Cattle Creek
Cattle Creek area was the original settlement site but was later located to the present site of the township of Bell.
Cattle Creek flows from the Bunya Mountains to the Condamine River, so plays a significant role in moving flood waters to the west. It has been used over the years as a vital piece of infrastructure to the settlement and development of this particular area.
The activity for this cache is to examine the creek. Please answer the 3 questions (number 4 is optional) and send your answers to Speedmistress for validation!
At this Earthcache site you are going to be looking at a Sedimentary Rock formation.
Defination: (Information drawn from Wikepedia)
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Sedimentary Rock: Rock that has formed through the deposition and solidification of sediment, especially sediment transported by water (rivers, lakes, and oceans), ice (glaciers), and wind. Sedimentary rocks are often deposited in layers, and frequently contain fossils. It can be formed from layers of sand, silt, dead plants and animal skeletons.
The types of rock that can be found in Sedimentary deposits are:
- Glacial Congolomerate
- Shale
- Shelly Limestone
- Sandstone
- Chalk
- Anthracite
- Banded Iron
At this site you will need to decide which of the following Sedimentary deposits you are looking at!
Each of these rock types also contain minerals that helps to make them quite individual to look at.
Glacial Conglomerate is a clastic (rocks composed of broken pieces of older rocks) sedimentary rock that is composed of a substantial fraction of rounded to subangular gravel-size clasts. (fragments of a clastic rock) Conglomerate is usually held sogether (cemented) by silica, calcite or iron Oxide. It is similar to sandstone but the rock particles are rounded or angular gravel rather than sand.
- Silica (Crystalline silica) is commonly known as quartz and comes in many colours but is mostly seen as a clear or white material. It is found in soil, sand, granite, concrete, and rock.
- Calcite is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph (an organism or inorganic object or material which takes various forms) of calcium carbonate. You might commonly see it as Limestone and Marble.
- Iron Oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. There are 16 known iron oxides and oxyhydroxides, the best know of which is rust. Iron Oxides are widespread in nature and play an important role in many geological and biological processes.
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mostly of quartz sand, but it can also contain significant amounts of feldspar and sometimes silt and clay. Sandstone is one of the most common types of sedimentary rock. They are made from deposits of sand that eventually form sandstone and are delived to the basin by rivers, wave action or wind.
- Quartz Sand: Quartz is the most important sand-forming mineral and occurs in very many sand types. Quartz is mostly the only component of Quartz Sand. Sand that is enriched with quartz is likely old (mature) and has traveled far from the source area. It is usually white or beige in colour.
- Feldspar is the name of a large group of rock-forming silicate minerals that make up over 50% of the Earth's crust. They are found in igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Feldspar is distinguished by the presence of alumina and silica in their chemistry. They can be pink, white, grey or brown.
- Silt is commonly fine sand, clay or other material carried by running water and deposited as a sediment (matter that settles to the bottom of a liquid like dregs), especially in a water course or harbour. The silt at any one site may be highly influenced by the types and colours of soils that have been eroded by the water flow.
- Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerls. Clays develop plasticity (the quality of being easily shaped or moulded) when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay particles, but become hard, brittle and non-plastic upon drying. Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variey of colours from impurities, such as a reddish or brownish colour from small amounts of iron oxide.
Please walk down to the creek and identify the rocky outcrop close to the crossing.
Question 1 - Which of the following is responsible for the establishment of Cattle Creek? Please explain why you chose your answer?
- A) Water - erosion
- B) Ice (glaciers) or
- C) Wind.
Question 2 - Are you looking at A or B? Please give a brief reason for your choice?
- (A) Glacial Conglomerate or
- (B) Sandstone?
Question 3 - List 2 minerals that you think are in the cliff and describe the colour of each one?
Question 4 - Please post a photo of yourself or a piece of your geocaching equipment at the cache site!
Thank you for visiting this Earthcache. I look foward to receiving your answers.
Information drawn from Wikipedia