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| Mystery Rocks, Olympic Peninsula |
They are brittle but soft enough that they do not take a polish, despite the superficial resemblance to the Orbicular Jaspers (with red spots) found in the same region. But the raised dots are odd, and I can't think what rock type these might represent. Anyone recognize them? The matrix is grey-green and apparently crystalline, but whatever it is, it's a really distinctive rock.
No mineral value, of course, and no one is going to make jewelery from this material, but if there is a geologist out there that recognizes it, or where it outcrops, I'd love to hear about it....
POSTSCRIPT : One reader asked whether the blebs are just surface marks, e.g. barnacle scars, but I broke some open and the spots are distributed throughout the rock.
POSTSCRIPT TWO : MYSTERY SOLVED 8/26 ! More on a later post...
Variolitic basalt
ReplyDeletevariolite indeed ( i don't think thats the proper pronoun tho! ) found here on the peninsula and found also in the British isles and Western Europe. Somewhere I read of variolites being once important in some forgotten way as a protective talisman to Druid celts and to sheppards with their sheep.
ReplyDeleteHi - thanks for your note. Shortly after I posted that several years ago, I learned about variolites, and discovered that they are found in several locations around he world. And yes, I heard about the rocks' medicinal/spiritual properties from a guy in France who collects and sells them at www.variolite.fr
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