A Rock Embossed by Nature

Look! Someone took a rock and etched a bunch of emojis on it! Well, that's certainly what it looks like, but this is a natural stone. The amazing shapes on its surface are crinoid fossils, plus some bivalve fossils. The rock is a floatstone, a type of limestone. The stone formed at the bottom of Lake Michigan, and was embossed with a hash of crinoids pieces that fell on it. The circles, and half-circles, were once parts of the tubular crinoid stem that fell to the lake floor in different states of decay and at different angles. My guess for the "teeth" shapes are a stem piece that partially split crosswise and then lengthwise as it made contact with the developing stone.

Redditor DrewHoov posted this image on the subreddit r/whatsthisrock. To my surprise, no one in the comments suggested this was Photoshopped. I guess only real rockhounds follow the subreddit. We have to remember, our emojis, and symbolism altogether, are based mostly on things that our natural world produces.  


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