It's Smeltering at Chillagoe EarthCache
It's Smeltering at Chillagoe
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Welcome to the Chillagoe Smelter area.
From this area at Ground Zero you can see over the old smelters to the south, to the north Metal Hills and looking to the north east the Feathertop Ranges.
The Chillagoe landscape is an ancient land that was shaped by recurring cycles of stretching and compression. Stretching in one region coincided with compression in an adjacent region.
The regional basement rocks here are 1700 million years old and overlie even older rocks, which form the ancient Australian Continent. In a period from 470 to 370 million years ago the region was stretched - the Palmerville Fault formed about 5km to the south west, and the Chillagoe area sagged below sea level forming the Hodgkinson Basin. The basement rocks to the south west were eroded and deposited as sediments in the marine basin. Basalt volcano's erupted and coral reefs grew in the shallow sea. Corals, shellfish and crinoids were abundant and were preserved in the reefs as fossils.
The nearby Chillagoe Caves are limestone and marble which developed during three significant periods
- from 300to 280 mya (million years ago) the volcanic hot spring and geyser period.
- then from 240 to 140 mya a covering of volcanic rock was stripped by erosion.
- finally from 70 mya to the present the Carpentaria Basin sandstones were eroded in association with the unwarping of the eastern highlands.
To log this cache you will need to perform the following requirements;
Task 1: Looking NNW from the posted co-ordinates at approximately 1km in distance you will see a hill of rocks which resemble a big pile of marbles.
Using the information you've learnt at GZ describe how you think they have formed.
Task 2: At GZ there is a metal plate bolted between the post of the shelter and the ground, it's a quarter circle in shape, how many holes are in it?
Task 3: (Optional)Take a picture of you and your clearly visible GPSr from near GZ with some of the smelters in the background and add it to you log.
Once you’ve completed the cache please submit your answers via Email using the Email function of the gc.com profile page then go ahead and log your find. I will at some stage view your answers, if there are any concerns we will contact you. We won’t be replying to correct answers.
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Treasures
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