"The rock that died" ... What is it?

[Mkburnett]

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. My grandfather has a rock formation on his farm which he has always been curious about. As kids my brothers and I would play in the field around the rock and marvel at it. My brother, in true childlike fashion even went so far as to name it "The rock that died". So I figured I would reach out to this forum to see if any of you have seen anything like it or may have some clue as to what it is. The rock surfaces on the property are cretaceous era limestone which makes this particular rock stand out and appear foreign. The rock itself, as you can see in the attached images at the links below, is circular in shape and shows conchoidal fracturing along its top. It may also be significant to point out that Geodes are found on the property and there is a natural gas well.


https://ibb.co/grZg1y
https://ibb.co/d6SjMy
https://ibb.co/dwor1y

 

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[vpnavy]

For members that hate hitting unknown links...

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[Kray Gelder]

I don't think that would be called conchoidal fracturing. It looks more like columnar jointing, which occurs in slowly cooling basalt. Curious.

 

[Kray Gelder]

I took a quick search, and West Texas experienced a lot of volcanic activity 30-40 million years ago. My guess is that is a column of basalt, that used to lie deep below the surface, and has since eroded out. I suspect that there are other outcrops of basalt near your grandfathers place.

 

[Mkburnett]

vpnavy,
Thank you. I apologize for the links. I was experiencing some issues uploading directly to the site yesterday.

 

[Mkburnett]

Kray Gelder,
Thank you. I greatly appreciate the information. That's very interesting. I'm going to see if I can find anymore of these on the property.