The 1st Rock City Park EarthCache EarthCache
PaRacers: Another fun and educational season but the park will be closed until May 1. I will enable it in April, have a good winter!
The 1st Rock City Park EarthCache
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Rock City Park located south of Olean, New York on Route 16, is the world’s largest exposure of gigantic quartz conglomerate boulders. It features a three-quarter mile natural trail consisting of various steps and paths between and around the formations.
Rock City Park is a prehistoric ocean floor called ocean spar. Quartz flowed from high mountains through swift rivers to this area and settled in the sand and mud. After millions of years it formed into a natural concrete, which is quartz conglomerate, also called puddingstone. The quartz is estimated to be a half billion years old and the rock three hundred twenty million years old. It extends from here to West Virginia, seventy feet deep and into Ohio where it is about fourteen hundred feet deep.
During the uplift of the Appalachian Mountain Range and after erosion down to the level of two thousand three hundred fifty feet, this rock was left barren. What makes Rock City Park unique and one of the great scenic wonders of the world is that the glacier did not touch this area making it the largest formation of its type in the world. The uplift, frost, weathering and erosion has broken this giant rock floor into huge monolithic formations. You will be astounded by gigantic boulders several stories high with huge crevices sometimes referred to as “streets.” This area is believed to have been a fortress for the Seneca Indians at one time. “Three Sisters”, “Balancing Rock" (a 1000 ton boulder), and “Indian Face” rock are just some of the natural rock formations found along Rock City’s scenic trails. From “Signal Rock,” once used as a signaling point by Indians, visitors enjoy the 1,000 square mile panoramic view of the Enchanted Mountains. Visitors are furnished with a self-guided map of the trail, which is uneven and narrow at times, necessitating comfortable clothing and good walking shoes and takes about an hour to complete. During spring and summer you will see a variety of wildflowers, ferns, moss, Mountain Laurel (which blooms late in June) and of course enjoy the quiet serenity of the forest nestled among this geological wonder.
Logging of this EarthCache site involves visitors undertaking an educational task that relates to the site: What is the name of the largest free standing rock formation, and what is it's estimated height? You can have someone of known height stand next to it and you can use their height as a scale to estimate the formation's height from the main trail. Please send your answers to the cache owner - do not post online. There is also a special EarthCache Log Book at the visitors center for you to sign. Please log the date, your user name, hometown and any other comments you'd like. A picture of your party posted with your log is always appreciated but not required.
While you're signing the log book at the visitors center, be sure and check out the mineral light room and the museum.
The park is open May-October, 9:00AM – 5:00PM DAILY. Last hiking trail tickets are sold at 4:00PM. Rock City Park is closed during inclement weather.
Entrance fees: adults (13 – 61 years) $8.00 , seniors (62 years +)$5.00, children (6 – 12 years) $5.00, and children (0 -5 years) FREE.
For further information, please call Toll Free at 866-404-ROCK or (716) 372-7790. Or go to http://www.rockcitypark.com
Rock City is the largest known exposure of quartz conglomerate (pudding stone) in the world. These rocks were formed about 320 million years ago during what is called the Pennsylvanian Period. They represent river and delta sediments that were deposited on the eroded surface of Devonian shales. The source seems to be the southeast where crystalline igneous and metamorphic rocks with many milky quartz veins were exposed. Long transportation of the sediments selectively weathered and eroded the non-quartz minerals. The rocks are now on a slope with the heavier Olean conglomerate sliding downhill (mass-wasting) forming the "Rock City" with it's "streets" and "alleys". The larger quartz pebbles at the bottom of the layers represent greater energy (velocity) of the streams which varied from time to time. The crevices between the rocks (called joints or fractures) may have formed during the collision of North Africa and North East America during the Appalacian (Alleghenian) Orogeny in the Permian Period 280 to 225 million years ago. Some geologists believe they were formed during the rifting (splitting) of Pangaea (supercontinent formed during Applachian Orogeny) to form the modern Atlantic Ocean and during the Triassic Period 185 million years ago. credit: Pro. Robert A. Sanders, M.C.C., retired
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