08/10/2026
Always something new to learn!
Indian Paint Pots!
A beautiful but often overlooked natural beach-treasure genre (i.e. quartz stones), I’m am reprising an earlier post: iron oxide/Indian paint pots. As a child, we called these beach finds, “iron ore,” & most of the pieces on Chesapeake & Delaware Bay beaches tend to be flat, unlike the rounded ones collected by Adria.
Comprised of a combination of iron oxides (including hematite, limonite goethite), paint pots are actually “broken bubbles,” occurring when naturally-formed concretions break in half. They represent remnants of the formation of our world, of billions of years of geologic formation, of heating & bubbling, then cooling, hardening, splintering & cracking.
Paint Pots also offer a classic example of the power of grouping similar finds. Singly, they don’t seem like much. But together, they make a compelling display. And best yet, they can be found on different types of waterways - rivers, bays, lakes, oceans - the world over that shared a similar geologic makeup.
