Dear Tweeters,

Today, some friends showed me one of the strangest rocks I have ever seen. Maybe a Tweeter might know something about this sort of rock.

The rock was found along the shore of the Baker River, south and east of Mount Baker. It's about the size and shape of a half-deflated rugby ball.

The rock is what a non-geologist such as myself would call "lava rock." That is, the rock is full of little pores and holes--from gas bubbles, if I understand the process right.

What makes this rock so amazing is that there is a really big hole running right through it. The hole is shaped more or less like an eye, or like a lanceolate leaf. I'd say the hole is about the size and shape of a large peach leaf on one side of the rock, but it is much smaller on the other side, narrowing to perhaps only the size of one's thumb.

More astonishing still, inside the hole is a different type of rock. It looks a bit like white quartz. I tried running a steel knife blade across an exposed edge of the white rock, but could not get the rock to scratch the knife blade. The white rock doesn't have any crystals that I could detect with the naked eye. It almost looks like someone had poured melted marshmallow fluff in there, and the fluff had hardened into rock.

I can only guess that gas left a hollow inside the rock, which then filled with this white rock. I don't know if it crystallized in there from mineral-laden water, or if some other moulten rock poured into the hole after the hole formed, or if some moulten rock somehow bored its way into the lava rock. The white rock does not quite extend all the way through the hole--that is, there is about a centimeter of lava rock around the large end of the hole, to which none of the white rock adheres. You have to stick your finger in the hole that centimeter or so, to reach the white rock.

Sorry for the abjectly poor description, but any ideas about this rock would be appreciated. I am hoping that the folks can photograph the rock so we can get some information on it.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch ? Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?