We have rocks, all kinds of rocks. Rocks that sparkle. Rocks that are misshapen. Rocks that are perfectly round. Rocks that are square and oblong. Rocks that are just a bit different. So, if you are missing a few stop on by the library and see if yours might have rolled on in. Check out our display for your rock.
Have you ever taken a moment during a hike to admire a uniquely shaped stone or felt fascinated by the jagged cliff looming overhead? If you have, you’ve dipped your toes into the world of geology. Rocks are more than just the rigid, passive materials they appear to be. They have a dynamic and exciting story to tell about our planet’s history.
Rocks are truly incredible and fascinating. They’re time capsules, carrying the history of our planet within their layers, and they’re as diverse as the Earth’s many landscapes. Over the centuries, certain rocks have become famous thanks to that fascination. Some are imposing and a few are so revered that they have been stolen, chipped, or broken into pieces in attempts to gain ownership of a part of history.
The rock cycle is a continuous process that changes one rock type to another. It illustrates how through melting, erosion, sedimentation, and metamorphosis, rocks are continuously created, altered, and destroyed. The Grand Canyon is a treasure trove for geologists, displaying nearly two billion years of Earth’s geological history in its vibrant layers of exposed rock.
The rarest stone is the painite named after its discoverer, Arthur C.D. Pain (not because it is in pain). Only around a 1,000 have been found and of those, only a handful are of quality shape. Their rarity makes them valuable.
The saying is ‘one can sink like a rock’. But if you were pumice, you would float! Pumice stone, unlike regular rock, does not sink in water because it has a low density. It is igneous rock formed when lava cools quickly above ground (lava froth). You can see where little pockets of air have formed.
Certain types of rocks, like gypsum and other evaporite minerals, can grow over time. This happens when mineral-saturated water evaporates, leaving behind mineral deposits that accumulate and form rock.
One of the most famous rocks is the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. This majestic mountain is made of metamorphic rocks – gneiss and schist.
The oldest rocks are called zircons and are about 4.4 billion years old. They were discovered in Western Australia and provide a glimpse into our planet’s early days.
The oldest intact rock found is from the Acasta Gneiss Complex of northwest Canada. “The Acasta Gneiss Complex, located at the Slave Craton in the Northwest Territories of Canada, contains 3.9-billion-year-old Archean rocks that, according to Roth et al., can be explained by crust extraction during the first few hundred million years after Earth formed and by relatively slow recycling of Earth’s crust.”
The Blarney Stone is a block of limestone embedded in the walls of Blarney Castle, near Cork, Ireland. “According to legend, kissing the stone imparts the gift of eloquence.” In earlier days, accomplishing this was a real test of courage, since the stone is set back from the parapet by several feet, requiring kissers to dangle headfirst over the gap. Today, iron railings provide handholds and prevent anyone from falling through the gap.
Haystack Rock is a large rock formation near Cannon Beach along the Oregon coast. At 235 feet tall, it is the largest of the many sea stacks found along the Pacific coast, formed by lava and shaped over millennia by wind and wave erosion.
Based on the legends, many assume that Plymouth Rock is an imposing cliff where the passengers of the Mayflower first set foot on North American soil in 1620. In reality, the rock is rather small. The Mayflower first landed not in Plymouth, Massachusetts, but in Provincetown, and Plymouth Rock was only identified as a significant landmark decades after the pilgrims settled in North America.
Plymouth Rock does however remain a symbol for the birth of the U. S. It has been broken apart and chipped away over the years as it moved from place to place as a tourist attraction. Today, it is housed in a monument at Pilgrim Memorial State Park, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Two large pieces of the rock that were broken off can also be found in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
The Rock of Gibraltar is the highest point in Gibraltar on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula and overlooks the Strait of Gibraltar. The rocky outcropping is an important resting area for migratory birds and the home of Europe’s only wild monkey species, the Barbary macaque.
The Rosetta Stone is a stone slab inscribed with a royal decree that dates back to the year 196 BCE. “While the contents of the decree are historically important (it established the divine authority of the new ruler), it is the three languages contained on the stone that provoked the most fascination.” The parallel texts in ancient Greek, Demotic Egyptian, and Egyptian hieroglyphics allowed researchers to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing for the first time.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument constructed of large stones in Wiltshire, England. The structure has been the subject of archaeological study for centuries, and questions about who built it, as well as how and why it was erected, still remain. Best estimates place the construction of Stonehenge in the late Neolithic Age, around 2500 BCE. The layout of the stones is arranged to point to where the sun rises on the summer solstice.
At 230 feet across, the Great Arch of Getu in south-central China is the largest natural arch in the world. It was carved millions of years ago by an ancient river that flowed through the soft, porous limestone found throughout much of southern China.
The Stone of Scone is a rectangular slab of red sandstone that has been used for centuries in the coronation ceremonies of Scottish and English monarchs. The stone’s first home was in Scone Abbey in Scotland. King Edward I of England relocated it to Westminster Abbey in 1296 as a spoil of war.
The Stone of Scone remained at Westminster Abbey until Christmas 1950, when it was taken by four Scottish students. It was returned a few months later, but the stone remained a point of contention between England and Scotland. In 1996, the British government decided the stone would remain in Scotland when not in use for coronation ceremonies.
Devils Tower is an 867-foot-tall rock in the Black Hills of NE Wyoming. It is the world’s largest example of columnar jointing—a rare geologic process in which molten rock cools so quickly that it cracks and forms a hexagonal structure.
We may not have the big stuff, but we have a variety for some interesting perusing.