Pipe stone also called Catlinite, from Oregon, USA

Catlinite (also called pipestone) is a type of argillite (metamorphosed mudstone), usually brownish-red in color, which occurs in a matrix of Sioux Quartzite. Because it is fine-grained and easily worked, it is prized by Native Americans, primarily those of the Plains nations for use in making ceremonial pipes such as chanunpas. Pipestone quarries are located and preserved in Pipestone National Monument outside Pipestone, Minnesota, in Pipestone County, Minnesota, and at the Pipestone River in Ontario, Canada. The term Catlinite came into use after the American painter George Catlin visited the quarries in Minnesota in 1835; but it was Philander Prescott who first wrote about the rock in 1832, noting that evidence indicated that American Indians had been using the quarries since at least as far back as 1637. The red catlinite from the Pipestone, Minnesota quarries is a soft claystone bed which occurs between layers of hard Sioux Quartzite. Only hand tools are used to reach the catlinite so it takes a long time to get to it. Only enrolled Native Americans are allowed to quarry for the stone at the Pipestone National Monument, and thus it is protected from over-mining. Another quarry is located near Hayward, Wisconsin on the reservation, which the Ojibwa have used for centuries. The stone there is harder than the stone from Pipestone National Monument. High grade red pipestone from Delta, Utah. Utah pipestone has a more variable range of hard and soft forms, since it occurs as layers between deposits of harder slates. Utah pipestone is a by-product of slate mining in Delta, Utah, and several natural deposits have been mined and used for pipemaking by Native Americans in the area for millennia.