Geode Grotto EarthCache
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The Providence Home Geode Grotto in Jasper, IN fills four city blocks. It was the inspiration of Father Philip Ottavi, the Director of the Providence Home for retarded men. When some handball courts from were removed, Ottavi decided to build something spiritual on the property. His design was based on the Grotto of Lourdes, France. Geodes were chosen as a primary building material. They are plentiful in south-central Indiana (the Geode Belt) where they have been used in landscaping and homes since the 19th century. They also have religious symbolism. It took Father Philip and a crew of about 10 men from the Home about ten years (from around 1960 to 1970) to build the Grotto.
In addition to the many shrines built within the area, there are fountains, flower planters, benches, lamp-posts, birdbaths, and walls - all encrusted with geodes. Other materials, such as marble, granite, seashells, rosaries and pictures were also embedded into the planters, posts and sidewalks. The cave-like Mother of God Shrine features a marble statue of Mary and a ceiling with faux stalactites. The geodes used for the Grotto came from near Heltonville, IN a few miles NE of Bedford, Indiana.
A fashionable Indiana rock, geodes are mostly found in Morgan, Monroe, Brown, Lawrence and Washington Counties. Most natives of those counties could tell a geode from an ordinary rock, but those of us not born and raised in south-central Indiana often don’t know the identity of these unique natural objects.
Indiana geodes originated about 350 million years ago, along with rocks that were deposited while Indiana was underwater (think of a briny middle-eastern tidal flat – very salty and very shallow). The prevailing theory is that geodes originated as an under-sea-floor nodule of the mineral anhydrite. Conditions changed and the anhydrite was replaced, through groundwater flow, by other minerals, resulting in the vast quantity of geodes that we see in only certain rock layers today. By definition, geodes have a hard chalcedony rind, and can either be hollow, with their walls lined by various crystals, or solid. A Chalcedony Rind is a form of silica, composed of a very fine growth of quartz crystals. It is usually of a waxy luster and may be semitransparent.
To log this earthcache as a find email me the answers to these questions: Do not post the answers in your log.
1. Besides brown/tan, what other colors of geodes are found at the grotto?
2. Find a geode where the interior is exposed and tell what percentage of the interior is filled with crystals?
3. In the columns to either side of the entrance to the grotto, estimate the average size of the geodes?
4. Take a picture of you in front of the grotto. This is not required but would be fun to see.
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