A few weeks ago, Lockwood took me on his Oregon State University geology tour. He’s written it up for ye, and I’ll just pop in a few (billion) photographs so you can do more of a sort of virtual tour thing. I’ve got so many photos I’ve decided to break it up into parts so as not to crash any computers.
I like this campus. For one, it never seems choked with people. Two, they didn’t shy away from using lots and lots of natural stone. This makes geologists squee.
Stop 1: Interzone
Lockwood tells you to look at the sidewalk. That’s because you’ll find yummy bits in the concrete.
And, drumroll please, my favorite one ever:
I love opal so much, you have no idea. Having it pointed out to me in a worn-down old sidewalk was one of those great moments that make you become inordinately excited.
Stop 2: Kearny Hall
So here we have a nice contrast between fire and water: a nice diabase on the bottom (fire) and sandstone on top (water – or wind, possibly).
Stop 3: I haven’t got a picture, so we’ll move right along to…
Stop 4: Owen Hall
Lots of geologic art in here, which I shall get to when I get round to the series I’ve planned on geologic art. In the meantime:
Trust me when I say I wanted to pick up that ball of serpentinite and run home with it. Problem being, it weighs many times more than I do. So picking it up is not possible, and running is right out. But it’s delicious. You can learn more about serpentinite here. Also, I’m sure someone curated a list of links when the geoblogosphere was fighting to keep it as California’s state rock – if someone could leave us a link to that list, I’d appreciate it!
Stop 5. Covell Hall
This is where unisex bathrooms would’ve come in handy, but it’s okay, ladies: the second floor restroom may be all boring and modern manufactured materials, but the first floor has got exactly what we want: stylolitic limestone! Check this stuff out. ‘Tis awesome, and our stylolites are better than the boys’ stylolites.
Stop 6.
So here’s this lovely little courtyard, and a big ol’ chunk of half-polished diabase. I like big ol’ chunks o’ rock, especially when people have been wise enough to label them as “art.” They are artistic. They are beautiful.
Here endeth Phase I. Phase II will see some really wild crystallization, and some of my favorite rock in the world (like most of them aren’t, right?).
Who says you can’t take geology indoors? :) Or at least, take it to an urban setting? Excellent photos; looking forward to the next installment!
This is so great! I especially love the opal etc. in the sidewalk. I need to learn more geo-facts, I think, as it seems to change how you look at just about everything, including (especially) the ground beneath your feet.
It would also be amusing to print out some museum-style placards explaining geology trivia like this, and install them in public places.
Off the top of my head, my recollection is that stylolites represent formerly open cavities dissolved in limestone. Water working its way through these cavities brings with it fine-grained clastic material that gets deposited on the floor of these cavities. Later collapse of the limestone and re-cementation of it closes up the cavities and leaves behind the dark, jiggly lines of the shale/silt-sized clastic grains. The stylolites originally formed with a generally horizontal orientation but the ones you have pictured have been rotated roughly 90 degrees in the process of being installed.
Or not…I’ve been out of grad school too many years to trust my memory about such things. Now I’m off to the Google to see how I did.
GACK…I give me a D- on my previous answer. Oh well, nice to update my memory banks every so often.
The campus field trip was something I used to do as a TA when I was at the University of Illinois. Rocks of all types were available including a big granite boulder with the year of its donation (?) inscribed (late 1800s as I recall). I would do a quick and dirty calculation of how long the boulder would last based on how much the inscribed letters and numbers had eroded in the 100 or so years the boulder had been sitting there.
Good times, good times…
Next time my alma mater comes begging for donations, I’ll offer them a boulder.
A boulder with the possibility of an embedded opal, just to keep them guessing.
Hm, serpentinite links. I should have a link to a page of links, but this is certainly worth the visit if you’re interested – it’s where I had read the most about the issue:
http://geotripper.blogspot.com/search?q=Serpentine
Oh, this was the one:
http://highway8a.blogspot.com/2010/07/serpentine-group-of-minerals.html