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Can anyone identify what this rock is?

I found this along the California/Nevada border east of the southern portion of Death Valley National Park. It sort of resembles coral or some kind of fungi, yet has a strange, yet neat, blue patch across the top. The bottom of this rock is smooth, unlike the rigid top portion. Any/all help is appreciated!

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2 Answers

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  • 5 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    it looks like you have some sort of evaporite deposit (salt of some sort, perhaps some sort of sulfate or hydroxide) on top of the regular bedrock material. the bluish superficial crust might be some sort of lichen or bacteria or something. There could be some sort of dissolution-precipitation reaction happening at the surface: there is a fairly clear irregular line of contact which would be consistent with water infiltration leading to superficial mineralogical change (a sort of alteration).

  • Andrew
    Lv 5
    5 years ago

    It is difficult to tell from the photo, but having been to DV, I would guess it is a boulder of limestone/dolostone showing karstic weathering. Some of the oldest rocks in DV are blue-grey limesones/dolostones.

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