Appreciation post: I used to think the whole 'concretions in sandstone' thing was just random rocks
I saw some round ones in a creek bed near my house and thought they were just river stones, but a friend from the university geology club showed me how they form from mineral cement. Now I look at every lumpy sandstone outcrop differently. Has anyone else had a basic concept they dismissed that turned out to be a major feature?
My uncle used to point out fossilized ripple marks on slabs of flagstone and I just saw them as weird texture. It took a park ranger explaining it for me to realize I was looking at the exact pattern from a beach, just turned to stone. That kind of shift in seeing things is pretty wild. It makes you wonder what else we're all walking past every day without really seeing it.
Oh man that reminds me of this time I was hiking with my cousin and he kept stopping to look at these weird rocks. I thought he was just messing around but turns out they were old volcanic rocks with crystals in them. I never even noticed them after that first time. Its funny how once someone points something out you start seeing it everywhere.
But what if we're better off not seeing everything? Some stuff is just background noise, and that's fine. Not every little thing needs to be a big revelation.