Fayoum. Stone Balls.

- Fayoum -
الفيوم

Stone Balls - is one of the spectacular mysteries of Nature, which can be found in New Zealand, Romania, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Russia, Costa Rica, the archipelago of Franz Josef Land, and also in Egypt. Here in Egypt, such spherical geological formations can be found in South Saqqara and Fayoum. Such nature "artifacts" are common to underwater lavas of extrusive rocks such as basalts, spilites, diabases, trachytes and porphyry. But, along with igneous rocks, the similar formations are laso observed among the sandstones.

This chapter of our expedition report is devoted to such sandstone balls, "settled" in the sands of the Fayoum desert.

The internal structure of these balls is presented with concentric shelly substance. The diameters of the balls varies from 1,5 - 2 meters. The nature of their origin, at the moment, is unknown.

Below is an ancient island with coral belt at the top and the balls, stuck deep in the sedimentary rock of the island.

The field of the balls. The balls are concentrated in some "colony" occupying the territory about 100 x 200 meters.

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