I’m sure thousands of years ago, this rock was in the water and that’s how it ended up so round. But I found it deep in the forest, away from water sources. How did it get so round? How did it end up far away from water? And, most importantly, what kind is it??
It’s dry in the pictures. What are the tiny sparkles?
I want to put it in my aquarium but I know that the rock specialists/identifiers want the pictures to be dry.
Looks like granite to me, but I’m no geologist. The shiny sparkles would be mica, I believe. Granite would be around 2 billion years old. A lot of stuff can happen in that period of time, I’m pretty sure.
I’m taking it for granite, too. As for how it got there, there are many theoretical possibilities, but given that you list your location as Vancouver Island, the answer is almost certainly “dropped by a glacier.”
Sounds like the consensus is glacier dropped Granite!
If I remember my Vancouver Island history correctly, the last ice age did not cover the entire island, leaving a small area on the west coast uncovered. I think I remember that some Mammoths survived there. Fairly recently there was a ancient village found on one of the little islands along the west coast from 14,000 years ago which I think was when the last ice age here was ending.
I think the question has been answered and I agree.
If the OP is interested, you can look for glacial erratics. These are large boulders that were plucked from a distant mountain during the ice ages and transported to some far away location, either by action of riding on or in a glacier, or on or in an iceberg, then dropped in their present location as the ice melted. They are composed of rock not found locally, and range up to house-size.
The PNW is dotted with these. Here is one on Vancouver Island. There is a pretty good picture showing the rock - it does not quite belong there. I think your cannon-ball rock probably traveled some distance, unless there is local granite that matches it. If that is the case, perhaps it was from a local river or creek and someone thought the same as you and transported from it’s source. In fact, being so polished makes me think that is more likely than being brought there by a glacier. Just speculating.
Definitely granite-ish. Could be any one of a number of related rocks depending on exact quartz percentage as well as the ratio of alkali feldspar to Plagioclase
The twinkles could be mica, could also be schiller (iridescence) from the feldspars or just vitreous lustre from the quartz.
How big is it? If it’s about the right size to fit in your hand and it was found completely out of place, there’s a possibility of it being a stone tool.
We normally think of stone tools as appearing like pieces of flint, or obsidian, with sharp edges, but ancient humans also used round, hard stones as tools - for hammering or cracking nuts and seeds, for throwing weapons and weights, or for knapping flint (the toolset often includes a rounded rock for developing edges on the workpiece)
here’s an example: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/74057360_stone-age-paleolithic-hammer-stone
Or, yeah, it could have been just a glacier drop, or left there for some reason by a modern human.
I’m not a geologist either, but I do know that granite has a much larger range of ages than that. The youngest granite appears to be this formation in Japan, which is only 800,000 years old. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01306
It fits perfectly in my hand. Enough so that it was very pleasant to carry. We’ve recently had a lot of rain and a tiny bit of snow. I think that some of the mud washed off of it so I was able to see it laying on the forest floor.
If it was found near a walking path it’s also quite possible that it was transported to the forest by a L’il Hooman . My boys used to pick up and carry interesting rocks all the time when we’d take the dog out for her evening stroll. It’s also possible that it could be gneiss or amphibolite but I’m going to take it for granite as well.
If you’re a blossoming rock hound check out www.geology.com for more than you ever wanted to know about what’s underfoot.
Sure no geode, don’t break it. Probably no tool.
