Carol's Etsy description says
"The pendant is from a rock we aquired when we bought 3 cigar boxes of rocks that came from an estate sale. The rock is moss agate, the mystery are the metalic circular inclusions. I did some research and these may be iron concresions of some sort or lapilli. If you've seen this before contact us I would love to know for sure."
I, not being a geologist, looked up Lapilli and found on Wiki that Lapilli is a size classification term for tephra, which is material that falls out of the air during a volcanic eruption or during some meteorite impacts.[1] Lapilli (singular: lapillus) means "little stones" in Latin.
What we hypothesize is that these lapilli flew through the air getting all roundy in the process, eventually falling to Earth. Later a Quartz/Chalcedony solution enveloped these balls. When the whole rock was cut into slabs the spheres became circular cross sections. The cigar boxes of rocks came from an older gentleman who lived in Rochester, MN, but it is hard to know where this was collected. I think it was collected from Northern Minnesota and that it originated from a meteor impact in Southern Ontario from a time I can't remember (I read about at the Minnesota Geological Society website). Carol believes the spheres came from volcanic action. She is probably right, but heck, we may both be wrong, so any help on this is appreciated. No reward only credit on the blog and the everlasting glory that brings!
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