Aruqi Strange Stones

Aruqi Strange Stones

　　Aruqi Strange Stones

　　Inner Mongolia’s Alxa League lies in the heart of the northern desert frontier of China, home to the Ulan Buh, Tengger, and Badain Jaran deserts. Especially in the vast Gobi Desert near Outer Mongolia in northern Alxa, where the land is desolate and the winds are strong, there are ancient igneous, metamorphic, granite, and limestone formations, along with Carboniferous strata containing fossils, sponge spicule fossils, and extensive layers of fine-grained metamorphic sedimentary rocks rich in graptolite fossils. Nearly 2 billion years of geological transformation and sand erosion have created uniquely shaped and colorful wind-eroded stones, agate, nephrite, bone-accumulating stones, layered stones, petrified wood, quartz crystals, and more, all of great ornamental value. The hard, oddly shaped Gobi stones are treasures among China’s exotic rocks.

　　The Gobi strange stones of Alxa League in Inner Mongolia are wind-eroded stones. According to geological and archaeological experts, the original rocks of Alxa’s Gobi stones were formed from magma ejected during volcanic eruptions around 8 to 100 million years ago. Over long periods of geological change and natural forces such as sun exposure and wind erosion, these rocks have taken on a wide variety of spectacular forms. Most Alxa stones are unpolished varieties of agate, possessing high ornamental, economic, and collectible value. They have drawn increasing attention and admiration from collectors around the world, and are exported to countries such as Singapore, Japan, South Korea, the United States, as well as regions including Taiwan and Hong Kong. Naturally sculpted with minimal alteration, the stones are rustic and grand, embodying the essence of heaven and earth and the energy of the sun and moon. They vividly reflect the openness, vastness, and solemnity of the Alxa Gobi, as well as the bold and majestic beauty of the western spirit.