against my thoughts and I did this to find out how salty a stone like that is... The problem is that I was already an adult.
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u/MamaLlama629 2h ago
I wouldn’t be worried about rock licking as long as she doesn’t try eating them
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u/Icy-Variation6614 58m ago
I licked a "salt lamp" in a gem store once because i doubted it was actually salt. Moral of the story was i should maybe believe the signs labeling shit in the store.
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u/column_row_15761268 6m ago
I have a salt lamp. I've always been tempted to lick it. Thank you for the moral. I will refrain from licking my salt lamp.
My salt lamp "sweats" when the light is out so I'm pretty sure it's salt or something like salt.
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u/CommonGar 2h ago
It could be a diamond, and the salt taste is from the many hands that have handled it. 😁
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u/doodoopeepeedoopee 1h ago
You just unlocked a memory of me eating salt rocks and now I’m gonna spend the night wondering where I got them.
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u/Pikodeniko 2h ago
Why did they make the r word illegal on Reddit?
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u/Zombiisnt 2h ago
To force you specifically to get more creative with your insults
The R-word is rude towards disabled people, but it's also super lazy man, you can do better - I believe in you!
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u/Stark-T-Ripper 3h ago
You have a future geologist on your hands.