Fairbank Little Erractic EarthCache
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This EarthCache will bring you to the city Fairbank, Iowa
In 1854 a village was laid out in the north part of the township by F. J. Everett and C. W. Bacon, and called Fairbank. Afterwards an addition was made thereto by Frederick Patterson, and called Patterson's addition. The first store kept here was by John McCuniff, in 1855, and the building in which he kept it was made of oak lumber procured at Everett & Bacon's mill, mentioned above.
Ice Ages, periods in Earth’s history when sea ice or glaciers have covered a significant portion of the planet’s surface and significant cooling of the atmosphere has occurred. Earth has existed for about 4.5 billion years. During that time it has experienced several ice ages, each lasting tens of millions of years. The total of these episodes may account for as much as 15 to 20 percent of the planet’s history. The icy cover has ranged from about 10 percent to about 30 percent of the entire surface of the planet.
Glacial erratics: Are boulders of igneous and metamorphic rock, native to geographic regions well north of Iowa, and carried into Iowa by glacial advances over 500,000 years ago. They were concentrated at the land surface by later erosion, which removed the fine-grained deposits once surrounding them. Glacial erratics in Iowa are not difficult to identify. The vast majority are igneous or metamorphic rocks, rather than the usual sedimentary rocks of sandstone, limestone, dolomite, and shale that constitute the bedrock under most of Iowa. If you pick up a granite rock, composed of interlocking crystals of pink feldspar and glassy quartz, you can be sure it is not native and that it came from outside the state, most likely carried by glacial ice.
1 Tell me what you think the settlers of the area thought the rock came from ( Try to forget what you know now)
2 Measure how how big the the glacial erratic is ? Lenght and hieght.
3 Describe to me the way the surface of this erratic feels. Describe the color and texture of the minerals in the erratic. .
4 When logging this Earthcache, please upload a picture of yourself/team with the erratic in the background and have your GPS clearly visible. .
Thanks to Maurice Welsh "Mayor of Fairbank" for a letting show you this Glacial feature.
Source of the info came from wikipedia and
igsb.uiowa.edu,
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