skip the rock the 48 →

rare

kona dolomite

fossil microbe mats · older than almost anything

kona dolomite, drawn
the drawing
kona dolomite, photographed
the real thing

The tell

Pink, cream and gray swirled together, often with clear layered or domed structures running through it.

Those structures are stromatolites: mats of cyanobacteria, and among the oldest visible fossils on earth. The same kind of microbe that put the oxygen in the air, though the mats that did that job came earlier than these. The Kona Hills themselves are private land; look for float on the Marquette shore.

What it gets mistaken for

The facts

10% of every order goes to northern Michigan animal shelters.