Trypophobia sufferers beware. I’m wondering what could’ve made those pits, or if it’s a fossil. It was found in the Rochester NY area.
Couldn’t it be gases bubbling out of molten rock as it cooled down ? Like pumice ?
Yeah, it’s totally volcanic.
Looks like pumice.
Out here in Cali those are very common. Might be a type of tafoni.
ETA: I didn’t read this blog but there are pics:
What are the objects inside the holes? Was it found on the seashore? It looks to me like the holes could be those made by piddock clams.
I see you’re not on a seashore. However, the rocks of the Rochester area are entirely sedimentary, which pretty much rules out pumice if the rock is of local origin.
Could also be a fossilized sponge, couldn’t it ?
Not really, the holes are too unimodally-sized and widely spaced to be considered tafoni. The same factors rule against being pumice.
This would be my guess as well, looks like a sedimentary rock bored by bivalves to me.
OP: There’s no indicator of scale on the picture, next time it would be a good idea to include one.
Nope, doesn’t have enough openings and penetration of texture.
It looks like the things inside the holes are smaller rocks, but they’re too hard to see clearly. It does look like the rocks with the holes made by sea life.
Here are some pictures with a CD for scale.
Looks like plain old tufa to me.
Tufa isn’t unimodal in its cavity size.
could have been inclusions of other minerals in the rock which eroded/dissolved away faster.
My guess as well. Mixed matrix stuff can have remarkable uniform bits when the settling out is about right.
*Round *minerals, though? And less resistant than whatever that finer matrix is?
Exactly what rock are you proposing this originally was? It’s clearly not amygdaloidal basalt or andesite.
It looks very sedimentary, so you’re suggesting some sort of bimodal size distribution - in effect an extremely will-sorted paraconglomerate where the clasts are both *highly *uniform and yet *highly *separated and much softer or more soluble than the matrix. I know of absolutely no rock that qualifies. The large clast fraction is usually the large clast fraction *because *it’s much more resistant.
That should be “well-sorted paraconglomerate”. Or at least, well-sorted in the clast fraction. Being such a very bimodal distribution overall, the rock itself is very poorly sorted.
Termites. Really really hungry termites.