IN SUPPORT OF GARDNER'S THEORY OF THE 

 ORIGIN OF CERTAIN CONCRETIONS^ 



LEROY PATTON 

 New Concord, Ohio 



In an article in the Journal of Geology, Gardner^ has maintained 

 that certain concretions are formed in supersaturated or overloaded 

 water carrying fine clay particles. He believes that the particles 

 are pressed together and are gathered in lumps just as the finely 

 disseminated particles of butter are gathered together in churning 

 and that these particles grow by accretion and gain their spherical 

 form by being rolled along the bottom. He bases his opinion on 

 observations of aggregations of mud balls in the bed of a stream 

 after a flood in the Rio Chaco region of the San Juan Basin, New 

 Mexico. 



In the summer of 192 1 the writer observed similar phenomena 

 in the bed of the North Fork of the Red River, Beckham County, 

 Oklahoma. As a result of a series of severe rains, this river, which 

 is usually an insignificant stream flowing in sand-choked channels, 

 had been flowing bank full. After the flood had subsided the writer 

 observed on one of the sandy flats in the river bed a remarkable 

 collection of clay aggregations similar to those described by Gardner. 

 They consisted both of clay balls and cylinders, the former being 

 much more numerous. The balls varied from less than an inch 

 to about six inches in diameter. The cylinders were from four to 

 six inches in diameter and a foot or more in length. Both balls 

 and cylinders were composed of fine clay, with a small amount of 

 sand and gravel in them or imbedded in the outer portion. The 

 cylinders were apparently the result of two balls becoming stuck 

 together and being rolled along the bottom, as several cases were 

 observed showing the steps in this process. The considerable 



' Published by permission of the Director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. 

 ^ J. H. Gardner, "Physical Origin of Certain Concretions," Jour. Geol., Vol. XVI 

 (1908), pp. 442-58. 



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