Wyoming
What Is That Weird Boulder Dug Up On Historic Wyoming Ranch?
In a trench meant for a sewer line, a Wyoming ranch family found a massive, nearly spherical boulder that was so out of place, it left them bursting with questions.
Scott Coale and his son William, 18, were digging a trench recently on the Hogg Ranch near Meeteetse, a historic homestead that had been in Scott’s family for over 100 years.
A stubborn and unexpected obstacle blocked the ditch they were digging, interrupting their work.
They found they’d struck a huge boulder that by all appearances, shouldn’t have been there.
“We’d been in putting in a sewer line to a cabin,” Scott said. “There’s no rocks here at all. We were having smooth sailing, and then, all of a sudden, the backhoe struggles.”
William got out of the skid steer he was using to backfill and was surprised by what he found.
The Discovery
“I asked him how big it was because it was in the middle of our ditch to run the sewer line,” Scott said. “He tells me that it is as big as the side-by-side. At first, we’re just kind of joking, but then I realize I don’t know if I can get it out.”
Scott called a friend with a backhoe and they tackled the boulder.
“I had some daylight left and got on the side of it and started digging,” he said. “Next thing I know, I got it out the hole with the backhoe. It was this big old round rock. It just amazed us that it was so perfectly round.”
They set the rock to the side and resumed their chores, although distracted as they tried to figure out what they had found. The boulder is about 4 feet tall and 4 feet wide.
“It’s just weird,” Scott said. “The geology of Wyoming is a great thing. You never know what you’re going to find.”
The family was especially surprised to find the giant boulder because the area it was unearthed in is devoid of rocks.
“I’ve never personally seen anything like that,” William said. “We were just digging and then bam, there is this big old boulder in the ground that’s not normally shaped.”
What On Earth Had They Found?
Unsure of what they had unearthed, Scott’s wife Diane posted the find on the Facebook page Wyoming Rockhounder. She asked if they should try to open it and see what was inside.
There was much debate, but the consensus from other rock enthusiasts was that it’s a sandstone concretion.
“I thought it was interesting that people commented about maybe it was a geode or what might be in it,” Diane said. “So, we did a little bit of research and the geodes are found in limestone rather than sandstone.
“The likelihood of us cutting it up and finding a geode is probably pretty minimal, so we kind of want to leave it the way it is.”
That is a good idea, said geologist and owner of Ava’s Silver and Rock Shop in Thermopolis.
Ava Cole has more than 50 years of experience in the field and is familiar with this type of rock.
“There’s quite a few places around Wyoming that have them,” Cole said. “Sometimes there are iron stains in the middle of them, but they’re not worth cutting into — unless you want to sharpen your blade.”
Just A Rock
Concretions are commonly misunderstood geologic structures, according to the Paleontological Research Institution.
Often mistaken for fossil eggs, turtle shells or bones, they are not fossils. They’re rocks. This common geologic phenomenon occurs in almost all types of sedimentary rock, including sandstones, shales, siltstones and limestones.
There may be fossils surrounding the concretions if it’s in shale but not inside the rock itself.
“The concretions that you find in the shale may have fossils in the shale or crystals,” Cole said. “The concretions themselves are just sandstone. There are no fossils in them. The fossils are not in the sandstone layers, they’re in the shale layers.”
These concretions form inside sediments before they harden into rocks in continuous layers around a nucleus such as a shell or pebble.
Rates of this formation vary, but can sometimes be relatively rapid over as short a period as months to years, the Paleontological Research Institution reports.
“There’s a void in the ground,” Cole said. “It’s like a magnetism to them that attracts different minerals until the sand forms tightly around them. There’s some kind of quartz in it, too. It’s microscopic, but they’re not hollow or anything like that. Not like a geode.”
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An other-worldly-looking boulder was unearthed in an area known as Death Valley on the Hogg Ranch near Meeteetse, Wyoming. (Courtesy Diane Cole) -
An other-worldly-looking boulder was unearthed in an area known as Death Valley on the Hogg Ranch near Meeteetse, Wyoming. (Courtesy Diane Cole)
What Do You Do With It?
“I’ve collected them before and sold them, but don’t get much money out of them,” Cole said. “Even if the family wanted to, they probably couldn’t get anybody to cut it because it is a pretty good-sized rock and you’d have to have a big diamond saw to cut it.
“Anything that big [when] you cut it open, it would be futile because what’s on the outside is mostly on the inside.”
Her suggestion is to let it just sit around in the yard – since it’s always nice to have a round circle rock hanging around.
That is exactly what the Coales plan to do.
“It’s going to be a yard ornament,” Scott said. “I want to be able to showcase it in our front yard. I think it’s cool.”
Collecting Your Own Yard Ornament
These concretions are found throughout the Cowboy State and can be collected even on BLM land.
“A lot of people pick them up,” Cole said. “Between Worland and Ten Sleep, on Rattlesnake Ridge, there’s a whole bunch of them, all different sizes and shapes since they’re not always round. They can be like a peanut or anything like that.”
The Coale family are already avid rockhounds. They have interesting formations on their property that they explore and one area on the historic ranch is dubbed Death Valley because, according to William, it looks like the badlands.
That was why they were even more surprised to find this rock in an area where they normally would not be looking.
“I’m the rock person in the family,” Diane said. “We’d always go find petrified wood and stuff ever since I was a kid but I’m pretty excited about this rock.”
This plain, nearly perfectly round boulder has been added to their family collection as the centerpiece.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
CASPER, Wyo. — High school athletics in Wyoming could see some drastic changes in the coming years following legislative changes to the state’s education budget, the Wyoming High School Activities Association recently announced in a statement.
According to the WHSAA, Wyoming school districts are facing a projected $3.9 million shortfall in activities funding, forcing officials to consider significant cuts to high school sports and extracurricular programs.
The WHSAA shared details regarding a new “silo” funding model implemented by the Legislature, stating that the recalibrated block grant model reduced funding for student activities and extra-duty responsibilities from $46.3 million to $42.4 million, an approximately 8.4% decrease statewide.
WHSAA Commissioner Trevor Wilson said the restructuring also restricts district access to an additional $76.2 million in previously flexible funding.
“A significant portion of the [April 28 WHSAA Board of Directors] meeting was dedicated to discussing the projected funding shortfall,” Wilson wrote.
The WHSAA is weighing several strategies to address rising costs with fewer resources. Proposed changes include eliminating regional tournaments and reducing the number of teams qualifying for state events from eight to four; limiting wrestling to two classes and restricting track and field state participants to the top 16 marks; making cuts to soccer, indoor track and field, Nordic and Alpine skiing, swimming and diving, spring golf and tennis; and reducing in-person speech and debate events by half and centrally locating All-State Music events to minimize travel. The board also recommended increasing gate admission or implementing student participation fees to offset costs.
While the WHSAA release states that no plans have been finalized and the various changes are currently just possibilities, Natrona County School District 1 Board of Trustees member Mary Schmidt criticized the WHSAA’s handling of the news at Monday’s board meeting.
“I take some issues with this, [including] the sheer fact that we as Board of Trustees members have not talked about that at all,” Schmidt said. “It is not our intent and it has not been brought to us to cut our athletics or activities budget for the upcoming school year. … I take issue with them picking sports and getting the community upset and ginning them up to be upset that this is all going to be cut when that hasn’t been discussed.”
Later in the meeting, Superintendent Angela Hensley clarified that Natrona County School District 1’s athletics and activities budget saw a reduction of roughly $550,000 in the coming year’s budget, but said the local school district does not plan to cut any sports.
“Thank you, Trustee Schmidt, for saying this, because I think people are wondering — we are not planning to cut athletics and activities for next year,” Hensley said. “We do have to take a look at our entire budget as we have talked about, as we learn more about these new rules that come in.”
Related
Republished with permission from Wyoming News Now, a TV news outlet covering the Cheyenne and Casper areas.
Cheyenne City Council has introduced a temporary moratorium, or pause, on new data center construction.
“The end goal is to actually have regulations in place, to have really heavy public involvement with this with data centers,” said Councilman Mark Moody.
The proposed ordinance is not a permanent ban on data centers and would not affect data centers currently under construction.
Councilman Moody says this is a bipartisan issue.
“I just want to make this clear, I’m not against data centers. We do need them from a national security perspective,” he said.
He said there needs to be more public input and regulations regarding data centers in Cheyenne.
The ordinance would require city staff to study data center impacts such as electricity usage, electricity tariffs, closed-loop cooling systems, groundwater impacts, agricultural impacts, and land value.
Cheyenne LEADS, the economic development corporation for Cheyenne and Laramie County, reported in November 2025 that there are 12 operational data centers in Wyoming, five under construction and plans for 43 data centers announced across the state.
“There needs to be more public input with this, and also to see how many we can sustain here in this community, cause there are talks of 43, and then another day 70. How many can we sustain here?” said Councilman Moody.
The proposed moratorium will now go to the Public Services Committee on Monday, May 18 at noon in the Municipal Building.
Sheridan will play in the North Regional Tournament at Gillette, while the South Regional Tournament will be played at Rock Springs.
North Regional Tournament at Gillette:
Checking record vs. highest team in the quadrant not involved in the tie, Thunder Basin gets the #1 Northeast seed over Campbell County, because the Lady Bolts went 3-1 vs. Sheridan, whereas the Lady Camels went 2-2.
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 NE) Thunder Basin vs. (#4 NW) Jackson – 11am
(#2 NW) Natrona County vs. (#3 NE) Sheridan – 11am
(#2 NE) Campbell County vs. (#3 NW) Kelly Walsh – 1pm
(#1 NW) Cody vs. (#4 NE) Worland – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Thunder Basin/Jackson winner vs. Natrona County/Sheridan winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh winner vs. Cody/Worland winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Thunder Basin/Jackson loser vs. Natrona County/Sheridan loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh loser vs. Cody/Worland loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
South Regional Tournament at Rock Springs:
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 SW) Laramie vs. (#4 SE) Torrington – 11am
(#2 SE) Cheyenne East vs. (#3 SW) Green River – 11am
(#2 SW) Rock Springs vs. (#3 SE) Wheatland – 1pm
(#1 SE) Cheyenne Central vs. (#4 SW) Cheyenne South – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Laramie/Torrington winner vs. Cheyenne East/Green River winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Rock Springs/Wheatland winner vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Laramie/Torrington loser vs. Cheyenne East/Green River loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Rock Springs/Wheatland loser vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
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