Mill Race Puddingstone EarthCache
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The stone was named by English settlers in this area, about 1840, because it looked like their boiled suet pudding with cherries and currants (Christmas Pudding).
Puddingstone, or Pudding stone, is a conglomerate rock made up of a mixture of different, irregular sized grains and pebbles held together by a finer matrix, usually formed from quartz sand called quartzite . The pudding stone pebbles vary in color from red to brown and pink to purple. Pudding stones are considered metamorphic and sedimentary. The sedimentary rock is formed in river channels and may contain various minerals such as chromite, corundum, platinum, diamond, gold, sapphire, and zircon.
There are different types of puddingstone, with different makeup and geographical distribution. These include:
- Hertfordshire puddingstone, principally found in Hertfordshire, England
- Bearfort Mountain. Boonton, Rockaway Township puddingstone, is a purple puddingstone found in northern New Jersey. Geologically, it is formed of Paleozoic sandstone and quartz conglomerate. The puddingstone Schunemunk conglomerate is studded with pebbles of pink sandstone and white quartz.Roxbury puddingstone, principally found in and around Boston, Massachusetts
- Roxbury puddingstone, principally found in and around Boston, Massachusetts
- Plumstead Common has a fine example of puddingstone, probably left behind after the last Ice Age
- St. Joseph Island puddingstone, found in the St. Mary's River area of Northern Ontario contains red and brown pieces of jasper, a kind of quartz. (Obtained from Wikipedia)
Michigan Puddingstones were formed a billion years ago in northeast Canada. During the Ice Age, they were pushed down through Eastern Michigan from Ontario Canada by the glaciers. The white is quartz sand which has cemented itself together over millions of years. Mixed with it is a combination of other pebbles and stones of various sizes, shapes and colors. Some may even contain fossils. Another name for puddingstone is quartz conglomerate, meaning sedimentary rock composed of quartz and various other minerals.
The history of this rock starts in the Huronian period of the Proterozoic era, approximately one billion years ago. During this period, extensive sediments were deposited in or adjacent to seas, lakes, and other bodies of water. Much of this material, derived by erosion from the older rocks, was in the form of fine sand particles and rounded pebbles of gray and white quartz. The bright red and brown jasper pebbles were deposited over small parts of an east-west band about 50 miles long lying north and northwest of what is now Bruce Mines, Ontario, Canada. Sand, free of the pebbles, formed sandstone under the weight of later sediments, the individual grains becoming cemented by silicone and iron- bearing waters. Mixed sand and pebbles became conglomerates or sandstone conglomerates by the same process. Under the heat and pressures of later volcanic activity, sandstones and conglomerates were transformed into quartzite and quartzide conglomerates. Weathering and erosion uncovered some of the rocks, and loose fragments in great masses were gathered and moved by the Labrador portion of the continental ice sheets.
The stone is located within the Mill Race Historical Village Park. Hours are from dawn to dusk. Please be advised that the park is closed for private events at times. If you have questions or want to find out if there’s an event before you head out, call the Village between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm Monday thru Friday at 248-348-1845.
To log this as a find, you must email (DarrylW4@MotorCityCacheMachine.com) or message (through the ) me the answers to these two questions:
- Any log without an email of the answers will be deleted.
- Tell me which type this pudding stone is
- Tell me where this pudding stone was found
- Take a picture of you (or any part of you) or your GPSr with the stone and post it in you log. Do not show the ring on the ground as to not give away the answer(Optional)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
1) Ernq gur qrfpevcgvba 2) Ybbx ng gur obggbz bs gur fgbar
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