Cookie Monster Rocks!

A dull gray rock recently unearthed in Soledade, Brazil, was hiding a surprise inside. The crystal arrangement looks like Cookie Monster from Sesame Street! 

The rock’s owner, Mike Bowers, posted a video of the rock being opened. The video quickly went viral! The strange stone is a geode, a rock with a hollow space inside lined with crystals. Geodes form when mineral-rich water seeps into a hole inside a rock. Over time, crystals of minerals like quartz grow inward. This hole didn’t fill completely, leaving an opening that looks like a smile. The eye-like areas were likely filled with rock that has since worn away.

“It’s extremely rare to find a face inside a geode,” says Alex Speer, a geologist in Virginia. “It brought a smile to my face when I saw the picture.”