Facts about the Moeraki Boulders
One of the moeraki boulders split
The Moeraki Boulders are a number of huge spherical stones, found strewn along a stretch of Koekohe Beach near Moeraki, a small settlement just south of Hampden on New Zealand's Otago coast.
These boulders are grey-coloured septarian concretions which have been exposed through shoreline erosion from black mudstone coastal cliffs that back the beach.
They originally formed in ancient sea floor sediments during the early Paleocene some 60 million years ago.
The boulders weigh several tons and are up to three metres in diameter.
Maori legend tells that the boulders are remains of calabashes, kumaras and eel baskets that washed ashore after the legendary canoe, the Araiteuru was wrecked at nearby Shag Point (Matakaea).
In 1848 W.B.D. Mantell sketched the beach and its boulders, more numerous then than now.
The picture is now in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.