Endeavour Falls is 32 kms north of Cooktown, on mostly bitumen road, this relaxing spot is on the Endeavour River and is accessed via private property ( trail head has been supplied), there is a gold coin donation for entry. Jen the property owner welcomes visitors to view the Falls, and is aware of this cache placement so you are welcome to tell her you have come for the Geocache.
DAYLIGHT HOURS ONLY No swimming.
As you may or may not already know Basalt or Blue Stone as it is also commonly known is one of the most common rock types in the world. It is a fine-grained hard rock that forms when lava flows from volcanoes which makes it an igneous rock. Basalt has high liquidus and solidus temperatures: values at the Earth's surface are near or above 1200 °C (liquidus) and near or below 1000 °C (solidus); these values are higher than those of other common igneous rocks. Usually basalt is black or grey. Basalt is a mixture of feldspar and pyroxene, a rock made mainly of silica and oxygen.
Due to it being a very hard rock and being so common, humans have used basalt for a very long time as grinding stones for grinding grains like millet and barley. Roman engineers paved a lot of roads with basalt, and today engineers still use a lot of Basalt to make roads and railway lines.
Compared to other rocks found on Earth's surface, basalts weather relatively fast. The typically iron-rich minerals oxidise rapidly in water and air, staining the rock a brown to red colour due to iron oxide. Chemical weathering also releases readily water-soluble cat irons such as calcium, sodium and magnesium, which give basaltic areas a strong buffer capacity against acidification. Calcium released by basalts binds up CO2 from the atmosphere forming CaCO3 acting as a CO2 trap.
Carbon sequestration in basalt has been studied as a means of removing carbon dioxide, produced by human industrialization, from the atmosphere. Underwater basalt deposits, scattered in seas around the globe, have the added benefit of the water serving as a barrier to the re-release of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Aside form the extremely tranquil location we brought you here to show you a feature Geo son pointed out. Now lets bare in mind he is only 7 and yes we know there are much better examples of this phemomoneon in the world we just thought it was a nice little example which was worth noting and of course an good excuse for another EC ☺
“look mum at the hexagons in the rock, its just like those big tall columns we saw on the TV”
He was referring to a Doco we watched about numbers in nature and the Geological feature he was referring too was Columnar Basalts such as Devils Tower in the US or Giants Causeway in Ireland.
Depending on the water level you may or may not be able to find an example of these when you visit so we have inserted a pic of what we found.
To log this Earth Cache: This EC is a little different to our others, we haven’t’ given you all the information, we want you to do the research and throw around ideas why the basalt has this polygon shape to it?
2. A photo of your team or GPS near GZ, we can’t get enough of this place so upload as many photos as you like! (Optional)
You are welcome to log your answers straight away to keep your TB's and Stats in order but please message us with your answers within 24 hours. Cachers who do not fulfil the Earth Cache requirement will have their logs deleted.
