There are just so many types of round rocks. Quite a few of them are impact related. Take for example the moons of Pluto. It is the current model that planets form by impact accretion. But for planets it takes a critical size. You can see it illustrated below.
5P-Round Impactite (Impact Spheroids) some Pisolites and Botyryoidal Metals Surfacing, and resonate round forms.
Word History, Concretions
Etymology
borrowed from Latin concrētiōn-, concrētiō "formation into something solid," from concrē-, stem of concrēscere "to coalesce, condense, solidify, harden" + -tiōn-, -tiō, suffix of verbal action — more at concrescence
First Known Use
1541, in the meaning defined at sense 1
- Bolides making Impact Explosions produce round impactites melt drops, and botryoidal patterns at Howell Crater (really centered at Frankewing, TN). Spherules have been found of both glass and melted meteoritic metal including the Barringer (Meteor Crater) Arizona. P.88 of Traces of Catastrophe by Bevan M. French
Christian Koeberl, director of Vienna, Austria’s Natural History Museum and an expert on asteroid impacts, examined some of Tackel’s finds. To him, the small spherical rocks that clung to the insides of the bowl-shaped rocks were an important clue. They resembled evidence that Koeberl had seen at impact sites in Canada, Michigan and Minnesota.
The small pebbles, known as spherules, can form when asteroids crash into the earth, vaporize rock and send giant vapor plumes into space. Small droplets of molten and vaporized rock condense and solidify in mid-air before falling back to the ground as spheres.
“But just because something looks the same way doesn’t mean it formed the same way,” he said
From an article in the Dallas Times by .
12:00 PM on Aug 16, 2017
Have you ever doubted we went to the moon; I mean NASA is just so naive. The only rocks they could classify on the moon were basalt and breccia. These rocks shown in the famous picture would be round impactites from meteor impact explosions. Even to this day they are seeing them on Mars and NASA doesn't know what they are and spending hundreds of thousands on that. But this picture would be difficult to take for an astronaut to take with a chest mounted camera and the soil looks like Portland cement that is being affected by moister in an air conditioned large studio.
Specimen above is from a very old impact the Glasford Crater in Illinois. Found along the Sangamon river two counties south.
The material inside has dissolved leaving only the martensitic shell. Each impact has a unique explosion cloud containing the meteor and impact material. Impact occurred between about 443.8 and 485.4 million years ago. Silurian.
Mars has round impactites. These are from impacts. It is a common phenomena related to surface tension why bubbles are formed.
Shown above is Page 131 of Jon Larsen's book (shown picture left side) IN SEARCH OF STARDUST
Spheres come in many sizes and alterations from microscopic to planet size. All are related impact products.
The gold specimen found at Lake Logan, TN contains nickel besides the iron pyrite. It is coated with the martensitic appearance material shown in the other spheres. Most found here are not iron pyrite centers. The furnace of impact explosion has many zones and the material in the explosion can pass through zones. Thus it was coated from another zone. Amateur collectors in the states where the "War of Northern Aggression" was fought will find these and speculate that they are cannon grapeshot. That is called a geofact (a portmanteau of "geology" and "artifact") is a natural stone formation that is difficult to distinguish from a man-made artifact. Geofacts could be fluvially reworked and be misinterpreted as an artifact, especially when compared to paleolithic artifacts. Notice the facing specimen is banded on the exterior therefore resonate, the others not.
The above specimen was found in Oregon. It is likely from one of the suspect impacts. Notice the clusters have a small amount of iron. They are fast formed concretions of the meteor which was not high in ore. They are ejected are rain drop like precipitates.
Splotchy and
round landing metals at Howell
Impact
Round is the shape of liquid drops - you will have round small metal drops jump from welding rods or impact forging. Lighting even forms balls sometimes.
Highly shocked impact debris. Mostly meteor material itself found in Central, FL in the stage of forming round impactite drops. This specimen has the classic Chicxlub look as found in the impact explosion zone of the many core samples bored through the crater rims. However is another suspect crater in the everglades of Florida. P. 70-71 ASTEROIDS, COMETS, AND METEORITES.
While it did arrive from cosmic space; it will not hatch out an alien life form. NASA has found these "grapes" on Mars which has many craters. Sadly since geology on earth is such a poor science NASA has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars speculating about the origin of round "grape" like rocks on Mars. (Found at Lake Logan, TN)
Because of the differences in Mars and Earth you can find small all together round impactites on Mars.
But you find them alone and earth type size also.
Are Kansas Septarian Nodules from the Manson, Iowa Crater? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-8TELWMEIw
Round copper inclusion in shocked boulder in Petersburg, TN.
The physics of radial spheroid forming is not exclusive to impacts. This one is Concentric Green Radial Wavellite from Garland County, Arkansas, USA i.e. volcanic pipe formed (or did an impact cause the volcanic pipe).
Photo: Crystal Valley Dreams
Suan-Elize Janse Van Rensburg (on Facebook)
Crystals that I have grown myself. The matrix is limestone that I soaked in vinegar. The colour is from a piece of brass that I left in the vinegar with the limestone 🤗🤗 it took about 3 weeks to get to this.
Rhodochrosite's stalactite from Capillitas Mine, Catamarca,
Argentina. Photo: Ignacio Adrian Tepman.
Looks like a crinoid stem but isn't. High iron content and no plant structure content. And found in crater. Is a tubular round impactite.
Geofact - word means appears to be a man made artifact but isn't. Meteors make these shapes from melting their iron content and the drops form these man made looking specimens. Benjamin Chew Tilghman (1821—1901) invented a process to do the same for making iron shot.
Some are magnetic like this one found in western New Mexico. It is based on the explosions decomposition of elements and recomposition in the explosion cloud. This one would be from the Nevada basin forming impact or the Barringer Crater.
The one below is also from the Barringer Crater (Meteor Crater, AZ). It is both a round impactite and energy hackle. You can read about hackle in the tech notes section of this web site. https://www.hillbillyu.com/heat-harmonic-hackle
Notice the deep red inside the lines. The energy hackle effect seems to be electrically conductive or at least differently conductive. These are called Septarian nodules.
Large impacts cause larger spheroids? New Zealand has them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders
Giant Iron Spheroid found in Bosnia
Slideshow of California large spheres. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgSftR_lkjk
Fallen out of a cliff onto a beach in Taranaki, New Zealand. It's almost perfectly round and is heavy. Measures about 40 inch circumference. Has shell inclusions and a shock color i.e. impurities burned out of it. It also has a Turing Pattern Matrix. Like meteorites, impactities are easier to notice, this is the round impactite version of a non metal meteorite.
The specimen shown below was found in New Mexico. Notice how the oval shape imitates it's core of iron. The exterior shown right suggest it may have been also spinning in the explosion cloud of impacted shocked plasma of meteor and impacted surface.
Inside it has some resonate banding. Is both a pressure made sphere and a harmonic.
Alright a shock formed dendritic agate! And look at that it formed a circle inside. Resonate banded and fractal.
They vary in size, shape and clustering. Notice the same shapes below in impact glass. These specimens were found at Lake Logan, TN notice how close they resemble the tectite forms shown below.
Tektite comes from the Greek word for 'molten'. They are rocks made up of natural glass that formed following meteorite impacts. The rocks can be black, brown or grey in colour and range from millimetres to centimetres in size. A selection of the samples studied as part of the research is shown
Specimen found at Lake Logan, TN
Testing positive for nickel. Small metal meteorites test positive for nickel. This specimen contains sulfur, iron and nickel just like those unaltered specimens. Since the large impactors explode causing a chaotic refining furnace you usually do not find impactites that retain this much of the original material. It is the high diversity of a shock quick explosion cloud that makes so much diversity possible. The round impactites are liquid surface tension drops from various parts of the explosion cloud. Some of the iron ore from Middle, TN Brown Iron Ore mining also contained nickle.
The Geo-Metry Rock. Not to exclude just plain ole occurance of geometric shapes in nature this small gravel has three! You would think more about it if it occurred in multiplication that would be statistics. However since this rock was quarried locally i.e. in the crater it is also shock metamorphic so these shapes are resonate forms. A shatter cone is a resonate form type.
Scientists discover that most of the asteroid that formed Meteor Crater was shock melted
Lori Stiles
July 1, 1999
RESOURCES FOR THE MEDIA
Contact:
Elisabetta Pierazzo
520-626-5065
betty@lpl.arizona.edu
TUCSON, ARIZ. ? Most of the asteroid that blasted Meteor Crater out of
the Colorado Plateau melted, according to new evidence released today by
an international team of scientists. This new finding contradicts a
previously held theory that the Canyon Diablo meteor vaporized and gives
a glimpse of what happens when similar-sized meteors slam into Earth
every 6,000 years or so.
Meteor Crater, near Winslow, Ariz., the best-preserved impact crater in
the world, was formed 50,000 years ago -- just yesterday on the
geological time scale. Although modest by geological standards -- the
equivalent of a 20-to-40 megaton bomb -- it grabs our attention because
of its close proximity to our own time and for the story it tells about
what could happen again.
The bowl-shaped depression measures 1.2 kilometers (four-fifths of a
mile) wide and 180 meters (570 feet) deep and scientists say events like
this occur every 1,600 years, with a Canyon-Diablo-sized meteor slamming
into a land mass every 6,000 years.
In research published today (July 2) in Science, scientists conclude
that more than four-fifths of the Earth-crossing asteroid completely
melted and spread over the Four Corners Region where Colorado, Arizona,
New Mexico and Utah meet. Most of the iron asteroid, which was 30 meters
(100 feet) or more in diameter, spread as an enormous expansion plume
produced by gases released from Colorado Plateau limestone. A fraction
of the melted material survived to form sand-grain-sized particles
called "spheroids."
By using complex measurements of radioactive nickel 59 and computer
modeling, the researchers determined the probable depth within the
asteroid at which these spheroids were formed. Their experimental
measurements and modeling results indicate that Canyon Diablo was
travelling faster on impact that previously believed.
The scientists include faculty members from Rutgers University, The
University of Arizona in Tucson, Australian National University,
University of Rhode Island and University of California-Berkeley.
Keith Fifield of the Australian National University, led the team in
systematically measuring long-lived radioisotope nickel 59 in Canyon
Diablo meteorites and spheroids. Nickel 59 is a "cosmogenic nuclide"
produced in space when cosmic rays penetrate objects containing nickel
58. Nickel 58 changes to nickel 59 by absorbing an extra neutron from
cosmic radiation. Fifield used accelerator mass spectrometry to make the
measurements.
Canyon Diablo meteorites contain seven times more nickel 59 than do
recovered spheroids, meaning they had come from the surface or outer
shell of the asteroid, where exposure to cosmic radiation is greatest,
said Greg Herzog of Rutgers University.
Scientists find nickel 59 to be a far more useful cosmogenic nuclide for
such analysis than some more commonly used ones. That's because of the
mechanism by which it forms, its long half-life (76,000 years), its low
volatility and its resistance to weathering, team members add.
Elisabetta Pierazzo, a post-doctoral researcher at the UA Lunar and
Planetary Laboratory, used numerical models to simulate the impact. The
simulation, based on models developed at Sandia National Laboratories,
factored in the size and composition of Canyon Diablo and its target.
Pierazzo determined which parts of the Earth-smashing asteroid remained
solid and which melted and became spheroids. This was done by using
experimentally measured shock pressure values for melting iron/nickel
alloys. The composition of these alloys is close to that of meteorites.
The team concludes that the precursor material of the spheroids probably
came from depths of 1.3 to 1.6 meters (four to five feet) beneath the
surface of the meteor before it entered Earth's atmosphere.
Pierazzo says that only about 15 percent of the rear, outer part of the
asteroid remained solid after impact and that the other 85 percent of
the projectile melted. She bases this conclusion on combined
observational, experimental and theoretical evidence.
Impact velocities by Earth-crossing asteroids average around 15 to 20
kilometers per second. The 20 km/s velocity -- or 45,000 mph -- would
produce a melting profile that agrees with the experimental
measurements, she said. At lower velocities, a much larger fraction of
the projectile would have remained solid, leaving behind far more
meteorites.
"The model really makes sense when you match it with the hard evidence,"
Pierazzo said. "The modeling confirms the experimental results that say
the Canyon Diablo meteorites came from the outer part of the projectile,
and the spheroids from a depth of 1.5 to 2 meters below the surface.
"I feel confident that this impact was at higher velocity than many
people have believed it to be," she added. "This work gives no evidence
for vaporization. From what we know about shock pressure, melting and
vaporization of iron, the model indicates little or no vaporization of
the impact."
Notice the surface has a unique texture. This is from an impact particle storm. These designs could be nuclear or EMP related and there is a lot of uranium in the surrounds. You can read about EMP hackle at: https://www.hillbillyu.com/heat-harmonic-hackle
You can read about meteors and uranium at: https://www.hillbillyu.com/radioactive-effect
This one is unique. Very high iron content, broke easy and why hasn't it rusted away after so long? I wonder how big it was before rust decay.
Notice the compound patterns of striation in these last two examples. It is just like the nature of shatter coning I have studied. The more pure the harmonic the more same and imprinted it is. Collide Clyde (Howell Impact Structure) was a very complex explosion and produced many imprint types. This specimen has a high sulfur content and is in the process of dissolving. This is a relatively recent impact and you can find many types. (Late Devonian/Early Mississippian)
Additionally the mixed impact material can make botyryoidal clusters (botyryoidal is French for grapes). The small clusters shown above are even hollow, indicating an expanding gas.
Manganese botyryoidal and iron even on the same specimen. An effect of gassing.
The Eyelash Effect is a resonate harmonic form. Is it a fossil or phenomenon?
A fossil will be too ordered to be a phenomenon. This one is in a class all by itself. Belongs to a California collector it is quartz and iron in some very strange harmonic shock state. The quartz appears to have been liquid when receiving iron spheroid impacts however the spheroids themselves possess little round bumps on their surfaces. Then a radial sun burst pattern of lines emanate from these impacts. As the eyelash effect has never been observed with this many full surrounding eyelashes, it is a fossil. While physics has forms they are simple and constrained, whereas a fossil has "information." Genetic complexity, a system design for function. It is of course true that the universe is a system design for function but this fossil is complete in its design as this size. A physics form is not.
The above specimen is very interesting. It is a complex formation of iron/quartz spheroids aside other metamorphic formations. A picture capture of a shock moment.
Below you can see pictures from Utah's Moqui Marbles left and impact splatter right. Could be from the Barringer AZ impact but so many craters are yet to be found or identified. A recent emphasis on crater oil has motivated the real search recently. Sadly the poor geologic theory that most resembles the 2000 year history of medicine with ancient Greeks body humors says these are from an indeterminable iron source with an equally indeterminable chemical solution concretion process. Alas this contradicts the article at the bottom of this page where they are found from a fast concretion process with source causation at Chicxulube. Geology is notorious for rejecting earth catastrophe i.e. floods and impacts and unlike medicine when better understanding came along in the early 1900's yielding to positive change rejected impacts and plate tectonics for a half century holding to their fundamental principle of no or slow earth change. Not true of the earth but is for them.
Found in Utah. This random splatter could be from the Barringer Crater 100 miles south. Notice the chaos of the process of shock melting. Is not like the many models of impact crater explosion based on nuclear explosions. This is faster, more chaotic and based on kinetic energy. I discuss this process at https://www.hillbillyu.com/kinetic-impact-explosion-crater
Looking at this picture above's coconut and the picture on the far left lime slice look; I want to sing the novelty song from the 1960's "put the lime in the coconut." The specimen above from the Barringer impact also 100 miles SW had to be lifted with a power wench. It has been coated in a tear drop style as it passed through the shock plasma cloud mostly made up of sand and trace iron.
Fiber Crystal >>>>>>
Specimen above from Lake Logan, TN Botryoidal milky quartz with "fiber crystal." You can see more fiber crystals at: https://www.hillbillyu.com/shock-brocolli-fiber-crystal
This specimen owned by a London rock collector appears to be from the Barringer Crater and has formed twice but encountered a more shocked sand turned to quartz in it's journey through the shock plasma cloud.
The specimen above it from Utah and is making a bubble collapse botyryoidal effect.
This one is neat. It has "wind prints" on one side or some effect I have not seen before. It was found in Virginia and is from the Chesapeake Bay impactor. This effect is plasma going through a particle storm the impact chaos cloud.
On this side it appears to have run into a round impactite.
Shown above is the overcooked or very old impactite.
Flat Spheroids. Pyrite suns in Illinois make the effect shown right "pancake." It is in a matrix of:
Cristobalite a mineral polymorph of silica that is formed at very high-temperatures. It is used in dentistry as a component of alginate impression materials as well as for making models of teeth [6]
It has the same chemical formula as quartz, SiO2, but a distinct crystal structure. Both quartz and cristobalite are polymorphs with all the members of the quartz group, which also include coesite, tridymite and stishovite.
Coesite and stishovite are impact shock formed indicators. Just so many impact connections and the round shape.
Left side picture is a shock formed dendritic opal from Turkey. You can see the outer crust from going through the shock chaos storm. Shock formation in this specimen is way too strong to leave an opal with play of color.
Round swirl forms. The specimen above is from Pulaski, TN quarry. The specimen below is HW 31 road cut sand swirl form at Pulaski, TN.
The boulder strata shown below is a hollow roll up swirl circle in the flow. The only one I have ever seen. It was located near Coldwater, TN which is near crater floor. The shock pressure wave is coming from right to left.
South Taiwan mud volcano round form shown above.
The specimen is from China and is showing waveform fine striations bouncing back from surface and collecting waves in lower right to form circles of gathered waves i.e. round structures. A resonate form
Specimens shown to the left are from the New Mexico area and are aerodynamic forms. They were found in a group. They are not shown on the shape chart below.
Chrysocolla Malachite from the Congo shown above. Tthe largest crater in the world is in South Africa with several others and this is a resonate form. Only impact causes resonate forms.
Accretionary lapilli in the Mesoproterozoic Stac Fada Member of the Torridonian, of probable impact origin
Rotation in a shock chaos storm makes the "flying saucer " look. It has an iron ridge that is explained on the shape chart below.
Shown to the right is a rare Trinitite spheroid! Trinitite is rocks made from the first atomic bomb test.
Below is the chart of shape mechanics in the shock plasma storm. Keep in mind that you don't find lots of meteor materials doing this, like cobalt, sulfur etc. Is a surface pressure and chaos issue. I do find sulfur as a component in spheroids. Shown left is an iron based spheroid emitting sulfur. Shock glass Tectites follow this same shape chart. That was made from the impact sand or the silicon meteor material. Iron based "round impactites" are the most common form found.
Who ordered the sprinkles on their round rock?
Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to navigate during the age of discovery? Well it is the age of discovery for earth impact science. The above chart while good is like those early maps. It is specifically inaccurate. It was not made by anyone mapping a crater but by a lab type looking at samples brought it. All earth impacts are unique.
This article refers to small round particles like micrometeorites that are part of the shock particle storm that makes a charged cloud and rains them down or into the impact area. You can see example of this effect at https://www.hillbillyu.com/constellationing
So in the above article, tiny spheroids are contained in the ash cloud that circled the world before falling back to earth, the final act of the series of impact related events, notice energy in it's pure form does the same as it is no longer a stream. It balls up. Now I have personally seen this close up just a few feet away. Lighting in it's final stage in a luminous ball.
Shown above is a quartz round impactite. Sand at the zone of impact made liquid and formed into spheres. In geology they are called Thunder Egg cores. Notice the meteor iron has colored it.
A type of mystery spheroid. Collected in Vernon Parrish, Louisiana. Impactite of unknown unseen before surface characteristics besides the Turing Pattern Constellationing but even that is a going to a cloud like appearance. It could be a meteorite.
Another oval possible meteorite. It has inclusions with a directional constellationing, very interesting. Collected on top of a mountain in Maine in a woods with no leaves on top of it.
Small round impactite pelting shown below. This specimen in from the Thrace Basin Impact just West of Istanbul, Turkey. In the impact event sequence the rain drop type of effect of the iron melted from the meteor iron content has arrived later and pelted the surface. the Thrace Basin Impact is an oblique hit from the NE but deep. This made a more confined cone and likely a more contained event sequence.
Shown above is "Desert Glass." It is a quartz impact spherule. It still retains some of the signature impact particle storm granular surface as well as a nano metal patina from the vaporization of metals on impact.
The round composite. This high shock specimen is rare. The shock blast umbrella that condenses round impactites usually is more pure. This one is with iron and olivine as well as the quartz has collected multiple shock products. An interesting impact sequence to make this.
Specimen below was found near Lake Huron and is an round impactite from the Michigan Crater as shown on the new findings page: https://www.hillbillyu.com/crash4orms-forensic-physics-impact The specimen demonstrates it's passing through plasma cloud zones the outer zone being rose quartz i.e. shock melted sand with nano iron mist from the meteor vaporization. The specimen has many Turing Particle Constellation structures in it's build. The central tube like fractal structures are a shock phenomena I study as fiber crystals and shatter cone formation tube energies perhaps like an astrophysical maser. I have not seen any just like these before but as I often say all impacts are unique. It has banding which is a resonate property, is both an impact spheroid and a harmonic.
Wow, what a find this is. Whitaker Point, Arkansas. It is from the very large impact that broke the earth's crust at Hot Springs, Arkansas. Quite a blast radius for the large round impactites but the bolder it's self has a shock particle storm surface. The bolder could have been also thrown out from the impact.
Cobalt impact spheroid with metamorphic granular matrix of some silica and even smaller amount of iron.
gobi desert tube agate
Small sphere impact pelting in plasma state. Mohamed Bouzelfen collection Morocco.
The "Pothole Theory." Geologist are not taught any impact theory so they come up with mechanisms to explain impact spheroids. While you do often see river and shore specimens rounded, they seem to never make a true sphere, nor would a pothole mechanism. Sadly the Interstate Park, which is located on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin in the cities of Taylors Falls and St. Croix Falls, respectively, is an impact area and the strata and specimens clearly show that but the geologist are unable to recognize anything impact related.
The round impactite and smooth spherical expansion. Many round impactites are expanding faster than spherical surface tension can contain them and do not have smooth surfaces. This one shown left is the case of smooth expansion. A large impact explosion with a significant part of the explosion cloud in enough equilibrium to allow for this more constant form.
Posted on face book for identification, these specimens from Texas and Oregon are the catching sequence. While we typically think of the spheroid it's self as being a plasma the surrounding impact area is as well.
Notice how the catapult ball shown right has been chiseled.
Particle storm spheroid - This is rare. It is an impact spheroid made entirely of the impact particle storm. It does have a little mist of iron from the bolide but is mostly the common particle material sorted by distance and coalesced into a sphere. Deming, Washington USA
Huge stone catapult ball from the 13th century unearthed at ...
www.brecon-radnor.co.uk › article › headline=Huge st...
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Aug 8, 2019 — There are records of various sieges at Hay Castle throughout the 13th century and it is possible that the stone dates from the Barons War of 1263 - 1266. Similar trebuchet balls were found at Carmarthenshire's Drylwyn Castle where Dr Caple was lead archaeologist.
A planetary moon. It has a large impact that formed a flat crater chevron. It also has a skid mark sideswipe with rolling effect on left side. Cool huh?
Specimen above is from a mountain top in Moracco. It is an impact spheroid cinder. It also has an iron core piece inside.
Specimen above is from a mountain top in Moracco. It is an impact spheroid cinder. It also has an iron plasma in flight impact or the outside has cooled and shrunk.
Shown above from the same location in Morocco is another specimen, The Zombie Sphere. It is a multi hit layered spheroid.
Just so you know, the current model of earth formation/planet formation is big impacts that stick together. Big impacts make bigger round impactites. You would expect to find them buried underground.
Triple Resonance Forms - Just when you thought the banded cross rock stripes were plasma kinetic forms you see this specimen from Serbia. With the round harmonic and triangle harmonic so close I am not going to say the strip is not a harmonic. Also note the breakup of the outer edges. The harmonic varies in that short a space.
Wow is this a nice specimen. It has been cut and polished by Toby Erickson of New Mexico. It has shock olivine and linear radial Constellatining. It is also a binary. Notice the size difference in the shock particles that have formed the linear Constellationing in the two binary spheres. Also note the change in the outer banding.
Shown above are impact spheroid clusters from the Rome Georgia Craters. It was a smaller confined space causing sticking botryoidal clusters. Both craters are shown to the right on the Georgia Geology Anomaly Map.
Impact Spheroid used as weigh measure in 1st Temple period in Israel. http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/first-temple-period-limestone-weight-08996.html?fbclid=IwAR0RlWn0zYimFTZMzRUz3jBDqPRH6NPPvZgaCmbZNvRIoK4NM6SzDcPC8_4
Chief Designer Sergey Pavlovich Korolev insisted that the world's first artificial satellite be round. It was the safest design for heat distribution, and reflecting as well as allowing any unknown radiating properties to pass over it.
Shown above is a specimen beyond rare; it is the only known one in existence! Impact spheroid with fractal inclusions. Wow.
Shown above is an Impact Spheroid
Rare Wollo Rough Red Opal geode from Ethiopia.
Credit: @Opalinda
The reason I magnified it so large it to point out the many impact details. Along the bottom edge of the red is "Constellationing." The impact particles are small, from an impact not volcano. Notice the lines in the quartz looking vein that runs along the top of the gem. That is called "Linear Constellationing." It is a shock modification of the particles bonding structure. See the color of the sphere change at the edge. That is a harmonic banding resonance feature. So is the gemstone a product of harmonic resonance? Yes.
Jenn Harris of BC, Canada posted "They are definetly heavy,found in Alberta Canada probably 40 years ago." This is a new type more Chert like with particle inclusions and resonate bordering and banding. Additionally it has "Linear Constellationing."
Dragon Egg with dimple - Derrick Snider found this interesting specimen. It is an imploded simi plastic impact spheroid. Is the dimple from a tube harmonic you ask? Impact spheroids are seldom resonate forms. Did it catch a smaller sphere? Don't know. Found an hour and a half south of Farmington, NM.
Cooling wrinkle >>
<<Fe3Or Iron Surfacing Ridges
Fiber crystal type splatter >>
Dragon egg ellipsoid with dimple collected by Jay Buckner in Berea, KY. - The ellipse can be a directional shock elongation of a sphere. The collapsing by cooling shrinkage can be a Septarian pattern effect like mosaic surface cooling. This specimen has crystals forming on surface too. Fast formed crystals are related to cooling. Also the dimple can be a quick cooling effect causing a collapse. The specimen has a cooling wrinkle. The specimen has constellationing surface particle lattice crystal structure consistent with shock type. The change in surface ridges to the Fe3O4 black iron oxide is common to impactites which have high diversity of construction as they are an explosion based material. Fiber crystal type splatter is something I find often with impactites as the impact explosion is a multi stage event.
Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Crater
Specimen posted by Christophe Wandler It is an impact spheroid? Yes but not typical. This is a high resonate phenomena. The circle harmonic. Similar to a "thunder egg." In between the circles is the Septarian pattern taking a secondary shape. This would also be high shock. A shock agate.
Very old impact spheroid. It has the characteristic elements of the early earth impacts. You can see the shock particles in white if you magnify it. The blue cobalt, red iron, magenta manganese. They are formed like hailstones when the explosion occurs as the high energy kinetic release of energy makes the area and it's self plasma from so much shock. Specimen collected by: Caroline Gayaman
They come in red too.
I call this one the siamese twins. Or should I say multiples.
Freemont County, CO, USA Impact sphere also with coning harmonic
Freemont County, CO, USA Crude Impact sphere but with more coning harmonic
Impact spheres on the earth's surface are indicators of it being the last geological event. You can see the iron still on the surface from the shock particle storm. This was a large impact as sphere size is related to the impact size.
Hey look, they come in lime green too. Dubai Desert, Omar Obaid collected.
Strange corollary is raindrops. This is a pressure speed related function but still regards the size shame and splitting function.
Shown above is impact spheres collision mass in space. This meteorite fell in the Moroccan desert. It has an ablative burn and surface heat mosaic cracking.
Impact spheroid going into a twinning crystal sequence.
Like dinosaur tracks the impact spheres leave impressions.
Impact Spheroids from the Silurian Impact found here at Lake Logan, TN. This is the oldest impact with exposure here. It was a Chondrite type of bolide. The impact spheres from the later impacts are iron.
Large unusual type impact sphere from the Silurian Impact Extinction Event. Lake Logan, TN.
Impact sphere from the Wetumpka Alabama Crater. It has heat mosaic cracking. Specimen collected by Jennifer Collier Simpson
Mushroom Rock Kansas State Park
Mushroom Rock Bolivia
You can read an article about Impact Spheres at: http://www.impact-structures.com/2013/07/the-weaubleau-impact-structure-round-rocks-missouri-rock-balls-weaubleau-eggs-possible-analogues-in-the-spanish-azuararubielos-de-la-cerida-impact-structures/
Impact sphere with shatter cone construction and iron inclusion from one of the big Canada Impact Craters. The iron was so hot it gassed out a vent. The sphere was made so quickly it was not able to form crystals for a geode. Collected by Jason Morgan of Calgary, Alberta Canada.
Harry George of NSW Australia impact sphere mosaic with high expansion and shock particle pattern inside.
Tarik Ham Morocco. It is the only one of it's kind I have ever seen. Metamorphic, not igneous, the composition is too diverse for that. It is round but not weathering rounded. I can tell that because the surface is not smooth. It has a cindering expansion surface. It's composition may have been sand. Shock melted round impact sphere from a large earth impact.
Charged impact spheres. Impact makes an intense charged environment. These small spheres arrived charged and in a highly charged environment. The fractal tree lightning type dendrite expressions are the energy dissipating as a grounding effect.
Specimen collected by:
Can this be an impact sphere or was it just rounded by weathering? It is definitely pelted with impact breccia type inclusions. Also large earth impacts occurred in his area.
Jenna Freeman, Oklahoma specimen - Impact spheres in a shock particle matrix or is it a plant fossil? Cactus like plant is more likely the spacing is not random but it does have that small impalement on the bottom. The vague iron halo is still present although this is a very old specimen.
Hawaii lava dome. Without a volcanic source impact spheres are identifiable by provenance. The nature of the spheres is also related to cause. Lava has a specific composition and heat and velocity. Also the septarian heat surface relates to formation cause.
Specimen of Lamataroileape posted on Facebook "What's my rock." How can you tell if this is a meteorite? Provenance. If it is found in a non crater area it is a meteorite. A magnified view of the specimen does show it is very high shock with linear constellationing and tiny circle constellationing but that could also happen as an earth impact. The composition could contain nickel which would convince many but not me as I live in a crater and have found spheres with nickel content.
Impact catcher crater - The iron and the rock were part of an impact explosion. The rock matrix is a crypto crystalline shock made metamorphic. This rock was likely formed while being ejected from the crater explosion. While the iron was not circular the rock makes a circle because of the plastic deformation shock.
Collected by Rose Barnwell in
Found in High Sierra Nevada mountains in N. Cali.
Impactite sphere catcher. The surface also is in a granular crystal structure called Turning Patterns. This is a rare example of both phenomena. Specimen collected by: Rajpoot Dahmyal
Map at the top of pre-Neogene sedimentary cover (Romania) This is your crater.
Amazon Basin Impact Sphere. It was very hot and cracked. Look how well it shows the granular shock particle storm composition matrix. Makes a septarian crystal habit inside. The small iron areas ar from a mist rain after the impact. Specimen collected by David Narvaez
This is an impact sphere from the large earth impact period. It has nano iron and cobalt which are common universe elements. The circular matrix structure is part of the shock harmonic waves signature and are spaced in accord with the wavelength. Specimen collected by: أ.ابراهيم ضهير
Explosion variant, very old. Nested impact spheres. Oregon coast found by: Heather Menge.
Impact sphere. This is a liquified drop from a large earth impact. It has chemically altered the more dense core which is a complex mineral form made by the extreme physics. If you magnify it and look at the colors closely you will see, magenta and blue which makes me think the core is a compound of Fe3O4, iron 2 oxide, cobalt and manganese. These elements are common to the universe and the period of large earth impacts. Specimen collected in Tate County, Mississippi USA by: Jacqueline Baker
Impact spheres in melted sand binder. In the shock chaos storm things get blasted outward where they collide and are in a plasma state.
Lives in Portland, Oregon
From Portland, Oregon
Sphere catcher - I see this with impactites. These can occur from volcanoes or impact. While sphere catching represents a progressive metamorphic mechanism being captured so much later in wood is interesting.
I found a really interesting conglomerate on the Long Beach peninsula in Washington state today. I hope you enjoy.
Here is a new type. A polymorph transition to spheres! Tube to sphere. It is a geode fast form type as well. Specimen collected by Lisa Smart of Colorado.
A sphere catcher, SW Franklin County, TN. The surface is an electrical coating discharge from the Howell Impact.
Impact sphere with high heat mosaic. It was flattened when it landed somewhat.
strange find I.D., geology, archaeology, paleontology, Native Artifacts
Nikki Wilfong · 16h ·
I just inherited this so called fossil that was found on my mom’s cousins farm in Arkansas years ago. Can some tell me what it could be? It’s hard and weighs 16.7 pounds
Great chart showing just how far ejecta can be thrown.
Botryoidal sphere with cubic crystal sequence, iron.
Very heavy small size tennis ball weighs 3kg
Impact Sphere/Meteorite - This specimen was produced from an impact that ejected a melt liquid drop of impact matter. It has been cindered/ablated from earth entry. Specimen collected by: Khalid Ouladtamou
Slide left above has a central evaporation the highest energy, followed by chaos, then a radial forming harmonic (a crater form) then an isolated wavelength (system harmonic) they tree fractal as the energy dissipates.
How small can an impact sphere be? Less than a nanometer. (PDF) Laser ablation of iron: A comparison between femtosecond and picosecond laser pulses (researchgate.net)
Nesting impact spheres - They are the same material in different stages of the shock explosion. But only by fractional seconds. The inner specimen has an ash composition higher than the outer. Nano minerals are present which were pulverized from the impacting bolide. The fact that it is not a perfect sphere indicates it was part of a section of the explosion that was not able to fully liquify. Specimen by: Joseph e Erickson
Nesting blast randomness. Explosion can be a very messy business. Often with distance it will organize, alas this specimen was closer in to the explosion chaos. It is a nested nodule nonetheless. Specimen collected by:
Lives in Winslow, Arizona
Septarian mosaic nodule. From the Rockwood to Jacksboro impact crater. Specimen collected by: Carl Mize
Dale Tinney Dietrich
Found this on River Bank in Greenville ms
This is a flat impact sphere. The fractal patterns are an energy signature like lightning. The red is a nano iron Fe3O4 trace oxide from the large impacting meteor bolide. The concentric rings are a harmonic effect as shock wave resonance will gather around the center of mass and in this case imprint the wavelength as successive rings.
It also has a mosaic cracking surface on one side.
Of special note is the granular crystal structures shown (constellationing). As an order of physics forms the circle shockwave harmonic will quanta wave degrade into the fractal tree form. The particles from the shock particle storm will form into a common particle which is the matrix. There are many crystal habits of this granular construction but the fractal seen here is an organization from the circle harmonic reforming into the fractal tree form.
Mat Buster · July 14 at 1:09 PM ·
Found in the UP on Lake Superior today! What do you think!?
This specimen illustrates a different sphere phenomena. This impact made so many spheres they were captured in the meteor bolides iron spray Fe3O4 Si. Not a true conglomerate.
Oblate impact sphere overshock - this is a rare specimen. Shock this high is on the verge of destroying the specimen. The interior used to look like the outside. Shock bleaching. Specimens this highly shocked tend to be fragile. Specimen collected by: Selim Yücel
While a volcano has the heat to produce this specimen the mineral diversity is too high. The development from bottom to top of quartz crystals is polymorphic. Could a volcano make an impact sphere spray like this? Yes but it would need to be a higher pressure eruption.
Richard Nass · January 9, 2018 ·
I am alway so intrigued by Gobi desert Agates . They are so unique and interesting . Like no other in design and colors.
Big high energy impact very large earth crater. Complex impact spheres with tube fractals, pseudo morphic crystal fast forms, high diversity of nano minerals and shock circles.
Central spherule with cindering. Impact is a progressive event with layering often present. Liquid drop layering is the drop combination but retains a differential as the core drop has solidified somewhat.
Project Stardust - Jon Larsen & Jan Braly Kihle
Micrometeorite NMM 2488 is really strange. The 0.35 mm Space rock was found in Trondheim, Norway, and is basically a fine-crystalline (almost cryptocrystalline, dendritic) olivine foam with lots of chromites, and hardly any magnetite. I have only seen one other related micrometeorite; a compact cryptocrystalline sphere with chromites on the surface (depicted in the Atlas of Micrometeorites). How shall we classify this one, scoriaceous? Or? Your comment is welcome.
Impact relics (impactites). These melt blobs are expelled at high plasma temperatures form large earth impacts. The color reflects a blending of the impacting meteor bolide in an atomized state with the surface material. Of note is the impalement circle. It has direction with fractal type leads on the left side as the energy is coming from right to left. It also has a phantom circle left of that. It is so interesting I would like to add it to my phenomena encyclopedia if you don't mind. Take a look at the magnification. The phantom circle is an absorbed impalement as this was very plasma hot. The fractal tubes are a type of degradation of the circle form which would indicate some resonate energy present. You can also see the tube forms in the rock lower left also looking fractal like. Very slight iron surface mist is present indicating it was misted by the plasma inner explosion vapor which comes down on impactites as a final phase of the progressive event.
Rachel Curtis · Aug. 16, 2022
Found some crazy looking rocks, not sure if they are fossils, petrified wood, or possibly any artifacts, it is a known area for arrowheads being found
Fairy Stones are impact drop elongations. Found in northern Canada these are from those very very big earth impacts. It is the lower strata of the impact event blasted out as a high pressure high heat ejecta. Elongation occurs because the motion is forming it so a simple sphere is not the right form as it has so much pull on it in its plastic state.
Ben Giroux · Aug. 16, 2022
Hi everyone I found hundreds of these beautiful stones on my land in Quebec Canada.
Impact sphere - what is so nice about this one is the fluidized plastic surface represented from a fast cool freeze of this effect. It even has fiber crystals (kind rare). It shows a directional surface flow including fractal tree branching. While the color looks like mud I suspect it is heavy and crypto crystalline with nano metal content. Overall the surface flow is a type of cavitation.
Jennifer Martin · Aug. 20, 2022
Any clue? Estate find:
Erupting cell septarian compression channels, oblate impactite. This was so hot that it had an oxidation shell that flaked off. This is the same phenomena that makes column basalt a bubble being formed in a moving flow, like when you run with a soap bubble wand. Also like soap bubbles it has multiple bubble compression causing the geometric shapes. This oblate impact sphere was blasted from a large earth impact that would also provide shock resonance with frequency attenuation. That is why you never see volcanoes today make column basalt as that was formed by large earth accretion impacts.
Identification of rocks,minerals,and geological features
Tom Skor · September 4 at 2:30 PM ·
What is it???
This is art I am going to call "Two ballistic impalements." The center black sphere, will figure is a dark iron oxide Fe3O4 has made a low speed impact in the decimal kilometer per second range. The top sphere likely quartz hit in the single digit kilometer per second range. Fractal branching is an energy form with the high energy side being toward the trunk. Fractal branching is a quanta physics form where the energy is no longer at a level to continue and makes a branch at the new energy state.
Project Stardust - Jon Larsen & Jan Braly Kihle is with Jan Braly Kihle.
This is a very nice find. It is an impact form from the Wells Creek Crater. It is a simi plastic spalling splashform impact sphere type. It is iron and silica. The iron is from the impacting bolide but often the silica is from sand as Middle, TN was likely a shallow ocean at the time. It has a rare feature called a fiber crystal red (Capelli Rossi). Fiber crystals are shredded mater that land on still hot plasma mater and fuse on the surface.
strange find I.D., geology, archaeology, paleontology, Native Artifacts
Sean Brooks · 9h ·
Any idea as to what this thing could be. It's heavier than it looks
Impact liquification principle - Both the impactor and the impacted will be liquified. This is a type 4 meteorite impact (non explosive). The top dome is all that is affected from this collision. The drop was made in a high energy impact and was elongated due to speed. Also let me point out that the idea that micrometeorites are formed in atmosphere is not represented in this specimen as this would have to have been formed as is.
Project Stardust - Jon Larsen & Jan Braly Kihle
Eyecandy Thursday: A glass droplet from Space!
Last week I got access to a large industrial roof to search for stardust, and there I found this beautiful green alien. It is a flawless glass micrometeorite (~0.4 mm), crystal clear green, with a small crystallisation in the front which is up in this new photo by Jan Braly Kihle and me. As you can see, the crystallisation has been triggered by a small nickel-iron bead.
There is a faint oxidation at the surface of the micrometeorite, otherwice it is so clear that you could read a very small newspaper through it. Learn how to search for stardust here: https://www.treasuresfromspace.com/.../how-to-find... - enjoy!
Sign up for my newsletter about micrometeorites here: www.projectstardust.xyz - opening soon!
Good day, mate, that there is an oblate impact sphere, very old with a secondary coating as it passed through another material as it was ejected. It is rare.
Blake Osborne · · Sept. 23, 2022
Fossilized egg ?
Outside - this is an impact sphere. It has directionality. While directionality is a more common phenomenon associated with meteorites, impactites can have this too. Meteorites will have an ablative surface association. As this was a plasma in an altered atmosphere it does not have surface ablation, also it is very old and even ablation can be removed by long time weathering. Earth impacts create their own environment. The explosion will make an atmosphere of very high pressure in the tens of Giga Pascals (GPa) range. This high pressure is not air. It is explosion gasses and particles. These particles and pressures are what made this surface directional designs. But that is insufficient to explain these types of designs. The impact particle chaos storm will make a highly charged electrical atmosphere which grounds on the passing objects like this sphere. It happens fast. As for which earth impact made this sphere my first guess is the Howell, TN Impact as it is such a late occurrence geologically (End of Devonian/Start of Mississippian, now called Carboniferous). But the earth has a million impact craters since Mars is half the earth's size and has over half a million. I need to add your specimen to the bottom of this page as it is a new illustration of phenomena combination.
Inside this specimen - pebbles and isolation expansion. This is Ft. Payne Chert which was all made by the Howell, TN Impact. It is a surface instant made concretion and covers North Alabama and Central Tennessee. Milky quartz is what is converted of the sand and limestone by this very high energy as a refinement furnace ejected out in this case as an expanding drop. It is not in a pure state and the expansion is making voids due to the less dense ash inclusion. This type of ash is also an early form of cement BTW. It has made an escape gas pressure channel in the upper right quadrant. The tiny black dots are the shock particle storm Fe3O4 black iron oxide from the pulverized meteor bolide iron. So why the internal ridges? Again this is a furnace refinement phenomena of mineral separation. In the center are pure quartz crystal polymorphs. Crystals made to fast and under too altered physics to complete the usual structure. This is a rare specimen.
That is a second order impact sphere, an iterative harmonic. It is the only one I have ever seen as a sphere harmonic. No make that a third order. Impactite, with shock resonance making a sphere but with high circle harmonic. The harmonic is like a musical note but in this case is shifting to three scales. Is too symmetrical for random.
Mary Brune
Central Missouri Sept. 28, 2022
Any idea what this could be?
Highly compressed impact jasper sphere - Very rare. The shock wave has imprinted its bandwidth as are the crossing lines a representation of multiple harmonic energies. Iron silica is likely but the color has a nickel type look.
Shelley Duncan · Oct. 7, 2022 ·
Any ideas on what this one is. It's very heavy.
TeePee Canyon Agate, Custer County, SD USA - Polymorph crystals, high resonance impactite shock agate. The red balls pictured right side are impact spheres, a shock made particle. With high enough energy these spheres are overcoming the rejection pattern sequence and melting into a violet blend. This earth impact a type 3 exploding type is centered between Rapid City and Gillette Wyoming. It is a crater around 400 miles in diameter.
The particle phenomena with the red spheres is essential levitation. Laboratory experiments have levitated particles using resonate waves. As the energy goes up they will melt into a banded layer also by resonance.
Agate 5 from Morocco, Atlas Mts. So why are the dark particles unsorted? The reds are aligned. The dark particles are not in a capture resonance. Also the energy has not melted them yet. The geometric right angles are a simple response to balancing the harmonic wave patterns in the confined space. The banding is a wave length. Milky quartz, iron and cobalt from a big earth impact. Shock made agate.
Michel Ducos · Oct. 8, 2022
Hello everyone,
Agate nodule from the high Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Natural light, polished.
Cheers
Michel
Stars fell over Alabama and you have found one. Weathered, ablated, meteorite sphere. A silica iron, while the iron content is low NASA proved back in the 1960's that shock can realign iron to produce a non magnetic iron. This specimen has been cavitated and pieces have broken off from being carbonized during earth entry (4,500 degrees F). It is a priceless find.
So was it a sphere before earth entry or was it ablated into one? The duration of earth entry is marginal for sphere making.
Norm Holth · ·Oct. 8,2022
This is interesting. It is not magnetic. Any ideas?
The giants golf tee and ball - Is like the Giants causeway in Scotland, those giants really were global sports brought golf to Bolivia from Scottland.
As you know this is an impact sphere with iron from the impacting bolide. The golf tee structure is a fractal cone, a harmonic upward and part of the event. It is still branching so was not dissipated when the tee was constructed. The ball went up and landed here probably fusing as this was a simi plasma hot 3 to 4k F.
Mysterious Things in the World
· Oct. 10, 2922
Incredible mushroom-shaped rocks from Falsuri (Bolivia) Now the question that does not want to remain silent. How did this rock get there?
Milky quartz impact sphere. Large earth impacts throw off these liquid drops that form spheres. It has been impaled on the surface with some of the impacting bolide's iron.
Oct. 26, 2022 ·
So I found this really round rock that looks like a miniature moon, seems heavy for its size, it's really hard, scratches glass and it scratches iron, it doesn't react to white vinegar. What kind of rock is this, how could it get so round naturally when it is so hard? I found it on the interstate, I was checking one of my tires and came across this strange round little stone.
Impactite, silica iron oblate sphere, with high heat mosaic and outward radiating points (very very rare feature), thin plane iron insertions, and possible fiber crystals. So what does all that mean? Well first of all the tektite definition was not far off. Is not a fossil or meteorite. While I live in a very powerful impact structure it did not make any of these, so lets figure the source of this specimen was a larger crater say 100 miles diameter up. It was a close in orogeny to have sustained this much energy. It is also very old. I would think early Devonian and before for the iron to weather away this much. The color is high silica with black iron oxide as a nano particle. Nano pulverization is a product of the great energy involved and the iron is from the impacting bolide. Finally as specimens can attract hairs it is difficult to tell if you have a fiber crystal on surface. Fiber crystals are a shredded matter not dissimilar to thin plane insertion i.e. shredded matter. It is the same phenomenon as Pele hair.
Phillip Corey Denton
Anyone have a clue as to what this is? I got it and was told it’s a meteorite, also been told it’s a tektite, and lastly a piece of obsidian. It is semi-translucent and about 2lbs( which is larger than tektites typically are.
Limestone Impact Sphere - Hard metamorphic range shock limestone with cooling mosaic cracks, fractal to septarian in layers which caused delamination. The coal was pushed up by the impact blast an organic material compression to the crater edge area. Limestone impact spheres are part of the center of the impact as it blast out the deep limestone layers and makes them liquid to form drops like hailstones. There are two major craters in Illinois, top and bottom.
· Dec. 5, 2022
The cracks are crystal/silver and shiny. Weighs about 3-5lbs. Found in Illinois
Impact Sphere & Cavitation Catcher. Well this answers the question of small impact sphere in space collisions or does it. It would seem that the sphere would have been ablated if this was a meteorite. So this must be an impactite collision and cavitated matrix. Intriguing. Adrian Regalado specimen. Dec. 7, 2022 I am going to name this specimen "Pearl Harbour."
Impactite, flange forming sphere with high rotation and polymorphic iron crystal, core evaporation. As these impact ejecta relics can travel great distances and you are at the confluence of some big and small craters I do not know the crater source.
May May · 16, Feb. 2023 New Castle, Indiana. USA
Any help with ID? Looks like petrified wood on one side and dookie on the other
Oblate Impact Sphere Cinder. Statistical physical identification, besides the granular pattern construction the odds favor impact as there are only a few thousand volcanoes and a million impact craters on Earth. For that matter volcanoes are a secondary feature of impact as impact breaks the Earth's crust.
Lilianne Hurell · · March 2, 2023
Is this rock volcanic? There are tons of them on the Bristol Bay beach.
Spheres in spheres. Impact sphere impalements in a crude forming sphere. This happened on the way while in the air as ejecta from crater as forming.
Mary McClaren Mcfarland
I was wondering if anyone might know what this is? It looks like a flower with kind of a luminous glasslike rock through it. I only have it narrowed down to north western U.S. as to where it was found.
Impact tear drop shape with resonate banding. From the Big MO impact which takes up most of Missouri. This is a mix of the iron from the meteor and the limestone it hit a type 2 impactite.
Beth Collins-Neff · March 5, 2023
Found in SW Missouri. Any ideas of what this is?
Have you ever found a perfect round pebble? On the beach? River gravel? In a pothole? The physics are not possible as the mechanical grinding process would have to be able to grind on only a high point while holding the object still. Also the mass would need to be uniform or it will swivel off center. Any geometric has the same problem. Orogeny forming physics does not have this problem. A bubble is a simple physics of the sides in equal rejection to another environment while in a liquid state. Of the millions of rock tumbling specimens I have never seen a perfect round. The power of a theory is its ability to explain.
Pearls are often not round as they start with a not round grain of sand. Pearls are not a grinding mechanism but a coating applied under a tightly constrained environment.
Oblate impact flattened impact sphere with bubbling and mineral separation. The high heat of formation makes the minerals separate. This can also be done with shock resonance. This is a rare type. As the metal iron came from the impacting bolide/meteor, this is a type 2 mixed material impactite made during the mid explosion sequence.
RockHounds
Brandy Kaub · ·
Found this one today doing yard work at my home in Arizona along with some other amazing rocks but this one is the most unique. Picasso?
Oblate teardrop impact sphere with high heat mosaic fizzing surface, rare.
Missouri’s Rocks, Minerals, fossils, & Artifact Finds
James Erickson · · April, 6, 2023
Could anybody tell me what this is I found it on a creek just outside of Crane Missouri
Teardrop type 1 impact sphere with surface rivulets. The indention is a likely impalement while in flight.
April, 6, 2023
Leesa Turner · ·
Anyone have a clue what this is I found it n granbury Texas it’s over 250 pounds tear drop shaped bout 4or5inchs thick an close to 3 foot tall ty
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗜𝗔𝗡𝗧 ❜❜𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝗘𝗚𝗚𝗦❜❜ 𝗢𝗙 𝗞𝗔𝗭𝗔𝗞𝗛𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡
In Kazakhstan it is called Torysh, or Valley Of Balls (literally Valley of the Spheres):
Impact sphere - An impact sphere can occur in any material. They are formed as liquid drops ejected from a large exploding earth impact (type 3). Some have the star burst pattern and some do not. The starburst pattern is a similar physics to column basalt a harmonic striation. Some shatter cones will be striated and some not depending on the material and the energy involved. April 10, 2023
Matthew Benfield · ·
Don’t know anything about it my son says someone gave it to him.
Impactite spheres hypervelocity nested impalements (meta) with polymorph quartz. Rare. Large earth impact with high melted fragments which tend to produce sphere much as hail is produced only this specimen was in a close proximity to a high density of this impact storm. The double center is a high iron one two sphere from the impacting meteor/bolide. The quartz is usually the refined sand where it hit melted by the very high heat of impact. While the quartz would have made the classic crystal it was formed too fast but is a type of concentric. The quartz would have been around 3,000 degrees F.
Lauren Hunt · ·
I found this unique treasure on the Oregon coast, and I have NO IDEA what it is. Any suggestions?
Botryoidal Impact Sphere, shock white limestone, great specimen! Rare. This is an impact relic from the Big Michigan Crater which takes up most of the state. It was the Earth's bedrock which was blasted out at such a high temperature it is bubbling. The surface designs are a high energy granular particle habit called "constellationing." They are in a tree fractal configuration which is a very high energy state. The little pits are the beginning of cindering/evaporation. The slight discoloration is the trace nano iron mist present in these large kinetic explosions coming from the meteor/bolide iron. April 12, 2023
Bambi Stanfield · ·
Found in west Michigan. Need help identifying please
Heading 5
Fossil inside impact sphere, Howell, TN Crater.
Fossil impression on outside as well. This is an instant process from this impact into a shallow sea.
Banding a shock resonate effect. April 30, 2023.
Rare impactite. Spoke expansion/collapse theory of impact geometrics. This pentagon shape is also found with impact craters (see Impact Crater Tectonics: The Future of Resource Exploration
Impact Crater Tectonics: The Future of Resource Exploration
by David B. Buthman | Jan 19, 2023). The center fast formed concretion is an impact sphere. The banding is due to the different densities attenuating high power shock which is a wave. The pentagonal collapse is a retraction from the fast expansion also as a harmonic effect. High power resonance of this type will reflect back toward the round center called the "pal nutt effect." May 13, 2023.
Joshua Terborg · ·
Found this today in Central Indiana. Looks like two rocks inside a third.
The central Indiana crater as shown on the geology anomaly map.
Many spoke higher power reflections off outside edge. The tube edge endpoints are a double reflection having bounced off the edge and bounced again from the center.
May 13, 2023
Agate Collectors Worldwide
Matt Stankus · ·
Beautiful iris agate
Impact spheres welded together as a "pudding stone." May 22, 2023.
Strange Rock
Arizona Desert
Photo by David Swindler
Credit Karen Kemp
Teardrop expansion impactite, rare. June 2, 2023.
Gilchrist Andrew
Collected from Redtop mountain WA. Jasper the rabbit found his home after crossing many rivers and roads inside the eye.
Oblate Impact Sphere. Triple stage progression. The core was formed first as a liquid drop ejected from the large earth impact. The exposed forms are called a sheet wave. A sheet wave is the physics of energy in motion on a surface, like rain going down driveway or road after a rain. It received an incomplete coating last from the ejecta splatter. June 2, 2023.
Linda Jones Floyd
I found this in our landscaping rock. I haven't a clue, but it seems fascinating how this design could possible have been "stamped" into this rock! Can anyone help? I am in south-central Kansas.
Rare type impact sphere. Is trying to make pseudo cubic forms. Has high heat metal patina. Is from the Big Mo Crater which takes up SE MO. June 3, 2023.
Penny Giljum Borror
Any help identifying this. I am a new rock lover. And all of you are amazing. Ty for your input! Found Troy Mo creek bed
Teardrop oblate impact sphere with sphere impalement. It also has a heat mosaic surface. Slate/shale impact ash matrix. Large earth impacts can make ash and pressure condense it as expelled from the crater. The inner sphere is a first stage, then coated, then aerodynamic shaped to teardrop and impaled. The heat mosaic was last. It is a good specimen. Sheena Burt specimen, June 7, 2023.
Isolation/Rejection spheres. You may recognize this pattern in impact spheres and shock agates. It was another material applied to the hot glass which floats on the surface and expands. June 27, s 2023.
Matt Horne Pottery.
· One of my favourite pieces from the kiln. This one really shines in the sun
Highly oblate impact sphere with "tube wave." A chert type of concretion bubble with high lateral movement while forming. Is just like running with a bubble wand. This is a rare specimen. June 30, 2023.
Kem Juracek ·
I found this c1970 and always wondered what the heck it is. I thought it was a Native American artifact, but it was rejected by their forum.
Impact spheres, close in blast specimen. You seldom see impact spheres from this close to the impact blast. Even appears to have some sulfur from the meteorite retained. July 10, 2023.
rock identification group
Any idea what this might be? I was thinking some type of a fossil, but I’m not sure.
The clearest image of Pluto captured by the New Horizons spacecraft. Pluto is an impact shpere from some solar system collision. July 20, 2023.
Forming sphere, a proto sphere shock made concretion. You can see the collapse towards the center. You are looking at the initial process of a black hole. The high energy is cooking the center into a sphere. Resonate energy will collect around the center of mass. As the energy continues this will form into a sphere, but as it continues the matter will transform into energy also in the center as a sink. Matter made a collecting point for the energy to collect. The turning motions is a stage of this collection as the energy is falling into a vortex. Specimen collected in Jackson County, AL in Paint Rock Valley from crater yet to be mapped. July 21, 2023.
Impact sphere with forming directional plasticity. Manganese blue, with trace iron. The white in the groves is from high heat refinement which tells that it is not a worked piece. Aug. 11, 2023.
Mola J. Sluke
Top contributor
I found this too after the green glass
Multi sphere elongation lens. Impact made these substances were not able to differentiate in the fast explosion process. A really interesting find. Aug. 16, 2023.
James Mattingly · ·
Needing help identifying this send to me from Florida
Acceleration and impact spheres. Impact spheres are melt drops blasted from a large earth impact crater. In this case that would likely be the Middle, TN Basin Buster which makes the Highland Rims of central, TN. Like running with a bubble wand the bubbles will elongate and make the teardrop aerodynamic shape. Your specimen is very rare in that it also received another impact sphere while in flight which is also slightly elongated. Aug. 16, 2023.
Rockhounding For Beginners
Curious. I have no idea what this is.
I have a bigger one also but this one is more detailed.
Located in Middle Tennessee
Lee Isham
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Concretion theory. Making a sphere by free abrasion i.e., the sedimentary theory is impossible. It requires a fixed stand to grind a sphere, you can try this experiment at home. That is why you never find a round pebble on a bar, polished but not round. Even pearls are not round "Saltwater pearls are cultivated or found in saltwater oysters that are in the sea, ocean, gulf, or bay. When these pearls are 100% natural, they are not round." As a drop or built-up ice like hail around a drop you can have roundness. This required it to be a drop i.e., melted to a liquid. Like hail it can continue roundness around roundness. What would turn rock, sand, or soil into a liquid drop? That would take a lot of energy. What would that energy signature look like today? Well, you can see it on the USGS gravity anomaly map just to the east. Why does the crater have a break in the west side on the gravity map. Craters this large allow for an angle of impact expression. Aug. 26, 2023.
Wyoming Geological Survey
WSGS geologist Colby Schwaderer stands next to a large concretion in the Battle Springs Formation in the Great Divide Basin. Concretions like this one are more well-cemented than the sandstone host rock of the Battle Springs Formation, and they are left behind on the ground surface after the softer material has weathered away.
Colby joined the WSGS earlier this year and has been a great addition to the team. You can read more about him in our summer newsletter found at the link in the comments.
The Medicine Bow WY Crater. Specimen is located at star.
Round impactite spheroid, cobalt, silica. Azurite will move to green as it oxidizes since it is a copper base. Aug. 28, 2023. Specimen from, Cami Whittaker Terra Jewell
NW Africa type 1 earth penetrating impact shock made high impact sphere concentration up splash tubes. Notice the spherical concave joints in the tubes. Sept. 4, 2023.
Geology
Hassan Yamani · ·
Basaltic columns, central plateau Morocco
The NW Africa big type 1 crater, earth penetrating with central uplift. This is an old crater. Sept. 4, 2023.
Impact sphere barrel, from the Murfreesboro, TN Impact Crater. In the attached magnification 1. The fractal particle pattern a signature of energy orogeny. 2. & 3. Later small sphere impalements, 3 an iron sphere impalement from the impacting meteor/bolide. Sept. 7, 2023.
Rock Seeker - Rockhound and Rock Collecting Group
Hunter Megela · ·
Found this in a creek bed in Woodbury, TN recently just thought it had a strange interesting shape to it and decided to keep it yet it kinda reminds me of wood almost with the inside texture of it though!
Al Huqf Geopark, Oman. Impact spheres. Sept. 12, 2023.
Flange type splashform. Sept. 16, 2023. Science & Astronomy
Perseverance rover spies 'avocado' rock on Mars (photo)
published about 19 hours ago
The Mars 'avocado' is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rocks that look like things.
Oblate impact sphere conglomerate. It landed as a still molten blob and welded to the gravel. Rare. Sept. 25, 2023.
Shauna Barnum · ·
Does anyone know what this could be? I found it in Montana and ive had it for many years. Its one of my most favorite finds. It is hollow…there is something rattling around inside it. It weights 6.7 oz.
Impact made blobs like Fairy Stones. The matrix is crypto crystalline a high energy shock orogeny. The white is a high heat refinement separating the calcium to the outside along with some iron from the higher heat capable silica core. 1 Oct. 2023.
Can anyone help me find more information on this stone? All I know is that it is flint and that it was bought in Morocco. The big piece is about 18 lb, the smaller about 8. The smaller piece has been broken to reveal the interior.
Round and oblate impact spheres, impact ash filled cores. Oct. 16, 2023.
Sue Keogh
completely new to this, I find these rocks interesting. South france in a vineyard today
Meteorite, hollow impact sphere, ablated with provenance. Oct. 19, 2023.
Rockhounding For Beginners
Now this one I did find in a parking lot I was amazed at it
Impact spheres, Elmore County, AL, the Wetumptka Crater. Sphere on the left had burnt material inside which fell out like dirt. It is an expansion, like a geode. Oct. 25, 2023.
Karen Blackmon Stacey
Top contributor
Lee Isham I agree. These were found in Elmore County Alabama. A meteorite hit here. We think they are part of that. There was red dirt inside.
Impactite, impact half sphere. Plasma cavitation surface in center higher quartz core, also a heat crack. The secondary ring has a chert with the granular crystal habit (Constellationing). The outer surface is a molten higher iron due to the high heat which refines the material or it could have been coated during the impact process which is progressive tending to expel the meteor/bolide ore material like iron later. So why is this not a meteorite? Absent a flow direction melt I cannot confirm that. Nov. 10, 2023.
الخذراوي لخذر · ·
Is this rock natural ?
Round impactite spheroid with surface directional flow patterning. Rare. Nov. 11, 2023.
Lives in Sterling, Utah
From Salt Lake City, Utah
Oblate impactite spheroid Fe3O4SiO2. It matters not if it is magnetic as shock which formed it will alter magnetism. The surface is plasma impalements. Not a fossil as you can notice the plasma impalements push against each other forming impact geometrics like squares. The elongation is from its velocity when it was formed as a bubble therefore elongated. While not the most common impactite these spheres are one of the most common to attract interest. Nov. 25, 2023.
Patrick Schmitt · ·
Found in a creek in Central Wisconsin USA. It's different than what is the majority of rocks. Not lava as it's dense and heavy. Looks like a big egg with dimples. Probably just a rock but it caught my eye
Oblate impact spheroid with secondary iron sulfur coating with high heat mosaic cracks. The sulfur reacts with air and also falls apart. While an impactite can be found in any earth strata it is assumed to be relevant. The Eocene Porters Creek Formation is a vague assignment and differs in location depending on source. Not to belabor the point but based on Mars the Earth has over a million surface impact craters of a mile diameter or greater. The geology anomaly maps show the early bombardment period and a crater covering most of the state of Mississippi (see attached from Chegg Products and Services).
Botryoidal impact oblate spheroids - While found in the desert which is a provenance indicator of meteorites this is an impactite. Meteorites are heated from the outside in and this was already hot throughout as in bubbling. The directional flow is from the high velocity it was going as forming. Attached is a picture of the crater. Dec. 7, 2023.
Patrick Michael Magas Wilson · ·
Bought this rock from a Bedouin man in the Jordanian Wadi Rum Desert. He had other similar ones. I've struggled to find anything like it online. The bottom is naturally flat and was not cut or broken off from anything. Any info about what it is or how it was formed would be great. I had thought it could be igneous, but in the middle of the desert!?
Oolitic, collection of impact spheres exposure. Caves are developed in the impact rubble hence the confluence of impactites and cave. Dec. 7, 2023.
Jas Mims · ·
Vang vieng Laos
Found this weird formation in only 1 out of 20 caves in the area, any idea how these where formed? Perfect circles, some spaces in-between where Tarantulas nest. Smallest circles around a cm and biggest about 10cm, also, they are not flat they are perfect spheres. only On one wall about 2 meters long
Round impactite spheroids - Earth impact spheres are one of the most fascinating to the public rocks. If I am out rock hunting and speak to a local they often mention finding them. Large impact spheres can only be produced by a large earth impact > 80 miles in diameter. Large impacts can also produce small spheres too. I hope you don't mind if I add your picture to my encyclopedia as a sphere with vein tree fractals is much more rare. The lightning type tree fractal is a record of the energy when formed. While most associated with a charged energy it is also produced by shock similar to shatter cones. Attached is a crater map showing the big craters local to this area.
Photo courtesy of Grand Rapids Wilderness Adventures · ·
Grand Rapids. Athabasca River. Alberta Can.
Check out these massive Concretions that have come to surface on the Athabasca River at the historic class VI Grand Rapids. These natural wonders are some of the best examples of spheroid boulders found anywhere in Canada, and perhaps some of the largest on the planet. (Google Grand Rapids Athabasca River) for more information on this incredible site.
let's take a look at the matrix Suevite. While not a textbook example it is the same melt presentation. Perhaps a little less melted and the spheres are oolitic but that is just another dynamic of the impact rock formation typology. You really do have some great rock specimens. I think I will add this one to my encyclopedia as a sphere/oolite/suevite example. Dec. 24, 2023. Jim Kingdon specimen.
Interim form type shown right.
Martin Miles specimen. Jan. 9, 2024.
Impact sphere, tektite flange development, a shape focus - Your specimen is rare. The physics of impact is however not weak or small physics as you might encounter. Was this an elongation or an impact soft dumb dumb bullet made shape? I lean toward the latter as I have not encountered this shape before. Why not a mushroom fossil? Soft material is not an easy transfer to petrified physics and no surface mushroom markings are present. Jan. 4, 2024.
Michigan Rockhounds
Trent Hockett · ·
One of the coolest rocks I've seen , looks exactly like a mushroom
Impact spheroid. These melt drops from large earth impacts can be most minerals. This one has a high metal content and the surface is not able to crystalize and maintains a melt high heat mosaic. It is not relevant if it is magnetic as shock often alters magnetism. If you don't mind I will add it to my encyclopedia of impact phenomena as I like this type of mosaic surface for illustration purposes. Jan. 5, 2024.
The Geologist
Alex Williams · ·
Help with ID - coprolite? Something else? Thanks in advance.
Impact sphere and catcher. You usually do not see the sphere and catcher so much the same material but these shock made stones are just that. Attached is a bedrock geology map of NH with craters. Jan. 5, 2024.
Danna Breaux Tanguis · ·
Could someone help and give me an idea of what this is? I've had it for a long time. I found it while clearing a friend's driveway in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The majority of the large stones and small boulders we cleared were granite. This is in natural lighting on my porch. It was all one piece when found but when I rinsed it off the bottom piece separated from the round stone. It's heavy for not being very big. TIA
the White Mt. Crater
High heat mosaic, oblate impact sphere. Yes it has separated the calcite as a rind also from the high heat. So why not a meteorite? No ablation oxidation. This was limestone blasted out in the impact as a melt drop. The bigger earth impacts of 20 miles diameter or greater are in the trillions of megatons of energy. Jan. 8, 2024.
David Jamieson · ·
Signs of water on a shale?
Cojoined impact spheres. Jan. 8, 2024.
Clive D'amato · ·
Hi, anyone knows what this is? Found in egypt
Top Contributor
16/01/24 Agate pseudomorph after Coral originally thought to be pseudomorth of vertebrae
Similar agate found at Ballata NSW
Top Contributor
Douglas Austen Lower right impact sphere with catcher in carnelian, very rare.
Impact sphere shell - Impactite versus meteorite - A meteorite is being heated from the outside inward while an impactite has whole body heat. Relative velocity - While meteorites can come in fast usually around 15 miles per second and even up to 30, an impactite can easily double this as an ejecta multiplier from the back splash and explosion. Directionality patterns - The coning fractals show a direction flow with the sphere traveling from left to right. Color - Core appears to be a ferro silica and the surface has a color patina associated with oxidation and the peculiar impact gaseous environment of the impact explosion. So why not a sedimentary concretion? That process would not make a metamorphic rock, nor would it show any dynamic surfaces or melt. Raft/plate tectonics? Compression does not form spheres. Erosion theory? Is difficult to erode a high metamorphic and then you would still have to explain the flow marking structure as sand blasting will erode the softer material first leaving the grain pattens which then must be explained as a formation origin. Have I seen this before? Yes, but not with the hypervelocity flow pattern. Jan. 25, 2024.
Eddie Ang · ·
Collected an unusual rock form China, it was heavy and solid hard that can’t even scratched with a steel knife
Pseudo Sphere, the flap jack pancake. Jan 27, 2024. اظن
Northwest Arkansas, rare pancake impalement. Jan. 27, 2024. Joy Suit.
Impact sphere pancake type. The ridging is from the splat when landing as it was more round but it was still pliable/plastic. Jan. 31, 2024. Brandon Mark, McCalla, Alabama.
Impact sphere pancake with melt drops internal, plasma holes, and Septarian mosaic. This is an expansion marked form from spinning or just expansion as it pancaked from a sphere. Feb. 7, 2024.
Barbara Jannicelli
Turtle fossil? Was among my mom’s treasures in Florida
Impact spheres with catcher and total surface cavitation. Rare. Feb. 11, 2024.
Mike Winkler specimen.
Round/pancake Impactite Spheroid with electro deposition - First let me point out that round is not an abraded shape. This was a melt drop from a large earth impact. Next let me point out that geologist are not familiar with industrial processes like electro deposition. Also I am not a geologist, I consider this a forensic physics science. So what happened? Impact throws out a lot of melt drops which are naturally round. Impact often contains nano pulverized particles of iron swirling around at high speeds generating an electric charge. As the melt drop passes through this generator it grounds the swirling iron particles burning this surface imprint iron transfer. I first encountered this phenomenon in my five year study of the Howell, TN Impact Structure. Is your rock valuable? Yes, it is rare as an impact sphere to see this effect. Crater source? It takes a larger type impact to make this effect, Howell, TN is more than 25 miles in diameter although it is really a very rare fan shaped crater of longer dimensions. The attached map shows some interesting suspect craters. Feb, 12, 2024.
Kay Wren · ·
I found this cobblestone by my local river in central Alberta, Canada years ago. It reminds me of a universe or dark side of the moon maybe?haha! It's round but flattish (?) And the bottom edge is flat (and shiny smooth) so it stands on its own. Im curious what the staining is, although this is "oil country" so maybe thats obvious lol! Also, the pitting in a curved line on an otherwise completely smooth surface are curious to me. Anyways, it's a little unusual so that makes it a keeper in my world of rock addiction
Expansion shard from impact. The matrix appears to have been once limestone now shock altered to dolomite. The circular nature is the expansion bubble fast form often these are spheres. The surface experienced another part of the blast wave containing copper. The smooth inside is due to the plasma nature of the expansion gasses. You can see the LA Basin Impact and the shadow remnant of another impact on the attached magnetic map. Your location could have been from either impact. Feb. 17, 2024.
Satyam Vinaya
I am collecting for over 50 years and never came across anything like this, not even close. Nobody? Found in Joshua Tree California
Round Impactite Spheroids - While basically melt drops from the big impact explosion all impacts are unique. For example these are overcooked showing surface high heat mosaic. Surface melt is uncommon. Circle inclusion very uncommon. The circle "shock circle" is a resonate pattern. Feb. 19, 2024.
Rock Seeker - Rockhound and Rock Collecting Group
I got these agates as a door prize at our rock club meeting. They came from an old collection that the club purchased. Any ideas where they might be from? Will probably be easier to ID once I cut them.
Impact sphere uncommon to rare example - While correct the Amygdules or amygdales form when the vesicles (pores from gas bubbles in lava) of a volcanic rock or other extrusive igneous rock are infilled with a secondary mineral, such as calcite, quartz, chlorite, require a volcanic source. But none are available in Alabama only thrust belts and subsurface mafic (https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article/9/4/1044/132619/Upper-crustal-structure-of-Alabama-from-regional). As physics goes an impact and volcano can be similar with impacts even breaking the earth's crust (Crusta Confractus). Round, rare, is found at Lake Superior Castle Danger formation in Wisconsin (see attached picture). How would a cobble become round? It is commonly believed that nature can make a rock round by abrasion. This is not possible as round requires holding the center axis still and the abrasion at equal distance. Even real pearls are not round. Impact makes round rocks easily as it ejects melted drops. So where is this crater? I recently move to Alabama to investigate that. There is a quite large NW whole state area stretched to Cullman County that exhibits impactites and a circular structure about 80 miles diameter. There are multi state circular structures that cross Alabama (pre impact geology often identifies these as thrust belts). Wherever you found this I would go back and collect more rocks. Feb. 22, 2024.
Mark Piteo
Found in Alabama any clue.
Wisconsin example
Impact sphere in botryoidal bubbling state with impact sphere impalements. Feb. 28, 2024.
Meteorite Identification
Travis Perry · ·
Can anyone tell me what this might be?
This is neat, an impact sphere from The Barringer Crater (Meteor Crater, AZ). It is a type 2 impactite with the impact strata as a core also peppered with iron tiny spheres and coated by the meteor/bolide iron. March 16, 2024.
Meteor Crater History
·
I took some images of Canyon Diablo impactites. They are rather rare and since no one is allowed on the property anymore to hunt for anything it is not very likely that more will be available. I have them from four areas around the crater and these are from out on the plains just a bit on the east side. The cut one however is from Montauraqui Crater but it is very close in form and appearance to those from Meteor Crater (Barringer Crater). I have cut a few from Meteor Crater but they are put away where I can not get to them today. They make me feel a bit like Gollum they are precious to me. So I did not cut many and only small ones. But the one from Chile is tilted to the camera lens so the bits of iron from the asteroid will sparkle. This is the same way it is with the ones from Meteor Crater. It is likely that the rock was still plastic and forming as the iron spheroids were beginning to fall and the spheroids were incorporated into the impactites.
Round impactite spheroid - First let's consider the marble in concrete theory. If this is concrete where are the crushed rock aggregate? If this is a marble, why does it have a heat expansion crack? It takes 2,552 degrees F to melt glass. While most impact spheres are not tektites and this smooth all impact spheres are basically melt drops. Rare and valuable. Take a look at the attached example tektites from Science Photo Library. March 17, 2024.
Kali Desiree Helms · ·
Seems to be marble in rock any clues
On the other hand here are some old green glass marble type specimens made in Germany. And notice how the sphere catcher is not disturbed as with an impact. Is a piece broke off in the matrix and the matrix is flat on one side. As I never see impact spheroids this smooth I am going to have to go with the marble theory. Never mind that this poster found another glass in rock specimen. March 18, 2024.
Impact Sphere variants. This is yet another flight profile of the impact spheres. Modified by the motion of flight and the viscosity of the sphere. March 21, 2024.
crazy rock formations new mexico someone said mudfossile vertebrae @topfans
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Teardrop Impact Sphere with envelopment - Earth impact made melt drop that was accelerating and encountered a plating melt. The plating melt has the customary granular particles made in the impact explosion, see attached figure circled 1. The surface of the core droplet has a "sheet wave." Sheet waves are what you see when water is running down a road along the surface. Marked as 2 on attached. March 26, 2024.
Judi Rotar
Any idea what this could be??
Impact Sphere Variant - Appears to have a red clay matrix with a quartz or calcite splatter covering melt with impalements. This was a close in made sphere. March 29, 2024. Kidd Matthew Comel County, TX
Impact sphere and catcher from the "Big Kansas" impact. So, why not fossil? The organization of an explosion versus the high order of a fossil is a facet of information theory. The quartz crystals are from silica blasted with the explosion. Some of the surface has mottling, a mixing/non mixing physics which is what the swirls are. Sine wave flow. Big Kansas is shown on the Chegg Products & Services geology anomaly map. April 9, 2024.
Kansas Rockhounds and Fossil Hunters
Debbie Hudson · ·
I was out fossil hunting this evening in Miami County and found this in a large piece of limestone. Any one have an idea of what it might be? It looks like it is about 4” in diameter. One side that was exposed has quartz crystals in side.
Impact nodule and receiver from Big Kansas Impact. The nodule hs mostly vaporized pushing up the shale impact ash. April 9, 2024.
Kelsey Schlingloff · ·
What is this thing? I found it along a shale bank in Graham County. It has an indention on one side and sticks out the same amount on the other. It’s about the size of a ping pong ball.
Back side plasma hole burns with iron from the impacting meteor/bolide.
Micro spheres - Attached is a magnification of creek sand from Lawrence County, TN (SW middle TN). It contains micro spheres. Now I maintain the world's largest encyclopedia of impact spheres which is also my most popular phenomenon category. First let's go over the physics. You will never make a sphere with random abrasion, as it requires holding a firm axis. Nor will you precipitate silica or iron spheres as only salts precipitate. High energy will turn solids to drops which are naturally round. About one micro meteorite will fall in a square yard per year. The Chicxulub ash contains micro spheres. The Chelyabinsk fireball dropped micro spheres over the northern hemisphere as 99 + percent of it exploded. Micro spheres are found in the ocean floor. Impact made macro spheres are found all over the world and are one of the most posted rocks for identification. Given the large number of Earth Impacts, a million based on Mars, it is very likely the majority of soil micro spheres are impact made. Note: populated areas are contaminated with various man-made micro spheres which is why this sample from rural Lawrence County is such a good example. April 11, 2024.
Impact made spheroid clustering - This was once the bedrock. The impact blast has made it into spherical blobs. While based on Mars the average US state has around 2,000 surface impact craters of a mile diameter or larger, this is from a big impact and the bigger earlier impacts are often distorted by other or later impacts. This phenomenon is from one or all of the big three KS central/east impacts as shown on the attached magnetic anomaly map. April, 13, 2024.
Chris Sterk
Any ideas about this S.E.Kansas
Flat, teardrop shaped impact sphere, found on the side of the road, NE UK by:
Lea Coleman
I wonder what this is?
Could it be a meteorite?
It was found on the pavement near grass edge.
A quick search mentioned things to check like what colour is residue? Red being hematite. Brown being more likely meteorite.
The residue is brown when scratched on unglazed pottery.
Highly magnetic.
Colour of metal under a sanded section is black.
It’s rusted and has likely been on the pavement edge for quite some time.
Please only share knowledge…no ridicule, I’m here to learn. Thank you
If it isn’t a meteorite, please would you share your process of elimination and what it may be.
Much appreciated.
April 14, 2024.
Spinning tektite, rare. Very fluidized forming. April 20, 2024.
GLASSY WONDERS – Volcanic & Impact Glass ·
Luc Vincent · ·
Extremely rare Concavo - Convex Teardrop Tektite known as " Hershey's Kiss " from
广东茂名, Maoming locality , Guangdong Province in China , discovered only 350 kilometers from where I live in the south of China ,
I love the tornado movement ,
Weight : 23 grams
From my personal collection
Fluidized multi bubbles. If you have ever blown bubbles with bubble mix you have noticed that multi bubbles can form. You see this anytime you have soap bubbles. Such is impact made bubbles as well. the amount of material fluidized can be enormous. April 16, 2024. Stephanie Parker specimen.
Just how big is the Big Arkansas Crater? Big and recent. Is why the New Madrid earthquake instability is still going on. Additionally, you have big crater intersections. April 16, 2024.
Impact nodule splatterform. It was in a plastic state when it hit the ground. As with the moon and Mars the Earth has many craters large and small. Big rocks, meteor/bolides crash into Earth and this causes a kinetic explosion. Matter is not able to take this kind of shockwave and becomes liquid. This liquid is blasted into the air as drops. This drop was deformed when it hit the ground but is rarer than the round impact spheroids. So, I don't know what you were taught about Kansas geology, but the attached gravity map shows a very large crater taking up the west half of the state. May 2, 2024.
Susan Illig · ·
Found this on a rock road in north central Kansas. Showed it to my father-in-law who lived there most of his life and he’d never seen anything like it. I haven’t either. It looks so organic, especially when you look at the bottom. That little chip looks a bit like flint to me - and the road I found it on is not far from the Flint Hills in Kansas.
Not common impact sphere, quartz and nano iron pulverized in the impact. From the Big MO Crater which takes up the lower half of the state. Smooth surface impact spheres are rare. As they are formed in an explosion they tend to have blast surfaces. The surface crater is from an encounter with a plasma bubble. May 11, 2024.
Trish Eldridge · ·
Found around Sam A baker national park missouri
Volcanic made sphere. May 17, 2024.
GLASSY WONDERS – Volcanic & Impact Glass
Robert Jelinek · ·
Basaltic glass from Burgas Province, Bulgaria. Fragment of pillow lava, part of large-scale upper cretaceous eruptions in Burgas province. 8 x 4,5 x 4,5 cm. Collected and photographed by Ilian Atanasov, 2023. https://www.mindat.org/photo-1321349.html
Impact conglomerate sphere, rare. Pittsburg impact crater. While iron matrix nodules and strata conglomerates are common, spheres are not. This liquid drop was blasted out from the impact explosion and rolled up these local pebbles. Impact iron often presents in several phases as the energy of impact is extreme. The iron came from the impacting bolide/meteor. You can vaguely see the crater on this geology app, see attached. May 22, 2024.
Mikey Wetmore
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Any idea what this is? broke open a rock and found it. Was 6ft deep near ohio river in western pennsyvania.
Impact fossil rollup. You can see some iron transfer into the fossils. This was an instant fossil process as well as the roll up nodule encapsulation. Notice how the nodule does not indent at the shell opening. If it were a slow concretions process that indention would be unavoidable. This is a roll up. The encasing is the limestone of impact hat has been shock melted to a liquid form now a dolomite. May 22, 2024.
Mr. Woods Fossils UK
Ammonites
DACTYLIOCERAS NODULE
Standard price - £25.00 Small - £17.50Large - £30.00 Add to cart
These ammonites are found in little rounded nodules and a careful blow with a hammer and chisel will crack open the nodule revealing the perfectly preserved shell inside. If you're lucky...
Dactylioceras are lovely examples of ammonites, with light ribbing, a steady spiral and a light pyritisation which can be buffed up to a brassy sheen in some specimens.
4.5-6cm ammonite
Impact Ash as Nodules. May 24, 2024. Photo source Cory Webb. Yorkshire, UK
Pancake type of impact sphere from Well's Creek Impact. While not impact glass the physics of formation are the same. The concave top surface in second picture would be the up side when landing. See attached chart. Micheal Lininger specimen Erin, TN.
Iterative pulse impact sphere. You can also see that it is coning, a progressive shorting of the forming process. It is like running with a bubble wand where a multiple bubble will be connected to smaller bubbles. SW Wyoming. June 1, 2024. Terri Walford ·
Here it is again in Wyoming, bubble clusters. June 1, 2024.
Doug Siedenburg
I found these rocks while mule deer hunting back in 1983. I can't help myself. Sand concretions I guess.
Never mind the mineral crystal forms look how the matrix is made up of impact spheres. In this case volcanic. June 3, 2024.
John Lindell
Minerals in vugs:
Scolecite, Stilbite, 5700 Road, South Fork Toutle River, near Mt. St Helens, Cowlitz Co. Washington, USA, 17cm, collected 7/9/89 by John Lindell.
Coal Ball Conglomerate - Impact sphere and impact nodule connected by surface binder. The sphere and nodule contain sub spheres. Calcite/dolomite composition and found in coal fields the impact blast takes the surface strata impacted and turns it into blast drops which are blasted into the coal. The coal is a heat and pressure product from the impact blast turning the organic material into a carbon mass. June 12, 2024. Specimen from Prairie Research Institute • University of Illinois
Impact sphere, high heat mosaic surface cracks, appears to have been filled with calcite. Shock hardened. Black iron oxide, silica and the usual suspects for meteor metals. Impact spheres are formed as melt drops from the extreme energy of unloading all that kinetic energy suddenly. I maintain the largest encyclopedia of these on the web. While this one may seem to be rough on the surface because of the cracks it is unusually smooth for an object that has been through an impact explosion storm. Magnetic is not a good indicator for iron in impactites. As NASA proved in the 1960's shock alters magnetism. June 20, 2024.
This one has more information, Hardness is 7-8, heavy, non-magnetic, not fluorescent, negative acid test. Cut into the bottom and it looks very metallic...
Earth impact made fast formed concretion, impact sphere. The hollow spheres are from the high expansion while forming. It was liquid to plastic at the time. While it is made of iron from the impacting meteor/bolide it likely also contains some nano pulverized silica. It has iron in multiple states i.e. red and black oxides. Earth impact has all the physics to make this. What is wrong with the slow precipitation from a sea theory? How would it precipitate iron in multiple states? It is a toxic chemistry and that would be quite abnormal for a sea, yet these spheres are found all over the world. How would you precipitate around a void? If this void has redissolved out isn't that contrary to it being a precipitant in the first place? Impact spheres are common to most impact craters. So where is the crater that made it? See attached magnetic map. June 24, 2024.
Wayne Leach · ·
South central Kansas , seems heavy for its size. When I first found it I thought the inside was a soft material by looking at it but is extremely hard. TIA for any help identifying it
Impactite, silica, black iron oxide Fe3O4. How do I know this? Of course, meteorites and impactites have commonalities. While I study both I find impactites more interesting. Is so much more energy in the formation architecture. Your specimen exhibits such a feature. Spherical dripping a high heat melt phenomenon. While a meteorite can have such surface heat it cannot produce this because of the velocity. It could after landing but and so could an impactite. Surface flow: Meteorites have surface flow, this specimen does not show this well. It only has two rare features of surface flow, the before mentions spherical dripping and a cloud fractal. The central cloud fractal is going from left to right and the spherical dripping is going from top to bottom. The surface overall is a high heat wrinkling type mosaic. Density: High density favors impactites as the shock rarefaction and impact pressures are extreme. Magnetism: I often find impactites with high iron and no significant magnetism and rarely even test for it as NASA proved in the 1960' shock changes magnetism. Statistics: When in doubt choose impactite as they are more likely. The earth based on the moon and Mars has a surface crater of a mile diameter or greater about every fifteen miles. AI and the flashcard system: I have a master's degree in systems engineering and retired as phenomena coordinator for contracted research at the world's biggest research laboratory. Both systems require a previous image. I use a forensic phenomenology method and magnify the specimen to analyze what energy signatures could have made it as you can tell from my analysis. This allows for the creation of the flash card and or AI heuristic. You have just proved that AI does not think. Your specimen is rarer than any meteorite. June 27, 2024.
No air pockets, is magnetic and weighs like 10lbs.... I think it's a meteorite can anyone help? I ran it through Google Ai and it said meteorite as well
Impact sphere encasement with low differential host material or same. Usually, an impact sphere will impale a different host material as it was a flying object. This is like a roll up into same, a less energy event. Nevertheless, it causes a different cleavage plane. The holes on the left side of the host rock are from a higher differential smaller sphere. June 29, 2024.
Dawn Collins · ·
Oregon, This boulder has been in my front yard for 45 yrs. And recently moving heavy equipment around this the outer pieces were broken off, and surprised to see this got exposed! Should we tap away more and see what's in it?
Impact spheres, like meteorites sometimes they contain nickel. Sometimes they are not able to make a perfect sphere, then called an impact nodule. Produced in impact blast as droplets. Magnetism is not important as shock alters magnetic structure and impactites with iron will vary in magnetism widely. This would be a type 2 impactite made of the meteor/bolide material itself.
The Barringer Crater (Meteor Crater, AZ) impact iron often contained nickel. You can read that in this educational kit page. June 30, 2024.
James Gosser
ID help!!!! Non magnetic really hard found in Colorado just south of the state line south of Laramie. I’ve found similar north of Douglas but not this hard or with luster
Impact made shock white and shock agate. The banding progression from right to left is the direction of the shock wave. It was very powerful and imprinted as well as making the shock agate. This is a high-grade ornamental stone it looks like it has been quarried. Magnified detail of the shock agate section attached. July 5, 2024.
Helena Wilcox · ·
The whitest rocks I've ever seen.
Progression to drops with high velocity elongation like you see with aero or hydro dynamic figures. Notice it is not overlapping the lateral grid but has become a pure outward drop. This is a reduction in power type form in this sequence. IS THIS THE EXPLANATION FOR THE BIG BANG GAP (INFLATION) BETWEEN THE INITIAL EXPLOSION AND THE FORMATION OF MATTER? July 6, 2024.
Impact spheres from a large earth impact. Blast made drops, which is a physics form to even surface stress pressure. A common misconception is that random abrasion can produce a sphere. Spheres made by abrasion would require a fixture to hole axis constant. Fractal type cross bedding a vestige of the blast direction. Fractals are an energy signature, like lightning and the slow concretion theory does not apply. The instant lithification required for capturing wave action would require a catastrophe, which leads you right back to impact. While not shown in the picture these contain iron and calcite spheres a subcomponent of the impact blast (sphere in sphere) with the iron coming from the meteor/bolide. Mississippi Valley Type theory (MVT) and small quantities of iron. MVT is a 19th century theory called Spring Release which was rebranded and has never been confirmed by sourcing the supposed earth crack. Concretion theory has no chemical physics for sand an inert material. While calcite does precipitate, it does that in layers or crystals and high pressure like an earth impact increases precipitation (see:
Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
F
On the complex conductivity signatures of calcite precipitation
Yuxin Wu, Susan Hubbard, Kenneth Hurst Williams, Jonathan Ajo-Franklin
First published: 05 May 2010).
The calcite binder of the sandstone is liberated from the limestone involved in the large refining nature of the explosion. These are also found in Lincoln County some distance away in a quarry. Suspect crater would be large, 100 miles diameter or greater. USGS magnetic map attached with suspect craters. July 7, 2024. Picture by: Kansas Geological Society
The plain of jars, Cambodia. Impact spheres. Were they hollow impact spheres? Yes, you can see that in the front right sphere. Modified by the indigenous people. July 9, 2024. modernexplores.com uk.
The Cambodia Crater. July 9, 2024.
Hollow spheres with open tops also occurs with micrometeorites. July 9, 2024.
Mark Everson · ·
Two sides of this very thick V-type (glass). This was cleaned twice in the ultrasound- 10 seconds first, then a second time for 30 seconds... trying to loosen and remove the obvious particles. Not sure if they can be removed--- worn?
Fireworks spheres. July 17, 2024.
David Drencourt · ·
Found on the football field and Tallis towards the football field, the day after the fireworks on July 13, Ain
World trade center dust. July 17, 2024.
Oblate Impact sphere. These liquid drops are part of the ejecta spray from earth impacts. The oblate impact sphere was also shaped by motion. The black is iron oxide from the meteor/bolide. The overburden represents time. The bottom of the sphere would be the approximate dating point for this overburden material. July 18, 2024.
Revealed Group The stone spheres depicted here are not a scene from a sci-fi movie; they are real and located in a remote area of Costa Rica. Some are perfect spheres. The mystery lies in who made them and why. Like the Pyramids and the Sphinx, these spheres cannot be dated using the C14 radiocarbon method, which only dates organic material found on the stones. If the spheres had been washed, any datable traces would be erased.
The curling stone. In case you have not seen curling it is an Olympic sport on ice that uses stones (picture 1). Down at the creek where we go swimming it is a sand sided creek with sandstone which is where I spotted this oblate round stone, I named the curling stone. I figured it would be a good example of how round a rock can get by natural abrasion as sandstone is relatively inert chemically. What I found is it was bounded by iron on the sides that contained the abrasion and the sides basically made its dimensions. To grind an actual round you must contain the axis which is what the iron did. July 19, 2024.
In situ plasma drop holes and the impactites in the strewn field. Deserts like on earth or other planets show the strewn fields of impacts well as they do not have cites and plants etc. But these are found individually by collectors. I was told worms made these as a type of impression fossils but geology does not teach or understand impact. July 20, 2024.
Brahim Omlil
·
Adrar Desert Algeria
Article
Full-text available
-
Jul 1996
Shock wave emission and cavitation bubble expansion after optical breakdown in water with Nd:YAG laser pulses of 30-ps and 6-ns duration is investigated for energies between 50 mu J and 10 mJ which are often used for intraocular laser surgery. Time-resolved photography is applied to measure the position of the shock front and the bubble wall
That is an impact sphere with fiber crystals and secondary impact nodule insert. Madison County, New Market, AL inside the Huntsville Crater. This redefines the impact size and the size of impact spheres. This is what fiber crystals look like, they are not common. July 24, 2024.
Kevin Alan · ·
The biggest job I've had yet. This thing was a pain to get up a slope.
Fiber Crystals close up. July 25, 2024.
Now here is something interesting, and impact sphere and catcher making a pentagon, an impact geometric causing an impact geometric. This is due to the back energy rebound. It is the same thing you see with shock agates rebounding. But shock agates are pure wave energy whereas this is a crater form projectile made wave energy. July 25, 2024.
Adam Rouse · ·
What do you suppose these are?
Milsons Arm, New South Wales Australia. Elevation of around 400 metres
Teardrop shape iron impact sphere elongated by high velocity has captured some material in flight or on landing. Aug. 6, 2024.
Korinthya Kolhepp · ·
Found this gem in a river in Tennessee.
Impact spheres impalement impressions, sphere receiver. Aug. 7, 2024.
Roland Ode Jr. · ·
I like this one. It's got a fun shape...
That is an impact sphere from the Russellville, AL Crater. There was a seaway there with large shoreline sand and pebbles. This large earth impact interrupted the TN River flow to its present location. Estimate about 350 million years ago. The spheres are made by the liquid impact material forming drops and, in some cases, including the local sands and pebbles. This type of impact sphere is quite uncommon, I have only collected one as I recall. Aug. 8, 2024. Sierra Rose Barder · ·Anyone know what this might be? Found in Vernon Alabama (NW Alabama) in very sandy soil.
Impact sphere expansion. This is a iron plasma bubble contained in a silica chert/flint impact nodule/sphere. It is not that common. I have seen many hundreds. The string like structures are a physics of combination and rejection called "Constellationing." Aug. 29, 2024.
Philip Evans · ·
Found out in the field, any ideas on the brown material on the inside could be...
Impactite, shock metamorphic, impact sphere with shock altered inclusion. Aug. 31, 2024.
Rich's Post
fossil information & identification
Rich Fowler · ·
Hi was hoping someone could shed some light on this unusual find. TIA
Impact spheres, botryoidal assemblage. Right side strata have crossing shock wave imprint grid. As impact is a progressive event these simi liquid balls arrived discordantly. Aug. 31, 2024.
David Glen · ·
Can anyone help me identify what the formation is in the center of the picture?
Disambigulation and provenance. If you are finding war artifacts and come across an iron sphere think artifact. If you are in a crater think impact sphere. Items in picture from Cullman County, AL Museum. Sept. 3, 2024.
Impact nodule variant, fast martensitic crystal formation. Banding ring as a shock circle, a resonance attenuation form. A type 3 impactite made of the impacting bolide material only. Aug. 3, 2024.
Mark Webb · ·
Bummed this rock from a friend to try to find out what it is for him.
Anybody have any ideas?
There's several of them, supposedly from South Africa, maybe?
It is not attracted to magnets.
It weighs 1 pound, heavy for its size.
It's so dense it can barely be scratched by a file, as shown in pic 5, where a file was worn away in 5 minutes while the rock was hardly damaged.
The crystal formation is like the Tesla symbol, and is surrounded by granular particles as a matrix, and there is some alignment visible throughout.
The band in the center appears as though the crystals formed from the band to both sides of it.
I've seen a lot of rocks, collected many, but have never seen one like this.
Grey Omar Stones, Hudson Bay, Canada. These impact nodules that came in contact with impact plasma bubbles slicing round holes through them are from the giant Hudson Bay Impact. Also shown are Septarian energy form nodules. Sept. 3, 2024.
Mini spheres and composite vein. Sept. 4, 2024.
Jacob Walker
· ·
Found this just outside of Apache Junction, AZ
Small but difficult, the dimple surface appears to be a mosaic contraction. The bottom has some plasma hole burns and inclusion. Sept. 9, 2024.
Rob McKeen specimen.
Philip Hoch specimen. Oblate impact sphere with impalement in iron plasma environment. Sept. 9, 2024.
Impact disk and catcher. Sept. 12, 2024.
Bia Courtney · ·
Found in New Mexico near Caballo state park.
Impact sphere. Tektites are a sub class of impact spheres. Surface mosaic/rejection patterning. The surface forms are not directional, therefore this is not an earth entry ablative skin. This surface is a type of rejection pattern/ablation high heat mosaic effect. It is a cusp of both physics. While high heat mosaic surfaces are the most understood the physics of rejection patterns is not. First let's start with the most common. When color is added to the paint bucket it is unmixed and will require energy to mix it. A specific type of energy by vibrating it. The next most understood type is "Turing Patterns" (Alan Turing, 1952). While this specimen is not a typical Turing type it is close. Turing patterns are a sub class rejection pattern of the over arching group "Constellationing." Sept. 29, 2024.
UPDATED: BETTER PHOTOS without the glare.
What is this little beauty? Found near Flagstaff, Az. It’s approx 1.5” long. There is a tiny chip on it that allows me to glimpse the inside and it looks like smokey/black glass. The outside has a texture I haven’t seen before. It’s very cool. Non magnetic. I didn’t want to scratch it as it seems that the outside, “skin” flakes off pretty easily. Any help with id would be greatly appreciated! TIA
Impact sphere explosion size. Notice the smaller spheres hit and attach to the larger sphere. The explosion expels the larger drops first. Fields of spray are also evident with this specimen as the secondary thick grouping is narrow banded with the matrix sphere in spinning rotation. Oct. 5, 2024.
Rachel Sparks · ·
Thoughts? Should I cut it in half, lengthwise? It's very heavy for it's size. Non-metallic.
GLASSY WONDERS – Volcanic & Impact Glass
Moldavite in Twisted/Rotated form
One of my favourite Moldavite forms in my collection. Really love this shape, like the movement frozen in time throughout the years. Featuring pieces from Chlum, Jankov, Brusná, Zatáčka and Jakule. Some are chime too
Ok, too round, yes but of course it is the radial and crossing banding that makes this so unique. The crossing band in thin plane insertion which you see a lot in and around craters. The radial banding is a resonate separation combined with a thin plane type spray it received in passage through the impact storm. Good specimen. Oct. 28, 2024.
My first Post here. My favorite Pebbel from river Rhine , found close to Rhinefall many years ago. Slightly polished .