| Day 1. We left Adrian
in the morning, in the rain and arrived at camp about 7:30; a half an
hour after it quit raining. |
| Day 2. We spent the day looking
at cool volcanic and plutonic rocks. |
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We hiked up to the Devils
Honeycomb were we saw, and climbed around on, excellent exposures of
columnar jointed basalt. These columns formed as the lava flows cooled
and solidified. |
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More examples of excellent columnar jointing.
On the right is John Parvin for scale.
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Our second stop Elephant Rocks.
Here Precambrian granite has weathered into really cool looking formations,
called tors. |
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Yep, the vans are getting
old... We had to feed it more than gasoline. |
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We made a U-turn to
stop at this quarry to look at volcanic tephra. Took us a while to make
the turn. Sarah got the van VERY, VERY stuck! But the ride out after
she backed down the road a half mile pasesed about 50 no tresspassing
signs was a thrill that would rival any roller-coaster! The guys in
the back seat of the van went flying! |
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Were were headed for
some outcrops near the Tom Sauk Power Plant but the power plant was
expanding and the area was closed off for construction. So we looked
at the dam and the scenery instead... |
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Late in the day we stopped
at Royal Gorge to look at the volcanic rocks, but the students were
tired and seemed more interested in the creek... |
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On the way back to camp we stopped
at the St. Francis River where John Parvin showed off for us. |
The River had flooded significantly
earlier in the spring. Note the flood level represented by the leaves. |
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At camp we cooked tasty tacos.
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And relaxed...
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John showed us a creative
way to size firewood.
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| Day 3. Another fun-filled
day of learning about igneous rocks. |
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After a death march-like
slog through the woods we finally found the quarry just off the trail,
far uphill from where we had hiked down to. |
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And we looked at some
really cool diabase dikes along the side of the road. |
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Here was a weathered
dike hosted by an ignimbrite. The overlying gravels mark an inpressive
unconformity. |
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This is the old entrance to Silver
Mine. |
Here we collected minerals from
the mine dumps. |
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From the mine we had
a great view of the St. Francis River, the breached dam and some kayakers. |
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Sarah was kind and cooked dinner
Saturday night! |
| Day 4. As we were packing up, it
started to rain again. Seems we hit the weather just right! |
