Another mystery hone thread.

[Neil Miller]

The banding looks a bit odd for a true Hindostan (Indiana). The colour is Ok - they can be tan, whitish, orange-tinged, grey - but the bands seem too sparse and too far apart. When these stones were formed in the silty littoral waters of Indian, there was a tide twice a day that laid down layers in pairs - couplets. You can see the rise and fall of the tide within these closely knit couplets, one of which is often thicker than the other (because more silt was deposited after one tide than another). The usual pattern is something like this:



There are other stones whose chemical/mineral formation is just the same and which bear almost the same characteristics as the Hindostan, such as Canadian Oil Stone, Magog Stones and several other outcrops in Arkansas. Maybe yours is one of these - or a Hindostan with widely-spaced bands! I'm not saying it isn't, but it looks odd. Maybe it's just the blown-out highlights in your photo - perhaps it has got thinner bands in between those thick one's that are not showing up on my screen?

Regards,
Neil