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Comment by Kellan Shanahan on January 19, 2016 at 7:52pm

My guess was that what we're seeing are veins of harder/denser material running through the  matrix.

Voronoi and marching cubes instantly popped into my head, one could populate a surface with a gradient of points as the voronoi centers, like this, which would probably make for a more realistic looking cluster of cells. 

Comment by ng5 Alex on January 19, 2016 at 7:05pm

Hello,

Nick Tyrer has shared some of his 3d prints that seem similar to this natural decay.

Comment by mark zirinsky on January 19, 2016 at 6:57pm

funny that you should ask. the technical reason is that when this sandstone formed (I assume from the photo it is sandstone) there were very minor differences in density, porosity and cementing agent, usually silica/calcium/iron oxide. These differences likely formed according to , amongst other factors, chemical concentration varying in distance from the unit sphere corresponding to a volume of chemical influence. And, guess what, the reason that this attracted your eye is, they look like, and I think they could be modeled, a 3-d veroni. 

This is acomon feature in meany desert environments, the Colorado Plateu including Utah, in North America, various places in Morocco, Iran, Israel and a few others.

Comment by Kellan Shanahan on January 19, 2016 at 5:11pm

Wind-carved depressions found while camping this weekend. Trying to find more info on how the cells form as opposed to eroding the surface evenly. 

Comment by David Rutten on January 19, 2016 at 11:34am

?