Ancient Worm Trails EarthCache
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This cache site is at a very cool rock. This rock has the preserved
trails of worms that lived 420 MILLION years ago. To get credit for
the cache, you will need to bring a metric ruler (centimeters and
millimeters). Please measure the widths and depths of 10 of the
trails, and post the average that you get for them all. Also,
please tell us what kind of "worms" or other organisms might have
made the tracks. What do you think they were doing?
The large rock you see has broken off from nearby outcrops, and is
called fucoidal quartzite. It is a piece of the Ordovician Swan
Peak Quartzite. The sand was deposited in shallow, near-shore sea,
about 420 Million Years ago. What happened to make the rock look so
neat, is that worms, or some other type of marine organism,
burrowed and crawled through the seafloor, leaving behind their
trails. Sand then filled in those trails, and turned to sandstone.
Later, while buried deep in the earth, the rock was heated
slightly, metamorphosing it into quartzite. Subsequent uplift and
mountain building brought the rock to where you see it today.
This was originally a traditional caches wich was stolen and
then converted to a virtual. It was then converted into Utah's
First Earthcache. We're going to try and get it converted to an
Earthcache.
420 Million year old worm trails in the Swan Peak
quartzite.
Additional Hints
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