Camarillo mud balls

It was 70 years ago when researchers first discovered thousands of baseball-sized mud balls strewn throughout a field near the south end of Las Posas Road, now just off the 101 Freeway. The result of a devastating flood in March 1938, the mud balls can still be found there today. The balls, a rare geological phenomenon, are featured in Salvatore M. Trento's book "Field Guide to Mysterious Places of the Pacific Coast." The upper part of the Las Posas gorge is filled with clay and stream debris. Following a heavy rain, water surges down the channel and collects rock debris along with chunks of clay, which eventually attach and take on a rounded, spherical shape as they are pushed downhill by rain runoff water. When the water dries, the balls are left stranded along the banks of the ravine, in the surrounding fields or wherever the force of the ravine's flooding has spread. These spherical concretions have been found on every continent, according to Trento's book. The Camarillo mud balls measure in diameter between 3 and 10 inches, but some have been found to exceed 3 feet in diameter. The mud balls are usually found and formed along beach cliffs of clay or where riverbanks are steep and narrow. - Andrea L. Minium