MQU Earth Sciences Garden [Macquarie Park] EarthCache

🛰 MQU Earth Sciences Garden
[Macquarie Park] 🌏

Welcome to the Jim Rose Earth Sciences Garden, located on Macquarie University’s Macquarie Park campus.

This teaching garden, featuring a distinctive geological and fossil history. It is a key component of the university’s Plant Evolution Walk and provides visitors with a unique educational experience.

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Land on which this cache is located, the Wallamattagal People of the Darug Nation, and their continuing connection to Country and community. We pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

Their land stretches from the north shore of the Parramatta River, including the City of Ryde, from the intersection of the Lane Cove River and west to Parramatta.

We recognise the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Australians and we are committed to honouring their unique cultural and spiritual relationships to the land, waters and seas, and their rich contribution to society.

Are you a CITO Crusader?

Every geocache presents us with a perfect opportunity to CITO (Cache In Trash Out).

Please help clean up some litter while you're here visiting this cache and attach a photo to your log to show off your much appreciated efforts!

Finding this Geocache

Instructions and How to Verify Your Find

Once you have visited all Waypoints and complete the EarthCache requirements you can post your find, as per the EarthCache guidelines.

You will, however, need to verify your find by sending me a message via the Message Center with the GC code and cache name (GC5XAPA MQU Earth Sciences Garden) on the first line and provide your answers to the questions listed below, otherwise your log may be removed. To do this, visit my profile and click on Send Message.

Adhering to the EarthCache guidelines, please be careful not to include any detail in your log or photos that may assist others in answering the questions without actually visiting the sites and carrying out the fieldwork.

Make sure you stick to the designated paths and leave no trace. Please do not interfere with the geological material, vegetation or wildlife – the tasks can be completed without the need to damage the environment.

OPTIONAL: Take a photo of yourself, as well as any other members of your party, with GPS in hand, standing in front of the sculpture in the middle of the garden. Upload the photo to your log.

EarthCache Questions:

1) What would have been the prominent contaminating element in the water or mud during the fossilisation process of the petrified wood? Describe the look and feel, as well as the noticeable characteristics of the fossils.

2) What type of rock are the cylindrical bore cores made from, explain your answer. Describe the look and feel, as well as the noticeable characteristics of the rock.

3) Describe the look and feel of the fossilised limestone, including details of any notable characteristics. Based upon the visual evidence, postulate on the original organic material which would have created the fossils.

4) Who is the pathway through the central area of the courtyard named after, what is he the 'father' of and what is the significance of the pathway?

FTF honours: bella at waggy & Kid Ron Satan

Earth Sciences Lesson: Geological Material

Petrified Wood is a fossil in which the organic remains of terrestrial vegetation have been replaced by minerals to form stone. It is a slow process by which plant material is buried by sediment and protected from decay by oxygen and organisms. Groundwater rich in dissolved solids then flows through the sediment replacing the original plant material with silica, calcite, pyrite or another inorganic material, such as opal. This process turns the material into a fossil, which often exhibits well preserved details of the bark, wood and cellular structures. The presence of certain contaminating elements in the water or mud during the fossilisation process will give the final product a particular colour hue; for example, carbon (black), cobalt (green/blue), chromium (green/blue), copper (green/blue), iron oxides (red/brown/yellow), manganese (pink/orange) and manganese oxides (blackish/yellow).

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed of sand-sized grains of mineral, rock or organic material. It also contains a cementing material that binds the sand grains together and may contain a matrix of silt or clay-size particles that occupy the spaces between the sand grains.

Fossiliferous Limestone is a limestone that contains obvious and abundant fossils. These are normally shell and skeletal fossils of the organisms that produced the limestone. Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed primarily of calcium carbonate in the form of the mineral calcite. It most commonly forms in clear, warm, shallow marine waters. It is typically an organic sedimentary rock that forms from the accumulation of shell, coral, algal and faecal debris. The rock can also be a formed by the precipitation of calcium carbonate from lake or ocean water.

(Sources & further reading: Geo-Sites by John Byrnes and Geology.com).

About the Jim Rose Earth Sciences Garden

Located on Macquarie University's Macquarie Park Campus, the Jim Rose Earth Sciences Garden is a teaching garden, featuring a distinctive geological and fossil history. It is a key component of the university’s Plant Evolution Walk and provides visitors with a unique educational experience.

The Jim Rose Earth Sciences Garden showcases the biogeography of geology, botany and palaeobiology. It is a key component of Macquarie University’s evolutionary history walk - a self-guided educational tour around the campus, which is marked out by information signs.

The gardens were developed as an evolutionary garden in 1982 and it is adjacent to the Earth Sciences buildings at Macquarie University. Jim Rose was the Head of the School of Earth Sciences at the time and the garden was named in his honour.

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