If u happen to visit New Zealand don’t forget to put Moeraki, a small village on the coast south of Oamaru on your must see places list. What u will see here on the koekohe beach is the amazing grey colored, large and spherical boulders emerging from the sandstone cliffs occurring scattered on the beach.
They are mainly composed of mud, silt , clay and calcite and are 2-3 meters wide.These boulders are hollow inside and have large cracks called septeria.
These concretions originated near the surface of sea floor million of years ago. The process of crystallization of calcium and carbonates around charged particles in muddy undersea sediments gradually formed the boulders taking around 4 million years of time.
According to Māori mythology, the large sailing canoe named Āraiteuru carrying the chiefs was destroyed and the remains were washed ashore. The fishing net and the water gourd (calabash) of Āraiteuru were turned into stone at Moeraki in the South Island, where they can still be seen. The canoe itself remained at a place called Matakaea (Shag Point).
Although these boulders are said to be unique, but quite similar kind of boulders are also seen in Argentina, France, Russia, China and Bosnia.Concretions around 3 meter wide are seen along the cannonball river, North Dakota, (north-central United States) also concretions much wider than this is seen in western United States (Central Wyoming). Some boulders as wide as 6 meters are seen at rock city in Ottawa County, Kansas.
Surprisingly scientists have also found such kind of formations on mars too and have named them as martian blueberries (grey blue color hematite concretions).
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