Sensational Rock Formations: Moeraki Boulders

"QUANTUM SHOT" #725 Link - article by Avi Abrams We are opening new series of "sensational rock formations" found throughout the Earth: this is the first part; send us tips about other incredible rock shapes, we will cover them in next installments of the series. Strangely Round Rocks of "Unknown Origin" Well, saying "unknown origin" is an obvious exaggeration, since it is widely assumed that they must be sedimentary concretions, and were created by cementation of mud stone, coastal erosion, time and elements, just like any other unusual rock formation. Yet their bizarre cracked shells, often perfectly spherical shape and unexpected locations remain largely unexplained and keeps them regarded as a "geological mystery". Not to mention other theories: are they fossils? alien eggs? weird energy storage devices from a crashed alien ship? Some even say that they are the... Great Balls of Fire (that fell down on Earth in Biblical times). (image via) These balls in the mist are Moeraki Boulders at the Koekohe Beach on the Otago coast of New Zealand. They are truly strange: gigantic (up to three meters), some almost perfectly spherical in shape, with a crystal-filled hollow interior... resembling a discarded shell, a gigantic pod waiting to hatch, or a husk that's already hatched. For example, these seem to be ready to hatch: (top image credit: Michael Berry, bottom via) Some Moeraki are made of stone, some of iron; their age is estimated from 5 to 50 million years. Neil Armstrong once remarked: "Geologists have a saying - rocks remember." What these rocks witnessed through untold millennia might shed a light on how they formed: (left image credit: Melissa Curtis) Similar spherical boulders were discovered in Russia, in the Boguchanka village close to Irkutsk, Siberia: Also stone orbs were seen in China (more info), Costa-Rica and even in Bosnia (as part of the Bonyan Pyramid, info): (images via 1, 2, 3) Similar "stone balls" crop up in France (see here): (images via) ... and in Argentina (left image). They vary in sizes and often classified as "cannonball concretions". The stones in Costa Rica, however, are thought to have been "carved by the Olmec civilization, because they're often resting among huge stone heads, artifacts attributed to the Olmecs." (info) (images via 1) These mysterious sphere formations even crop out on Mars - scientists call them "Martian blueberries"! - (image via) There exists a theory of lightning strikes as the means by which stone eggs form. "Based on research into the shape and size of so-called, “blueberries” on Mars, Dr. C. J. Ransom exposed samples of rock dust and soils to high voltage electric discharges. His results are remarkably similar to the Martian blueberries, and to other such accumulations of stone balls on Earth." Here is the evidence of the hollow interior of these spheres (some tourists seem to get carried away with this feature): (images via 1, 2, 3) So what about these cracks and "alien egg" patterns on these spheres? They are similar to the cracks displayed by septarian nodules (left image below). On the right is a large spherical concretion in Montana which ended up on top of a hoodoo erosion column: (images via 1, 2) Some of the rocks even feature interesting tail attachments (driftwood, or dry roots), making them to resemble either an "elephant's bum" (left) or an apple (right): (images credit: Peter Skov, Melissa Curtis) "Moqui balls", or Moqui marbles, are the concretions of iron found mostly in Utah and Arizona. They sport a differently colored (crystallized) center which looks almost like a creamy filling in a Raffaello chocolate... and they even have a torus formation around their diameter: (top right image credit: Bernhard Fertig) Here are some "chocolate truffles" lying on the Bowling Ball beach in California, also a sedimentary rock concretion: (image via) We are going to finish this overview of round boulders with a somewhat cute image: one Moeraki boulder waiting to meet up with another Moeraki boulder cropping out of the cliff. I imagine, once they meet up, they are going to come to some mutual understanding and hatch more Moeraki boulders. (image via) "The person that turns over the most rocks wins the game", according to Peter Lynch. These rocks are remarkably easy to turn over. And yet they regard us with a certain air of mystery. Stay tuned for next installments in our Sensational Rocks Series. CONTINUE TO INCREDIBLE CANYONS! -> CHECK OUT THE REST OF OUR FANTASTIC "NATURE" SERIES! ->