This sedimentary rock has hardened over the many years with sand shells, small pebbles, grains of sand and rocks of various sizes. In comparison to our 4.5 billion year old Earth, these sand shells might as well be brand new, when in reality they could be up to 1,000 years old. If the sandstone were to be replaced with calcite it would completely change the subclass of rock, it would then be chemical & organic limestone. The variation in sand stone is due to different rates of deposition and change in patterns of the sediment movement (Mc Knight, p. 384). These tightly compacted varying stones and shells will be weathered away by wind and waves over time and could eventually be reduced to a rock the size of your hand.
Shown in the picture above is volcanic extrusive igneous rock known as andesite. They were imported here to Laguna Beach to help minimize erosion (Merton Hill, p. 10-11). Extrusive Igneous rocks are formed on Earths surface due to lava quickly cooling or mixing with different materials such as ash or cinders from an eruption. There are two different types of extrusive igneous rocks; Plutonic and Volcanic. Andesite is known for being gray in color and being made up of very coarse grainy textures, which make it much harder to break down than sedimentary rocks. Unlike loose gravel and other sediments igneous rocks are known for being able to slow down seismic waves from earthquakes which cause less damage to surface structures.
The picture above shows the vast difference that there can be in animals, to the right is Emerita Analoga (sand crab), and to the left is Zalophus Californianus (California Sea Lion). The sand crab is an invertebrate while the seal is a vertebrate and mammal. Invertebrates make up 90% of all an...
... middle of paper ...
...nd violet wavelengths are the shortest, and violet is the least visible to the human eye. These wavelengths are scattered throughout the day and caused by a redirection of the light-waves direction due to gas molecules in the atmosphere (Mc Knight, p. 84). When the sun is setting towards the end of the day there are few blue wavelengths left and we see orange and red which are dominant and the longest wavelengths of visible light to the human eye. At the bottom of the photo (closest to the setting sun) red and orange are the dominant visible colors with the occasional blue and almost violet. If our eyes could not see orange and red our sunsets would be a dark blue or black.
Works Cited
Hess, D., McKnight, T. L., & Tasa, D. (2011). McKnight's physical geography (Custom ed. for California State University, Northridge ; 2nd Calif. ed.). New York: Learning Solutions.
Marshak, S. (2009) Essentials of Geology, 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, ch. 11, p. 298-320.
The shelf-edge includes carbonate-to-clastic facies transition and tectonic uplift and erosion of the carbonates followed by deposition of the clastics. The Saint Peter Sandstone is a well-sorted, almost pure quartz arenite deposited during a major mid-Ordovician low stand. Clastics spread across an exposed carbonate platform by transportation. This is shown by the well-rounded, frosted texture of the quartz grains.
Text Box: 6) Paths meet- 174 552 Text Box: 7) Stepping stones - 173 553 Text Box: 8) Near Burford Lodge – 174 555 Text Box: 9) Back to the start- 172 560 Dip
...e morphed it into the quartzite that is seen surrounding the butte (4). Rocks that undergo this process are called metamorphic rock, which is the same as the rock seen years ago by dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. The quartzite rocks were formerly seafloor sediment that was forced upwards, and then surrounded by lava basalt flows. Once erupted through fissures and floods through out most of the area, lava flow eventually created enough basalt to form a thickness of about 1.8 kilometers (1). All of this basalt flow eventually led to the covering of most mountains, leaving the buttes uncovered. The igneous lava flows and loess is reasons that the Palouse consists of such sprawling hills, and rich soil for farming (2). In result of the lava flows, the Precambrian rock Quartzite was formed. And lastly covered by the glacial loess, which were carried by the wind.
Quartzite is a non-foliated metamorphic rock. This rock is intrusive and forms when exposed to extreme amounts of heat and pressure. Over a billion years ago, there was an ocean where Kamiak Butte is. This ocean floor was made of sand, as time went on oceans receded and the exposed sand underwent processes that turned it into sandstone – or as we learned in class the process of lithification. Years later, this sandstone would morph into the quartzite that is present now.2
More recently than Zeck’s work, Cesare et al. (1997), only divided the xenoliths into two main types: garnet-biotite-sillimanite and spinel-cordierite xenoliths. The quartz-cordierite rocks, distinguished by Zeck (1970), were interpreted as the products of interaction between garnet-biotite-sillimanite xenoliths and blebs of mafic magma and are not recognised. The xenoliths were observed to contain widespread occurrences of rhyolitic glass as...
and Metamorphic rocks can be found. There are also a lot of crusted plates, and violent
van der Pluijm, B., and Marshak, S. (2004). Earth Structure. New York: WW Norton & Company.
Blij, H.J. de , Peter O. Muller, Jan Nijman, and Antoinette M.G.A WinklerPrins. The World Today Concepts and Regions in Geography. Fifth Edition ed. United States of America: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011. Print.
Pabook.libraries.psu.edu, (2014). The Pennsylvania Center for the Book - Rockview SCI. [online] Available at: http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/Rockview.html [Accessed 7 May. 2014].
Concretions are hard compact accumulations of mineral matter and are found inside sedimentary rocks. Some examples of this are Sandstone and in some weathered volcanic rock. Concretions come in many different shapes and the most common of the shapes is spherical or disk shaped. Concretions are the most varied-shaped rocks of the sedimentary world. The way concretions come to be is the mineral matter concentrates around the nucleus of a host rock. The nucleus is often organic such as a tooth or leaf or shell or fossil. As the mineral matter concentrates around the nucleus it forms harder zones known as nodules.
Basalt is a commonly occurring igneous rock. More specifically however, Basalt falls under the category of Mafic Rocks. Mafic rocks have a poor Silica content, approximately 50% (Charles, Diane, Lisa, 2010) and contain high concentrations of metal oxides. Basalt is a fine grained rock containing predominantly ferromagnesian minerals, followed by plagioclase feldspar. The colour of Basalt ranges from dark grey to black and is relatively featureless. See Fig 1.
The features of the earth are the domain of physical geographers and their work includes research about
There are two types of Igneous rocks. The first is intrusive, which is when the magma slowly cools beneath the earths surface. Because the magma is cooling slowly it allows the rocks end result to form crystal- like pigments. Examples of intrusive igneous rocks are Diorite, Gabbro, Granite, Pegmatite, and Periodotite. All of these rocks are course and grainy. The other type is an extrusive Igneous rock. This lava erupts onto the surface of the earth and cools rapidly also forming crystals, the lava cools so fast that at times it allows the rocks to form as clear-like glass. Examples of these rocks are Andesite, Basalt, Obsidian, Pumice, Rhyolite, Scoria,
De, Blij Harm J., and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts. New York: J. Wiley, 1997. 340. Print.