... Costa Rica General Information ...

... The Mystery of the Stone Spheres ...
by Harry Pariser
Author of Explore Costa Rica

Conical stone spheres are found in but two locations on the planet: Mexico and Costa Rica. Ranging in size from three inches to about four ft in diameter, they may weigh as much as 15 tons.

Geologists theorize that the stones were formed after a volcano spat magma into the air: landing in a hot-ash-filled valley, the globs cooled slowly until they formed spheres. Others believe that they were formed by hand with stone tools. Golfito resident David Bolland has even theorized that they were shaped by waterfalls tumbling into a man-made pit. The truth is that no one knows how they are formed and why.

The spheres were first “discovered” by US archaeologist Samuel Lothrop in 1948. Similar spheres exist in a remote ravine in the Sierra de Ameca mountain range in west-central Mexico, and Dr. Robert L. Smith of the US Geological Survey has theorized that these spheres were in fact fiery lava flows from some 40 million years ago.

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