I need any information on sand formations; my friend has a formation about the size of a volleyball.?

Question

She has had it quiet a few years, and was told that it took hundreds and hundreds of years for such structure to form. It has disk like plates sticking out from it all around, making it resemble a star structure. It is supposedly a "Dessert Sand Star".

Answer 1

I think what your friend has is also known as a "Gypsum Rose".

Gypsum mineral have "disk or blade like" crystals that often grow into a ball of many crystals, radiating outward from the center. If they grow in a sandy environment - the mineral can partly dissolve and be replaced by sand grains to produce a "Desert Rose".

If that's what you have it's a really big one - I have only seen fist sized specimens. Check out the links. I'm interested if this is what it is.

Answer 2

I have to agree with the first poster, it sounds like a dead-on description of Rosetta Gypsum, also known as Rose Gypsum or Desert Rose.  Smaller ones, the size of a golf ball or baseball, are more common, but they can get to be quite large in the right conditions.