Greenleaf Lake's Sandy History
Earthcache
This Earthcache is located along the beautiful Greenleaf Lake Trail. This 16 mile primitive trail begins and ends in Greenleaf State Park, and circles the scenic 930 acre Greenleaf Lake. The trail is designed for overnight backpacking but is also excellent for day hikers. The trail passes through areas which allow hikers to view many species of wildlife. Mountain Bikers also use this trail so keep an eye out.
There are many types of rocks, and rock formations in this area, one of the more prevalent being sandstone. Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains, such as quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but some colors are more common than others. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colours of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions.
Rock formations that are primarily composed of sandstone usually allow percolation of water and other fluids and are porous enough to store large quantities, making them valuable aquifers and petroleum reservoirs. Fine-grained aquifers, such as sandstones, are more apt to filter out pollutants from the surface than are rocks with cracks and crevices, such as limestone or other rocks fractured by seismic activity.
To claim this Earthcache answer the following questions:
1: What type of rock was present before the formation of the sandstone, and how was it formed?
2: After the formation of the sandstone and shale, what did pressure from the earth push up to form?
3: Examine the sandstone outcropping, how many layers do you think it has?
While not required in any way, please feel free to take and upload many pictures of this beautiful area to share with myself and other cachers!