Klerksdorp Sphere

Ottosdal, South Africa

Background

Ottosdal is a small town in South Africa, that is the home of the Klerksdorp Sphere. Ottosdal is a farming community engaged in the growing of grains such as maize, sunflower, and peanuts. In addition, local farmers raise cattle, sheep, pigs, dairy cows and chicken. A major pyrophyllite mine lies near it on the farm Gestoptefontein.

Climate

Ottosdal has a relatively hot and dry climate. Summers are very hot and the very short winter is characterized by cold nights and mild to warm days. The average yearly rainfall is 21.6 inches, and occurs between October and April in the form of heavy thunderstorms. It only snows once a decade at most.

Pyrophyllite Mines

A major industry of the Ottosdal area is the pyrophyllite mines located on the farm Gestoptefontein. These mines produce a very high quality pyrophyllite, which is a phyllosilicate mineral composed of aluminium silicate hydroxide. The pyrophyllite is a metamorphosed clay. The clay was formed by the alteration of volcanic ash, which apparently accumulated at the bottom of a quiet body of water. It forms a dense, but soft light grey, or darker, fine-grained stone, which splits into well-defined slabs. Originally, pyrophyllite was quarried and locally used for tombstones and building stone and to carve ornaments and utensils such as pots, dishes and cases. Currently, it is milled and processed near where it is mined to produce material used for the production of a wide variety of products. They include acid-resistant lab ceramics, refractory bricks and linings, filler in paint, electrical insulation, boilermaker's chalk, chromic-acid purification pots, and crucibles used in the manufacture polycrystalline-diamonds.

The Klerksdorp Sphere

The Klerksdorp Sphere gets its name from a neighboring city museum, called the Klerksdorp Museum.

Shape

The objects can come in many different shapes, but they take on a general round shape. Some vague lines, or grooves, may be seen on the outer surface. These have not been machined by aliens but they display imprints of the fine layering present in the host rock in which they grew.

Size

The spheres range in size from .5cm to 10cm, with even latitudinal grooves on them. They were created in space between sediments, much like the way crystal can form extremely precise shapes.

Composition

The spheres are made of either of hematite or wollastonite, mixed with minor amounts of hematite and goethite. The spheres found in unaltered pyrophyllite consist of pyrite. They are concretions formed in either volcanic sediments, ash, or both. What causes the groves is the formation process itself; the material the concretion forms in is softer than the concretion, and so when the softer material erodes away, all that’s left is the imprint it made. The spheres show a non-granular, smooth surface and are typically dark, earthy-brown in color, typical of siderite (iron-carbonate), one of the most common minerals found in concretions. Some of them have a brassy, metallic sheen and are made up of pyrite (iron-sulphide) another very common concretion-forming mineral. Paul V. Heinrich obtained five Ottosdal objects from Dr. Susan J. Webb of the University of the Witwatersrand and Allan Frazier of Online Minerals to examine. After being photographed, three of them were cut with a saw. A sample from one of the cut spheres was analyzed using petrographic techniques. Samples from two other objects were analyzed using X-ray diffraction techniques. In addition, a sample of pyrophyllite taken from the same mine as the objects was analyzed with petrographic and X-ray diffraction techniques. The internal structure of three Ottosdal objects was determined by cutting them open. All three of these objects exhibit a radial structure, which breaks into concentric shells. They are clearly natural concretions. Internally, the concretions were found to be both porous and friable. One of two noticeably “grooved spheres”, which was cut in half, exhibited faint ghosts of flat laminations cross-cutting its radial structure. A prominent internal lamination was specifically associated with the external groove. The analysis of two Ottosdal objects by X-ray diffraction techniques, revealed that they consist of two different minerals; hematite and wollastonite.

Hardness

Paul V. Heinrich also did an examination of the five Ottosdal objects, in terms of their “hardness.” He found none of them to be harder than 4.0–5.0 on the Mohs scale (a rating of 7–8 is typical of hardened steel).

What is a Concretion

Definition

A concretion is a hard, compact mass of matter formed by the precipitation of mineral cement within the spaces between particles, and is found in sedimentary rock or soil.

Example of How a Concretion Forms

A thin layer of conglomerate (which is a coarse-grain pebbly deposit) is overlain by layers of volcanic lava, up to 2600 meters thick. During the outpouring of these lavas, there were “short” episodes when floods occured and sediments were deposited between the lavas. This particular sediment was made up of tuff (volcanic ash and debris). After it was deposited and covered by more rock, it became subjected to tremendous pressure and increases in temperature, so much so that the sediment became metamorphosed to a rock composed entirely of pyrophyllite. This is very fine-grained, resembling talc, but not as soft. It is in the pyrophyllite that the spheres are found. Archy Fantasies uses the metaphor of molding a candle with sand to explain how a concretion is made. They say “To make a sand candle the first thing you do is find some wet sand, then you press a shape into the sand, which is why it needs to be wet so it will hold its form. Next you pour melted wax into the mold you formed in the sand, add a wick, and let the wax harden. After the wax is all hard, you scoop it out of the sand (or wash away the sand with water), brush off the excess and you are left with the final product, a candle.” After you brush away the sand, there are little grooves left as an imprint in the wax from the sand, similar to that of the ring formations on the klerksdorp spheres.

Claims From Fringe Groups are Unsubstantiated

Other Outlandish Claims

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