Some round boulders grow outward like stone pearls — ChillScroll

Several round brown stone concretions emerging from softly layered badlands

Some round boulders grow outward like stone pearls

Cannonball concretions begin when mineral-rich water deposits natural cement around a small core inside sediment. More layers build outward, making a hard round mass that later appears as softer rock erodes away.

Somewhere inside each stone ball is the tiny starting point it grew around.

Source · U.S. National Park Service ↗