Meredith's Earthcache! A look into QUARTZ!
The Geology of John Bond Swasey Park -
Igneous-Plutonic
Welcome to Lake Waukewan. Here you will find a large boulder of
Granite rock with a beautiful vein of quartz running along this
massive boulder. Quartz is a common ingredient found in the Granite
State and the way this Granite boulder and Quartz vein are
displayed show the power of nature as it has pushed these rocks to
the surface of the earth for all of us to enjoy.
Quartz (Silicon dioxide) is often white or
colorless/transparent but can also be shades of pink, purple,
rose-red, pale brown or milky white. The shape is hexagonal;
usually prismatic crystals striated crosswise and frequently
terminated by double points (rhombohedrons.)
Quartz is an important rock-forming mineral and developed in
many different environments. It is a constituent of granite and is
usually associated with albite in granite pegmatites. Quartz is
also used as a gemstone, in the manufacture of glass and as
oscillators and filters in radio and telephone service.
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of
intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse
texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the
groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink
to dark gray or even black, depending on their chemistry and
mineralogy. Outcrops of granite tend to form tors, and rounded
massifs. Granite is formed by the slow cooling and crystallization
of magma at some depth in the earth's crust, as indicated by its
texture. Texture is course grained, occasionally with formed
crystals of potash feldspares.
Granite is an igneous rock and is formed from magma. Granitic
magma has many potential origins but it must intrude other rocks.
Most granite intrusions are emplaced at depth within the crust,
usually greater than 1.5 kilometres and up to 50 km depth within
thick continental crust.
To get credit for this EC, post a photo of you and your GPSr
like on of the above examples and answer the following questions.
(Photos must be taken from atop the rock of cacher on top of the
rock.)
1. How high off the water are you when standing at Ground Zero :
On top of rock.
2. Describe the Quartz and its size in the large crevices atop the
boulder. (It is not always a vein of Quartz.)
3. Where is the Quartz Vein on this large granite rock? Estimate
its length in feet.
If your picture is not ready then wait
until you have a photo. Logs with no photo of the actual cacher
logging the find or failure to answer questions will result in a
log deletion. Email me if you had any difficulties or problems, as
I understand that things can happen we don't expect.
Thanks.
I love it when a cache comes together, Strike
Anywhere.
Parking is nearby and this should be a fun one. We
swam here and hiked here numerous times.