DESCRIPTION ZEBRA ROCK SLABBED HAND CARVED CROCODILE

VERY ACCURATE HAND CARVING IN BEAUTIFUL PATTERN ZEBRA ROCK

600 MILLION YEARS OF HISTORY

SOURCE WESTERN AUSTRALIA

UP NORTH IN THE KIMBERLEY AREA OF HOT DRY DUSTY DESERT

SIZE 103 X 67 X 30 MM

WEIGHT  1341.35 CTS

PIECE AS PER PHOTO

This distinctive reddish-brown and white banded ornamental stone from the East Kimberley, Western Australia, has been known as zebra rock since its discovery in 1924. Some of the original localities, including one about 4.8km southwest of the former Argyle Downs Station, are now submerged beneath the dam waters of Lake Argyle, but there are others
which are still being exploited.
Zebra rock forms lenses and seams, some extending for kilometres, within the Johnny Cake Shale, which is of Late Precambrian age (around
670 million years old). The rock is an “argillite” or clay rock. It is largely made up of clay minerals but also contains tiny angular fragments of quartz and mica flakes, and the mineral, hematite (an iron oxide), which is the main iron-bearing mineral. Most of the clay is the common mineral kaolinite, which forms during weathering of rocks (such as granite) containing feldspar and other aluminium silicates and can be deposited as a sediment in water to eventually make a clay rock like a shale or mudstone.