Handsome spherical rock
While walking in a Los Angeles canyon this morning, I came across this unusual rock. It's a squashed sphere about 2.5 feet in diameter. I saw a few other similarly shaped rocks along the trail. What's their story?
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is there an underground utility nearby (water line, sewer, electric, etc.)? trenching equipment (see http://www.vermeer.com/vcom/TrenchingEquipment/) can get rocks cought in their teeth and roll them around for awhile before spitting them out - that's wat this one looks like.
Mark,
In Los Angeles? This must be a man-made object.
Normally I see these scattered around shopping mall parking lots to keep drivers (and their cars) within bounds.
The only rocks that come near this spherical are found in the desert - 29 Palms or Joshua Tree.
Either that or they're from Mars.
I know close to nothing about geology, but, are you sure they're not just man made trail markers?
Otherwise, my guess would be some sort of glacier formation as it appears to have formed in layers and then been rolled. I'd suspect flowing water would eddy around imperfections in the layers and erode them further, so it would be more scalloped/pitted and less spherical.
That's my uninformed guess anyways.
It looks like a curling stone to me. Any Canadians out there want to back me up on that?
Oh. 2.5 feet in diameter? A curling stone it is not.
Sorry, Canada.
It's actually called a "kettle" - it's a limestone concretion that built up layer by layer around an object (a stone or piece of wood) that was probably embedded in a soft sandstone or shale. There's a place near where I live in Ontario Canada called "Kettle Point" that's a shale bed on the edge of a lake where these things are constantly eroding out of the bedrock.
Looks like the rocks by the Cannonball river in North Dakota. I used to grow up by there, they are formed sometimes by glaciers, but the usgs site says this:
"Concretions form when cementing minerals, such as calcium carbonate, iron oxide, and silica, precipitate from ground water into the pores of the sediment. The minerals often precipitate around an organic central nucleus, such as a piece of shell or a leaf."
More info here:
http://nd.water.usgs.gov/lewisandclark/photos2.html
It's like a somewhat mis-scaled version of the stone spheres in Costa Rica.
D'oh! This comment system doesn't use UBB. Stupid Squid.
It instantly reminded me of the work of Jonathan Bonner
As a second year geology student, it has me stumped. Are you sure it's natural? Concretions wouldn't have the flat layers shown. They often have a layered structure, but more like a gobstopper, as each new layer forms around the previous one.
Granite often weathers into large rounded boulders due to the fact that it is no easier to break in any particular direction. However, from the bedding I would guess it is a sandstone. Without looking at it closely I can't be sure. The chip at the top shows there are clear planes of weakness, leading me to suspect that it is man made.
Doesn't seem like the LA area is a prime spot for glaciation.
Here's why I don't think the rock is man-made:
1. It serves no purpose as a trail marker
2. There are no access roads nearby. It's narrow trail.
3. There are other, similarly-shaped stones nearby, which are more "blobby" and asymmetrical and even farther from the trail.
Never heard the word "handsome" used to describe a rock.
I did see some gentlemanly trees while walking through the state forest the other day, however...
Definitely golem droppings.
Which canyon?
Mark...
The answer is in Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic "Land Beneath The Ground" from 1956.
Scrooge, Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie investigate mysterious ROUND ROCKS around the entrance to one of Scrooge's gold mines. They turn out to be creatures of two tribes, the Terries and the Fermies, who live underground, and who cause earthquakes by rolling into the columns that hold up the surface (Terries) or by pushing against them (Fermies).
No visuals on the web, but Google will turn up some references, including a Wikipedia article.
I suggest checking the earthquake-proofing of your home, pronto.
(First submitted anonymously by mistake, thought I was signed in...)
Your neighborhood is hosed. These are Paul Bunyan's curling stones. See the handle mount? Wait until you see the size of the brooms.
Could they have been used for grinding? Any arrastras nearby? It honestly doesn't look a whole lot like what would have been used in an arrastra (certainly not the ONE I've seen), but what do I know...
http://www.csuchico.edu/~rcooke/rastra.html
I'd say that they were rounded by the action of water.
They look a bit like stones from the pumpkin patch at Anza Borrego: http://parkerlab.bio.uci.edu/nonscientific_adventures/anza_borrego.htm
Supposedly these stones were shaped and deposited by flash floods so there's bunches of similarly sized stones nearby (or there used to be; I guess people grabbed them up as souvenirs through the decades-stupid since the cool part is the mass quantities not any one stone).
Maybe your valley had some small version of that same effect?
-DeanJ
I know that rock; It's more or less here:
34° 8'22.31"N
118°32'33.64"W
It's weird looking, but not at all unnatural. The canyon bottom is various layers of sandstone; I've found a lot of fossils in the area.
This stone is not man-made, is river-made. Stones like this are very usual in many rivers in Colombia. They come in all sizes, from about 10 cm in diameter to around 2 meters.
My family used to have a summer house in a little town called Utica, Cundinamarca. Around the main place there are several of these rocks in different sizes, one of them about 1.3 meters tall, holding a big lamp post.
For what it's worth...here's what looks like an older version of the same thing from my trip to South Africa.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elanlee/529120481/in/set-72157600306640547/
Related?
Am I the biggest geek for immediately thinking that looks like the Death Star?
If there are nearly-round rocks nearby, I'd say erosion.
OMG! Its a Rock! That's so cool!
Is there a waterfall near the stone?
My guess would be water tumbled.
Large stone, but not impossible,
and it would make sense for the
type of stone.
By freak coincidence, I just went on a Geology Walk through a local state park here in Michigan. These are not man- or machine-made, nor are they water-tumbled. Mitch and Anonymous above were correct: they're concretions. If they formed within a sedimentary rock from some type of (typically organic) deposit, they would take on the sedimentary layers as they slowly grew outward, building increased crystal structure within. This also explains why growth across the grain was slower than with the grain - it's less hindered by alternating layers of different substances. Over time, the less-secure rock around them is worn away by wind or water, leaving behind these gems! It looks like it might have some feldspar, quartz, and mica in there, but I'm not quite as sure of that.
I see these next to the trail just off Reseda Blvd, South of Ventura... I'm guessing they're the result of a geological process involving water? (That canyon has water running through it.) I've always assumed the little depressions in the top might have been used by the local Indians (back in the day)?
well crap, I was going say weathered sandstone but that's been taken. So I'll go with Bonnie, it's obviously a very small deathstar to destroy popular singers that used to married to Kfed, and with two kids. kthxby
Sorry for freaking you out, Mark. I like to hike those trails, too, and I just can't keep those rocks from falling out of my pockets. They're so heavy!
It's *obviously* troll poo.
Gallstones of the Gods!
Hey - I posted anonymously on this yesterday - re: kettle point.
Anyway, for anyone who's still speculating about this - I've uploaded some photos to a web album link below- from Kettle Point in Canada. You can see examples of kettles in various sizes, and there's a couple of shots of them eroding out of the softer bedrock. There's even a big 4 foot diameter one in the water.
The place is littered with them.
Cheers.
http://picasaweb.google.com/nik.harron/KettlePoint
Meanwhile, somewhere a poor Horta is missing its offspring...
Layers? Yes ... mud and silt, etc. - but that doesn't mean it's external shape happened at the same time the layers were being laid (rocks get laid? Hrm) .. Anyways, some rocks are 'rounded' as they are ground into harder subsurface layers as glaciers slide over them (but even with the motions of continents and changes in weather, I don't think that applies in southern Cali, does it?) - which means WATER, lots of it, rolling said rock around, like a gemstone in a tumbler ... but even that's unlikely, as nice and roundy and smoothie as this particular bowling .. HEY - that's it, it's a really dang big bowling ball!
but that's just my 2 cent's worth ....
Gary61
Don't let Erich von Däniken know about this!
You could check John McPhee's "The Control of Nature". He talks about the fire & mudslide cycle in the San Gabriels & says that these round stones are what make make up the "mud slides". The theing to figure out is the divot in the top, I'd say.