Description: Each buyer will receive three(5) Moqui marbles scooped from marbles as pictured with size running approximately 1 to 1.5 inches. Moqui Marble, hematite concretion, from the Navajo Sandstone of southeast Utah.The Navajo Sandstone is also well known among rock hounds, planetary geologists, and practitioners of New Age religions for its iron oxide concretion. They are believed to represent an extension of Hopi Native American traditions regarding ancestor worship ("Moqui" translates to "the dead" in the Hopi language). Informally, they are called "Moqui marbles" after the local proposed Moqui native American tribe (they have alternately been called "Moqui balls," "Moki marbles," "shaman stones" or "thunderballs" by various enthusiasts. Thousands of these concretions weather out of outcrops of the Navajo Sandstone within south-central and southeastern Utah within an area extending from Zion National Park eastward to Arches and Canyonland national parks.The iron oxide concretion found in the Navajo Sandstone exhibit a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Their shape ranges from spheres to discs; buttons; spiked balls; cylindrical hollow pipe-like forms; and other odd shapes. Although many of these concretion are fused together like soap bubbles, many more also occur as isolated concretion, which range in diameter from the size of peas to baseballs. The surface of these spherical concretion can range from being very rough to quite smooth. Some of the concretion are grooved spheres with ridges around their circumference.The abundant concretions found in the Navajo Sandstone consist of sandstone cemented together by hematite (Fe2O3), and goethite (FeOOH). The iron forming these concretions came from the break down of iron-bearing silicate minerals by weathering to form iron oxide coatings on other grains. During later diagenesis of the Navajo Sandstone while deeply buried, reducing fluids, likely hydrocarbons, dissolved these coatings. When the reducing fluids containing dissolved iron mixed with oxidizing groundwater, they and the dissolved iron were oxidized. This caused the iron to precipitate out as hematite and goethite to form the innumerable concretions found in the Navajo Sandstone. These concretions are regarded as terrestrial analogues of the hematite spherules, called alternately Martian "blueberries" or more technically Martian spherules, which the Opportunity rover found at Meridiani Planum on Mars.
Price: 21.95 USD
Location: San Diego, California
End Time: 2024-08-05T14:43:12.000Z
Shipping Cost: 0 USD
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Item Specifics
Return shipping will be paid by: Seller
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
Refund will be given as: Money back or replacement (buyer's choice)
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
