***IMPORTANT: There is no geocache or anything else hidden at the listed coordinates. The listed coordinates are an Earth Cache site. An Earth Cache is a location that people can visit to learn about a unique educational Earth Science feature of our Earth. You may log a find by visiting the location and emailing me the correct answers to the questions below. Do not post answers in your log.***
Other Important Information: This Earth Cache is located at the Radio Springs Park, Nevada, Missouri and part of the City of Nevada Parks and Recreation Division, which has granted permission for this Earth Cache. There is no cost to use this public Park. Because this Earth Cache requires observing aspects of the Radio Springs Park, it is only to be completed in daylight hours.
EARTH SCIENCE LESSON: As you approach the Earth Cache area you will notice the presents of a tor. A Tor is a large, free-standing residual mass (rock outcrop) that rises abruptly from the surrounding smooth and gentle slopes of a rounded hill summit or ridge crest. You will find similarities of the tors from the Elephant rocks in Missouri which are classic example of tors. Tors may develop in a range of different rock types including granite, volcanic rocks metamorphic rocks or hard sedimentary rocks such as quartzite and sandstone. Tors normally are less than 16 feet high. Formation processes and ages vary widely across different climates, elevations, and rock types. Missouri contains each of the three classes of rocks that forms, the basement rock and bedrock: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. The most common igneous rocks in Missouri are rhyolite, granite, diabase, and volcanic tuff. Radio Springs Park exhibits the effects of rock fractures as well. While initial cracks formed in the granite as it cooled over 1 billion years ago, during periods of continental uplift over the course of Missouri's history, the larger cracks formed in the rocks, fracturing all of the underlying granite into cubes. As the rocks were slowly uplifted and exposed at the surface wind, rain, plant life and rain and underground springs slowly eroded, rounded, and enlarged the fractures to produce the large oval shaped boulders that you see present. Missouri also is home to over 1,100 known springs and many unknown underground springs some which only appear during heavy rain such as Radio Springs you see here. Springs are a part of drainage patterns throughout the state where groundwater running through complex routes underground emerge at the surface. The surrounding geology of springs dictates their structure, and springs are most commonly found among Cambrian and Ordovician dolomite in the Ozarks, Mississippian limestone on the Springfield Plateau, and a few in the north around Pennsylvanian limestone. The dolomite and limestone are good sources for springs because these rocks are easily fractured by running water, making water discharge easier.
DO NOT POST ANSWERS IN YOUR LOG: Send the following answers to me via email.
1. How many Tors did you find are they Tors?
2. Compare the bottom layers to the upper layers above it. How does it compare in thickness/color/hardness?
3. What caused these unusual rock shapes?
4. Take of photo of what impressed you the most about the formation evidence of these rocks and explain why?
Congratuation topgun5403 & Co-Pilot Marty for FTF!