Look at the pinkish/light rocks that are in the area.
- Are they unform in color or do they have blotches or layers of color?
- Do the rocks have any pebbles or cobbles in them or are they solid quartzite? Describe some that you may find.
- Looking at recently broken or chipped pieces, when quartzite weathers and gets older does it look the same or is there a "desert varnish" on it or react to the air/water?
- Add a photo of you from the location or of an identifiable item (paper with trackable name). Posting a photo pulled from the internet, or photoshopped will result in instant deletion.
Quarzite
Quartzite is actaully sand, or it was sand. So it is just sandstone right? Well if you look closely you can see that it is no longer sandstone as we all know it. Sand is laid down in vast piles and eventually material is piles on top of it. Large amounts of sand was deposited in the Precambrian era. 4.5billion to 500 million years ago. This sand must be a quartz sand, not some of the other sands. Eventually other is covered, era after era. Limestones, sandstones, siltstones. This is actuall the oldest part of the island. Eventually that material is heated from below, and is under vast amounts of pressure from the thousands of feet of material on top of it.
This actually causes a change in the material. The quartz crystals start to fuse together like a ceramic. Pure quartzite is actually white, you may see some bands of quartz in the rocks. Pressing any gaps in the stone and making it a solid material. The look of the material changes from a sandpaper looking stone to a glassy looking stone. This pressed stone was pressed to about 2,600 feet thick of different degrees of pure quartzite.
Pebbles and Cobbles
Of course the quarzite can only be as pure as the material that is in the sand. Mud, silt, other stones that are washed into the lakebed will cause different inclusions. As these came from a river inviormenment many of the pebbles and larger cobbles were washed into the sands. I also some that were solid quartz crystals that were a few inches in diameter. You may find others.
Wear
Of course if hese are exposed to air/water and other materials you can get wear on the rocks. Under the right conditions the irons or other colors can come out of the surface making it white, or they may have iron oxides (red) and magnesium oxides (black) varnishes that will slowly deposit on the outside of the stone.
Quartzite is one of the hardest stones. It does not wear easily or quickly. The little that does wear does not provide much material for soil to form, and in many environments washes away before enough can form to actually have plants grow. You can usually see the outcrops because nothing is growing on it.
Big Cottonwood Deposit
This entire deposit is referred to as the big cottonwood deposit. Some of this deposit is tan, pink, redish, and even some green among the white stone. Some of the cobbles in this deposit are jasper. I found a pretty piece just north of the parking area on the top of a rock. I suspect someone will break it off and take it home sometime. As your travel south the material of the island gets younger and younger. All of this material was piled on top of this deposit. That just gives you an idea of the pressure it was under to form crystals (pun intended).