Just some idle musings. Something for spare time and such. But if you inevitably sit down and muse, feel free to comment at your leisure. I'll be interested to hear.

Though I'm not sure if I'd say necessarily that electricity would deposit in veins. Though the triboelectric effect seemed to more stack charged grains in ridges and spikes than deposit them into anything.

And as far as blueberries, it might well be that the initial deposition of the hematite occurred through some other process into the soil layers, etc. But the blueberry formation may have been a subsequent event causing concretion of the layered, sedimented or veined hematite into mushroomy stalks and bulbs and in the final stage pulled the balls completely off, turning them into the "blueberries" we see lying around today on the surface. And may have done so in the past with layering of sediments on top of them? Hence they're underground, fully formed, but not necessarily "formed-underground."

Anywho, just some ramblings. Muse away as you see fit.

Bad text art description:

Unperturbed surface with hematite deposits:

------------------

Electric arc:
\
------------------ (surface)

Electricity draws up hematite:

\
/
|| (stalk)
------------------ (ground)

More drawn up:
\
/
\
|| (stalk)
||
------------------

Begins concretion:
/
\
o (ball)
|| (stalk)
------------------

Either stops and remains as ball and stalk or:

Concretion continues:
\
O (mostly-formed ball)
| (dwindling stalk)
------------------

Concretions finishes:
O (concretions fall to surface as arc dissipates)
------------------

Repeat a few times in subsequent electrical discharges of varying magnitudes:

O oo O 0 o o O (blueberries/concretions)
------------------ (ground)

Possibly layer a bit of sediment over time, maybe with more layers of concretions:

------------------ (surface/sediment)
....O........o..... (blueberries/sediments)
------------------ (layer of sediment)
...O..o....oO..o. (blueberries/sediments)
------------------ (layer of sediment)
O.oo...0.o.o.O. (blueberries/sediment)
------------------ (layer of sediment)

As I said before idle musing, however, If we were to find blueberries in layers such that at one point in the past it can be relatively easily seen that they lay on a relatively flat surface or were lightly embedded in it, as opposed to forming haphazardly across many layers (without statification of blueberries along those specific layers), would that indicate a bit more credence than "seepage" which wouldn't really make sense if things are discretely layered... I don't know if discrete LAYERING of concretions underground happens or not, since no studies have been done TO MY KNOWLEDGE regarding when/how/where concretions formed. Though the california concretions I mentioned (sand spikes) did appear anecdotally to be in a discrete layer under gravel/sediment (having been dug up at appx the same depth by the same rock hunters in a single outing), with the very odd feature of all being aligned in parallel, with points facing North. IF the features are related (it's a BIG if, of course, I realize that) could we take that as anecdotal evidence of discrete layering for similarly created structures (assuming more instances could be found and corroborated; I'd love to see an entire site mapped and catalogued with position, size, orientation, inclination, features, etc. Just to see if there really are specific patterns to how/where they're formed, or if it's just random)? Key words being anecdotal evidence (seeing as we may never get a chance to see production in action). Obviously this is all the product of and subject to interpretation of a number of disparate facts. However, the similarities are interesting.

I'm sure some folks may cry "qualitative rather than quantitative" (as I get that on occasion), however since there's not really a dominant PROVABLE theory, all theories are educated guesses subject to verification (IE, process replication). And I'd still wager that it'll be easier to reproduce concretions matching the originals factoring in electricity than trying to reproduce via "seepage" (though I'd love to see spherical objects made via seepage in the lab, just to understand the process we're talking about). Seeing as seepage doesn't seem to account for the completely spherical nature of the things, the sealed bubbles in the middle rather than flat or indented spots on one surface due to liquids, bubbles and gravity. And the so-called "handles" "spikes" and "stalks" seem a bit tough to explain too, especially if they turn out to be made of the same material as the concretions (which they generally have in the sandstone spikes in california).