A
concretion is a volume of
sedimentary rockSedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....
in which a
mineralA mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
cement fills the porosity (i.e. the spaces between the sediment grains). Concretions are often ovoid or spherical in shape, although irregular shapes also occur. The word 'concretion' is derived from the
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
con meaning 'together' and
crescere meaning 'to grow'. Concretions form within layers of sedimentary
strataIn geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...
that have already been deposited. They usually form early in the burial history of the sediment, before the rest of the sediment is hardened into rock. This concretionary cement often makes the concretion harder and more resistant to
weatheringWeathering is the breaking down of rocks, soils and minerals as well as artificial materials through contact with the Earth's atmosphere, biota and waters...
than the host
stratumIn geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...
.
There is an important distinction to draw between concretions and
noduleA nodule in petrology or mineralogy is a secondary structure, generally spherical or irregularly rounded in shape. Nodules are typically solid replacement bodies of chert or iron oxides formed during diagenesis of a sedimentary rock...
s. Concretions are formed from mineral precipitation around some kind of nucleus while a nodule is a replacement body.
Descriptions dating from the 18th century attest to the fact that concretions have long been regarded as geological curiosities. Because of the variety of unusual shapes, sizes and compositions, concretions have been interpreted to be
dinosaurDinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
eggs, animal and plant
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s (called
pseudofossilPseudofossils are inorganic objects, markings, or impressions that might be mistaken for fossils. Pseudofossils may be misleading, as some types of mineral deposits can mimic lifeforms by forming what appear to be highly detailed or organized structures. One common example is when manganese oxides...
s), extraterrestrial debris or human
artifactAn artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
s.
Origins
Detailed studies (i.e., Boles
et al., 1985; Thyne and Boles, 1989; Scotchman, 1991; Mozley and Burns, 1993; McBride
et al., 2003; Chan
et al., 2005; Mozley and Davis, 2005) published in peer-reviewed journals have demonstrated that concretions form subsequent to burial during
diagenesisIn geology and oceanography, diagenesis is any chemical, physical, or biological change undergone by a sediment after its initial deposition and during and after its lithification, exclusive of surface alteration and metamorphism. These changes happen at relatively low temperatures and pressures...
. They quite often form by the precipitation of a considerable amount of cementing material around a nucleus, often organic, such as a leaf, tooth, piece of shell or
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
. For this reason, fossil collectors commonly break open concretions in their search for fossil animal and plant specimens. One of the most unusual concretion nuclei, as documented by Al-Agha
et al. (1995), are
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
military
shellsA shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot . Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used...
,
bombA bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...
s, and shrapnel, which are found inside siderite concretions found in an English coastal
salt marshA salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
.
Depending on the environmental conditions present at the time of their formation, concretions can be created by either concentric or pervasive growth (Mozley, 1996; Raiswell and Fisher, 2000). In concentric growth, the concretion grows as successive layers of mineral accrete to its surface. This process results in the radius of the concretion growing with time. In case of pervasive growth, cementation of the host sediments, by infilling of its pore space by precipitated minerals, occurs simultaneously throughout the volume of the area, which in time becomes a concretion.
Appearance
Concretions vary in shape, hardness and size, ranging from objects that require a magnifying lens to be clearly visible to huge bodies three meters in diameter and weighing several thousand pounds. The giant, red concretions occurring in
Theodore Roosevelt National ParkTheodore Roosevelt National Park is a United States National Park comprising three geographically separated areas of badlands in western North Dakota. The park was named for U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, in honor of his achievements in conservation as president and for the landscape's...
, in
North DakotaNorth Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
, are almost 3 m (10 ft) in diameter. Spheroidal concretions, as large as 9 m (30 ft) in diameter, have been found eroding out of the Qasr El Sagha Formation within the Faiyum depression of Egypt. Concretions are usually similar in color to the rock in which they are found. Concretions occur in a wide variety of shapes, including spheres, disks, tubes, and grape-like or soap bubble-like aggregates.
Composition
They are commonly composed of a
carbonateIn chemistry, a carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid, characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, . The name may also mean an ester of carbonic acid, an organic compound containing the carbonate group C2....
mineral such as
calciteCalcite is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate . The other polymorphs are the minerals aragonite and vaterite. Aragonite will change to calcite at 380-470°C, and vaterite is even less stable.-Properties:...
; an amorphous or microcrystalline form of silica such as
chertChert is a fine-grained silica-rich microcrystalline, cryptocrystalline or microfibrous sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. It varies greatly in color , but most often manifests as gray, brown, grayish brown and light green to rusty red; its color is an expression of trace elements...
,
flintFlint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
, or
jasperJasper, a form of chalcedony, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. This mineral breaks with a smooth surface, and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for vases, seals, and at one time for...
; or an iron oxide or hydroxide such as
goethiteGoethite , named after the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is an iron bearing oxide mineral found in soil and other low-temperature environments. Goethite has been well known since prehistoric times for its use as a pigment. Evidence has been found of its use in paint pigment samples...
and
hematiteHematite, also spelled as haematite, is the mineral form of iron oxide , one of several iron oxides. Hematite crystallizes in the rhombohedral system, and it has the same crystal structure as ilmenite and corundum...
. They can also be composed of other minerals that include
dolomiteDolomite is a carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg2. The term is also used to describe the sedimentary carbonate rock dolostone....
,
ankeriteAnkerite is a calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese carbonate mineral of the group of rhombohedral carbonates with formula: Ca2. In composition it is closely related to dolomite, but differs from this in having magnesium replaced by varying amounts of iron and manganese.The crystallographic and...
,
sideriteSiderite is a mineral composed of iron carbonate FeCO3. It takes its name from the Greek word σίδηρος sideros, “iron”. It is a valuable iron mineral, since it is 48% iron and contains no sulfur or phosphorus...
,
pyriteThe mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, is an iron sulfide with the formula FeS2. This mineral's metallic luster and pale-to-normal, brass-yellow hue have earned it the nickname fool's gold because of its resemblance to gold...
,
marcasiteThe mineral marcasite, sometimes called white iron pyrite, is iron sulfide with orthorhombic crystal structure. It is physically and crystallographically distinct from pyrite, which is iron sulfide with cubic crystal structure. Both structures do have in common that they contain the disulfide...
,
bariteBaryte, or barite, is a mineral consisting of barium sulfate. The baryte group consists of baryte, celestine, anglesite and anhydrite. Baryte itself is generally white or colorless, and is the main source of barium...
and
gypsumGypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...
.
Although concretions often consist of a single dominant mineral, other minerals can be present depending on the environmental conditions which created them. For example, carbonate concretions, which form in response to the reduction of sulfates by
bacteriaBacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
, often contain minor percentages of pyrite. Other concretions, which formed as a result of microbial sulfate reduction, consist of a mixture of calcite, barite, and pyrite.
Occurrence
Concretions are found in a variety of rocks, but are particularly common in
shaleShale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
s,
siltstoneSiltstone is a sedimentary rock which has a grain size in the silt range, finer than sandstone and coarser than claystones.- Description :As its name implies, it is primarily composed of silt sized particles, defined as grains 1/16 - 1/256 mm or 4 to 8 on the Krumbein phi scale...
s, and
sandstoneSandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
s. They often outwardly resemble fossils or rocks that look as if they do not belong to the stratum in which they were found. Occasionally, concretions contain a fossil, either as its nucleus or as a component that was incorporated during its growth but concretions are not fossils themselves. They appear in nodular patches, concentrated along bedding planes, protruding from weathered cliffsides, randomly distributed over mudhills or perched on soft pedestals.
Small hematite concretions ("blueberries") have been observed on Mars. See
Martian spherulesMartian spherules are the abundant spherical hematite inclusions discovered by the Mars rover Opportunity at Meridiani Planum on the planet Mars...
.
Types of concretions
Concretions vary considerably in their compositions, shapes, sizes and modes of origin.
Septarian concretions
Septarian concretions or
septarian nodules, are concretions containing angular cavities or cracks, which are called "
septaria". The word comes from the
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
word
septum; "partition", and refers to the cracks/separations in this kind of rock
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=septarian. There is an incorrect explanation that it comes from the Latin word for "seven",
septemhttp://www.bestcrystals.com/septarian.htm, referring to the number of cracks that commonly occur. Cracks are highly variable in shape and volume, as well as the degree of shrinkage they indicate. Although it has commonly been assumed that concretions grew incrementally from the inside outwards, the fact that radially oriented cracks taper towards the margins of septarian concretions is taken as evidence that in these cases the periphery was stiffer while the inside was softer, presumably due to a gradient in the amount of cement precipitated.
The process that created the septaria, which characterize septarian concretions, remains a mystery. A number of mechanisms,
i.e. the dehydration of clay-rich, gel-rich, or organic-rich cores; shrinkage of the concretion's center; expansion of gases produced by the decay of organic matter; brittle fracturing or shrinkage of the concretion interior by either earthquakes or compaction; and others, have been proposed for the formation of septaria (Pratt 2001). At this time, it is uncertain, which, if any, of these and other proposed mechanisms is responsible for the formation of septaria in septarian concretions (McBride
et al. 2003). Septaria usually contain crystals precipitated from circulating solutions, usually of calcite. Siderite or pyrite coatings are also occasionally observed on the wall of the cavities present in the septaria, giving rise respectively to a panoply of bright reddish and golden colors. Some septaria may also contain small calcite stalagtites and well-shaped millimetric pyrite single crystals.
A spectacular example of septarian concretions, which are as much as 3 meters (9 ft) in diameter, are the
Moeraki BouldersThe Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden, and are located at . They occur scattered either as isolated or clusters of boulders within a stretch of beach where they...
. These concretions are found eroding out of
PaleoceneThe Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era...
mudstone of the Moeraki Formation exposed along the coast near
MoerakiMoeraki is a small fishing village on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It was once the location of a whaling station. In the 1870s, local interests believed it could become the main port for the north Otago area and a railway line, the Moeraki Branch, was built to the settlement...
,
South IslandThe South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...
,
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. They are composed of calcite-cemented mud with septarian veins of calcite and rare late-stage quartz and ferrous dolomite (Boles
et al. 1985, Thyne and Boles 1989). Very similar concretions, which are as much as 3 meter (9 ft) in diameter and called "Koutu Boulders", litter the beach between Koutu and Kauwhare points along the south shore of the Hokianga Harbour of
HokiangaHokianga is an area surrounding the Hokianga Harbour, also known as The Hokianga River, a long estuarine drowned valley on the west coast in the north of the North Island of New Zealand....
,
North IslandThe North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
, New Zealand. The much smaller septarian concretions found in the
Kimmeridge ClayThe Kimmeridge Clay Formation is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Jurassic age. It occurs in Europe.Kimmeridge Clay is arguably the most economically important unit of rocks in the whole of Europe, being the major source rock for oil fields in the North Sea hydrocarbon...
exposed in cliffs along the Wessex Coast of
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
are more typical examples of septarian concretions (Scotchman 1991).
Cannonball concretions
Cannonball concretions are large spherical concretions, which resemble cannonballs. These are found along the
Cannonball RiverThe Cannonball River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 135 mi long, in southwestern North Dakota in the United States....
within Morton and Sioux Counties,
North DakotaNorth Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
, and can reach 3 m (10 ft) in diameter. They were created by early cementation of sand and silt by
calciteCalcite is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate . The other polymorphs are the minerals aragonite and vaterite. Aragonite will change to calcite at 380-470°C, and vaterite is even less stable.-Properties:...
. Similar cannonball concretions, which are as much as 4 to 6 m (12 to 18 feet) in diameter, are found associated with sandstone outcrops of the Frontier Formation in northeast
UtahUtah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
and central
WyomingWyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
. They formed by the early cementation of sand by calcite (McBride
et al. 2003). Somewhat weathered and eroded giant cannonball concretions, as large as 6 meters (18 ft) in diameter, occur in abundance at "
Rock CityRock City is a park located on hillsides overlooking the Solomon River in Ottawa County, Kansas. It is 3.6 miles south of Minneapolis, Kansas and just over 0.5 mile west of Kansas highway K-106 and the Minneapolis City County Airport on Ivy Road at...
" in
Ottawa County, KansasOttawa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 6,091. The largest city and county seat is Minneapolis...
. Large and spherical boulders are also found along the Koekohe beach near the
MoerakiMoeraki is a small fishing village on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It was once the location of a whaling station. In the 1870s, local interests believed it could become the main port for the north Otago area and a railway line, the Moeraki Branch, was built to the settlement...
village on the east coast of the south island of
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. The
Moeraki BouldersThe Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden, and are located at . They occur scattered either as isolated or clusters of boulders within a stretch of beach where they...
and Koutu boulders of New Zealand are examples of septarian concretions, which are also cannonball concretions. Large spherical rocks, which are found on the shore of
Lake HuronLake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the larger portion of Lake Michigan-Huron. It is bounded on the east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the west by the state of Michigan in the United States...
near Kettle Point, Ontario, and locally known as "kettles", are typical cannonball concretions. Cannonball concretions have also been reported from Van Mijenfjorden,
SpitsbergenSpitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
; near Haines Junction, Yukon Territory,
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
;
Jameson LandJameson Land is a peninsula in eastern Greenland, bounded to the southwest by Scoresby Sund , to the northwest by the Greenlandic mainland, to the north by Scoresby Land, and to the east by Carlsberg Fjord, Liverpool Land and Hurry Inlet.-Geology:Jameson Land mainly consists of a tilted peneplain...
, East
GreenlandGreenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
; near Mecevici, Ozimici, and
ZavidoviciZavidovići is a town and municipality in Eastern-central Bosnia and Herzegovina, located between Doboj and Zenica on the confluence of rivers Bosna, Krivaja and Gostović. It sits in a valley surrounded by many mountains of which the largest is Klek...
in Bosnia-Herzegovina; in Alaska in the
Kenai PeninsulaThe Kenai Peninsula is a large peninsula jutting from the southern coast of Alaska in the United States. The name Kenai is probably derived from Kenayskaya, the Russian name for Cook Inlet, which borders the peninsula to the west.-Geography:...
Captain Cook State Park on north of
Cook InletCook Inlet stretches from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage in south-central Alaska. Cook Inlet branches into the Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm at its northern end, almost surrounding Anchorage....
beach. Reports of cannonball concretions have also come from Bandeng and Zhanlong hills near Gongxi Town, Hunan Province,
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-4-17/54224.html
Hiatus concretions
Hiatus concretions are distinguished by their stratigraphic history of exhumation, exposure and reburial. They are found where submarine erosion has concentrated early diagenetic concretions as lag surfaces by washing away surrounding fine-grained sediments (Zaton 2010). Their significance for stratigraphy, sedimentology and paleontology was first noted by Voigt (1968) who referred to them as
Hiatus-Konkretionen. "Hiatus" refers to the break in sedimentation that allowed this erosion and exposure. They are found throughout the fossil record but are most common during periods in which
calcite seaA calcite sea is one in which low-magnesium calcite is the primary inorganic marine calcium carbonate precipitate. An aragonite sea is the alternate seawater chemistry in which aragonite and high-magnesium calcite are the primary inorganic carbonate precipitates...
conditions prevailed, such as the
OrdovicianThe Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...
,
JurassicThe Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...
and
CretaceousThe Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
(Zaton 2010). Most are formed from the cemented infillings of burrow systems in siliciclastic or carbonate sediments.
A distinctive feature of hiatus concretions separating them from other types is that they were often encrusted by marine organisms including bryozoans, echinoderms and tubeworms in the Paleozoic (e.g., Wilson 1985) and bryozoans, oysters and tubeworms in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic (e.g., Taylor and Wilson 2001). Hiatus concretions are also often significantly
boredBioerosion describes the erosion of hard ocean substrates – and less often terrestrial substrates – by living organisms. Marine bioerosion can be caused by mollusks, polychaete worms, phoronids, sponges, crustaceans, echinoids, and fish; it can occur on coastlines, on coral reefs, and...
by worms and bivalves (Taylor and Wilson 2001).
Elongate concretions
Elongate concretions form parallel to sedimentary strata and have been studied extensively due to the inferred influence of
phreaticThe term phreatic is used in Earth sciences to refer to matters relating to ground water below the water table . The term 'phreatic surface' indicates the location where the pore water pressure is under atmospheric conditions...
(saturated) zone
groundwaterGroundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...
flow direction on the orientation of the axis of elongation (e.g., Johnson, 1989; McBride
et al., 1994; Mozley and Goodwin, 1995; Mozley and Davis, 2005). In addition to providing information about the orientation of past fluid flow in the host rock, elongate concretions can provide insight into local permeability trends (i.e., permeability correlation structure; Mozley and Davis, 1996), variation in groundwater velocity (Davis, 1999), and the types of geological features that influence flow.
Elongate concretions are well known in the
Kimmeridge ClayThe Kimmeridge Clay Formation is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Jurassic age. It occurs in Europe.Kimmeridge Clay is arguably the most economically important unit of rocks in the whole of Europe, being the major source rock for oil fields in the North Sea hydrocarbon...
formation of northwest Europe. In outcrops, where they have acquired the name "doggers", they are typically only a few metres across, but in the subsurface they can be seen to penetrate up to tens of metres of along-hole dimension. Unlike limestone beds, however, it is impossible to consistently correlate them between even closely spaced wells.
Moqui Marbles
Moqui Marbles, also called Moqui balls, and "Moki marbles", are iron oxide concretions which can be found eroding in great abundance out of outcrops of the
Navajo SandstoneNavajo Sandstone is a geologic formation in the Glen Canyon Group that is spread across the U.S. states of northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, and Utah; as part of the Colorado Plateau province of the United States...
within south-central and southeastern Utah. These concretions range in shape from spheres to discs, buttons, spiked balls, cylindrical forms, and other odd shapes. They range from pea-size to baseball-size. They were created by the precipitation of iron, which was dissolved in groundwater. These concretions are argued to be a terrestrial analogue of the Martian hematite spherules, called "blueberries" (Chan and Parry 2002, Chan
et al. 2005).
Kansas Pop rocks
Kansas Pop rocks are concretions of either iron sulfide,
i.e. pyriteThe mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, is an iron sulfide with the formula FeS2. This mineral's metallic luster and pale-to-normal, brass-yellow hue have earned it the nickname fool's gold because of its resemblance to gold...
and
marcasiteThe mineral marcasite, sometimes called white iron pyrite, is iron sulfide with orthorhombic crystal structure. It is physically and crystallographically distinct from pyrite, which is iron sulfide with cubic crystal structure. Both structures do have in common that they contain the disulfide...
, or in some cases
jarositeJarosite is a basic hydrous sulfate of potassium and iron with a chemical formula of KFe3+362. This sulfate mineral is formed in ore deposits by the oxidation of iron sulfides...
, which are found in outcrops of the
Smoky Hill Chalk MemberThe Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Chalk formation is a Cretaceous conservation Lagerstätte, or fossil rich geological formation, known primarily for its exceptionally well-preserved marine reptiles. The Smoky Hill Chalk Member is the uppermost of the two structural units of the Niobrara...
of the Niobrara Formation within Gove County,
KansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
. They are typically associated with thin layers of altered volcanic ash, called
bentoniteBentonite is an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate, essentially impure clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite. There are different types of bentonite, each named after the respective dominant element, such as potassium , sodium , calcium , and aluminum . Experts debate a number of nomenclatorial...
, that occur within the
chalkChalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
comprising the Smoky Hill Chalk Member. A few of these concretions enclose, at least in part, large flattened valves of inoceramid bivalves. These concretions range in size from a few millimeters to as much as 0.7 m (2.3 ft) in length and 12 cm (0.4 ft) in thickness. Most of these concretions are oblate spheroids shape. Other "pop rocks" are small polycuboidal pyrite concretions, which are as much as 7 cm (0.23 ft) in diameter (Hattin 1982). These concretions are called "pop rocks" because they explode if thrown in a fire. Also, when they are either cut or hammered, they produce sparks and a burning sulfur smell.
Contrary to what has been published on the Internet, none of the iron sulfide concretions, which are found in the Smoky Hill Chalk Member were created by either the replacement of fossils or by metamorphic processes. In fact, metamorphic rocks are completely absent from the Smoky Hill Chalk Member (Hattin 1982). Instead, all of these the iron sulfide concretions were created by the precipitation of iron sulfides within anoxic marine
calcareous oozePelagic sediment or pelagite is a fine-grained sediment that has accumulated by the settling of particles through the water column to the ocean floor beneath the open ocean far from land. These particles consist primarily of either the microscopic, calcareous or siliceous shells of phytoplankton or...
after it had accumulated and before it had lithified into chalk.
Iron sulfide concretions, such as the Kansas Pop rocks, consisting of either
pyriteThe mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, is an iron sulfide with the formula FeS2. This mineral's metallic luster and pale-to-normal, brass-yellow hue have earned it the nickname fool's gold because of its resemblance to gold...
and
marcasiteThe mineral marcasite, sometimes called white iron pyrite, is iron sulfide with orthorhombic crystal structure. It is physically and crystallographically distinct from pyrite, which is iron sulfide with cubic crystal structure. Both structures do have in common that they contain the disulfide...
, are nonmagnetic (Hobbs and Hafner 1999). On the other hand, iron sulfide concretions, which either are composed of or contain either
pyrrhotitePyrrhotite is an unusual iron sulfide mineral with a variable iron content: FeS . The FeS endmember is known as troilite. Pyrrhotite is also called magnetic pyrite because the color is similar to pyrite and it is weakly magnetic...
or smythite, will be magnetic to varying degrees (Hoffmann, 1993). Prolonged heating of either a pyrite or marcasite concretion will convert portions of either mineral into pyrrhotite causing the concretion to become slightly magnetic.
See also
- Calcrete, CaCO3 concretions in arid and semi-arid soils
- Caliche (mineral)
Caliche is a sedimentary rock, a hardened deposit of calcium carbonate. This calcium carbonate cements together other materials, including gravel, sand, clay, and silt. It is found in aridisol and mollisol soil orders...
, synonym of calcrete
- Dinocochlea
Dinocochlea ingens is a trace fossil specimen held in the Natural History Museum of London. It is a symmetrical helicospiral several metres in length that was famously unexplained until shown in 2009 to be a concretion formed around the burrow of a worm....
in the Natural History Museum, London
- Gypcrust
Gypcrete or gypcrust is a hardened layer of soil, consisting of around 95% gypsum . It forms in a manner similar to that of caliche, which is composed of calcium carbonate....
, CaSO4 concretions in arid and semi-arid soils
- Klerksdorp sphere
- Martian spherules
Martian spherules are the abundant spherical hematite inclusions discovered by the Mars rover Opportunity at Meridiani Planum on the planet Mars...
- Moeraki Boulders
The Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden, and are located at . They occur scattered either as isolated or clusters of boulders within a stretch of beach where they...
(New Zealand)
- Mushroom Rock State Park
Mushroom Rock State Park, located in the Smoky Hills region of Kansas, is noted for its mushroom rock formations. These rocks were formed through a process of nonuniform erosion and weathering in which a hard mass of Dakota Sandstone resisted erosion while the underlying softer stone weathered...
, Kansas
- Moqui Marbles
- Nodule (geology)
A nodule in petrology or mineralogy is a secondary structure, generally spherical or irregularly rounded in shape. Nodules are typically solid replacement bodies of chert or iron oxides formed during diagenesis of a sedimentary rock...
, a replacement body, not to be confused with a concretion
- Rock City, Kansas
Rock City is a park located on hillsides overlooking the Solomon River in Ottawa County, Kansas. It is 3.6 miles south of Minneapolis, Kansas and just over 0.5 mile west of Kansas highway K-106 and the Minneapolis City County Airport on Ivy Road at...
- Speleothem
A speleothem , commonly known as a cave formation, is a secondary mineral deposit formed in a cave. Speleothems are typically formed in limestone or dolostone solutional caves.-Origin and composition:...
s, CaCO3 formations in caves
External links
- Dietrich, R.V., 2002, Carbonate Concretions--A Bibliography
- Biek, B., 2002, Concretions and Nodules in North Dakota North Dakota Geological Survey, Bismark, North Dakota.
- Epoch Times Staff, 2007, Mysterious Huge Stone Eggs Discovered in Hunan Province Epoch Times International. Photographs of large cannonball concretions recently found in Hunan Province, China.
- Everhart, M., 2004, A Field Guide to Fossils of the Smoky Hill ChalkPart 5: Coprolites, Pearls, Fossilized Wood and other Remains Part of the Oceans of Kansas web site.
- Hansen, M.C., 1994, Ohio Shale Concretions PDF version, 270 KB Ohio Division of Geological Survey GeoFacts n. 4, pp. 1–2.
- Hanson, W.D., and J.M. Howard, 2005, Spherical Boulders in North-Central Arkansas PDF version, 2.8 MB Arkansas Geological Commission Miscellaneous Publication n. 22, pp. 1–23.
- Heinrich, P.V., 2007, The Giant Concretions of Rock City Kansas PDF version, 836 KB BackBender's Gazette. vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 6–12.
- Hokianga Tourism Association, nd, Koutu Boulders ANY ONE FOR A GAME OF BOWLS? and Koutu Boulders, Hokianga Harbour, Northland, New Zealand Really nice pictures of cannonball concretions.
- Irna, 2006, All that nature can never do, part IV : stone spheres
- Irna, 2007a, Stone balls : in France too!
- Irna, 2007b, Stone balls in Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland
- Katz, B., 1998, Concretions Digital West Media, Inc.
- McCollum, A., nd, Sand Concretions from Imperial Valley, a collection of articles maintained by an American artist.
- Mozley, P.S., Concretions, bombs, and groundwater, on-line version of an overview paper originally published by the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.
- United States Geological Survey, nd, Cannonball concretion
- University of Utah, 2004, Earth Has 'Blueberries' Like Mars 'Moqui Marbles' Formed in Groundwater in Utah's National Parks press release about iron oxide and Martian concretions