The Dorchester Pot was a metal vase-like object that was recovered in two pieces after an explosion used to break up rock at Meeting House Hill, in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1851. According to text reprinted from the Boston Transcript, a local paper, in the June 5, 1852 Scientific American, the two pieces were found, loose among debris thrown out by the explosion. Apparently, it was inferred from the locations of the two pieces of this pot among the explosion debris that this pot had been blasted from solid puddingstone (conglomerate), which is part of the Roxbury Conglomerate, from about 10 feet below the surface of Meeting House Hill. The story has been used by creationists and fringe theorists as evidence that conventional models of geology or the length of the human presence on earth are wrong. Mainstream commentators identify it as a Victorian era candlestick or pipe holder. Geological context The Roxbury Conglomerate, from which this pot is alleged to have come, has been dated as having accumulated between 570 and 593 million years ago and during the Ediacaran Period. It accumulated at the bottom of a deep rift basin, which was filled with marine water, within submarine fan and slope environments. Metamorphism has significantly altered the Roxbury Conglomerate to sub-greenschist facies and created within it a well-developed and closely spaced slaty cleavage that is oriented approximately perpendicular to bedding. Tectonism has also flattened, stretched, indented, and fractured the pebbles and associated matrix of the Roxbury Conglomerate to the point that it often has the appearance of flow structure. The pot The bell-shaped vessel was described as being about high, in diameter at the base and in diameter at the top. The body of this object was said to resemble zinc alloyed with silver in color. Its description said that "On the sides there are six figures of a flower, or bouquet, beautifully inlaid with pure silver, and around the lower part of the vessel a vine, or wreath, inlaid also with silver." The primary source of information about this object, provides neither any picture of nor age estimate for the Dorchester Pot. Fringe theories The Dorchester Pot is often discussed as an out-of-place artifact by various popular books and articles about unsolved mysteries, alternative science, and different types of creationism. As part of a short description, an image purporting to be of the Dorchester Pot appears on page 46