BIG TRIP Coming Up

I’m going to be traveling to Micronesia until the end of May. I’ll be working in the field with my classmates and professors from college. I will also be starting a job while I am there which focuses on relocating agricultural fields which are threatened by rising sea levels. I am so thrilled about it.

I have no idea how reliable the internet access will be while I’m there (and I obviously won’t have anything new to post about NC while I am on the other side of the world), so I am not sure about whether I will have a blog post until after I get home near the first day of June. Final exams are wrapped up for my spring semester already. I definitely want to keep blogging about NC geology and cool hikes I go on, but I may set up a new blog once I get home without such a narrow focus. “NC Gems and Minerals” may change to “places I hike” or “how I see things” or something along those lines…still blogging about rock hunting, hiking, and finding minerals…just about other things people may be interested in with Environmental Science. I’m thrilled to be taking more geology courses in a few months!

Tanawha

Miles and I went to hike some of the Tanawha Trail yesterday along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It is a 13.5 mile trail, but we only did the first few miles of it from Beacon Heights to Rough Ridge. I have had this trail on my hiking bucket list because so many of the trail descriptions I have read online describe it as “covering a wide array of geological features” which makes it totally perfect! I was absolutely impressed. We traveled through at least four different types of ecosystems along the first four miles that we hiked of this trail (with a goal to come back and finish it on later dates, but having to retrace our steps back to the car made it impractical to do the entire hike in one day). The quartz veins we saw at so many different spots along the trail were really exciting for Miles to see. Beacon Heights exists at one trailhead of the Tanawha Trail and offers amazing views of several mountain ranges from its exposed rock faces.  Views of Grandfather Mountain are spectacular from the left portion of Beacon Heights.  As we continued from Beacon Heights, we traveled through dense forests of rhododendrons and hemlock which had relatively easy trails which had only a few steep sections.  Weathering is very evident in the first mile past Beacon Heights on all the felsic rocks which were present.  Quartz was abundant in this area which is expected because of Bowen’s Reaction Series which I explained in my previous post.  Additionally, the large waterfalls we saw in the boulder areas were definitely contributing to weathering and erosion.  There were a lot of small bridges which allow for hikers to walk across the waterfalls for excellent views, and these bridges are often tall enough to see the waterfall almost in its entirety.  Miles and I spent time looking at the different sizes of boulders, pebbles, and gravels in the bottom of these first order streams.

The left portion of Beacon Heights is much wider and flatter so that the erosional patterns are much easier to see in the rock.

 

The large boulder fields between Beacon Heights and Rough Ridge were incredibly impressive. We came across at least six areas with GIGANTIC boulders (which also had some beautiful waterfalls).

I have decided that Rough Ridge is definitely my favorite place in the entire world.  It used to be Beacon Heights, but the views from Rough Ridge along the Tanawha Trail offer views which are unparalleled to any other trail I have ever hiked.  This is a very fragile ecosystem which is protected from hikers by a boardwalk system, so it is crucial for hikers to stay on the designated trails.  The lowlying, windswept plants which grow on the top of Rough Ridge are protected and monitored throughout the year.  More quartz veins were present in this felsic igneous rock as well, and Miles was having fun with me as we pointed them out to each other.  The best features of Rough Ridge are the boulders and rocks toward the summit.  These offer views of Grandfather Mountain as well as Beacon Heights (which is easy to spot because of the unfortunate cell phone tower which makes Beacon Heights easier to recognize).

One of the Most Important Things I’ve Learned

Bowen’s Reaction Series explains how minerals crystallize in cooling magma.  It is a diagram which explains why certain minerals are found together very frequently while other minerals are hardly ever found together (which is very helpful!).  There are two branches (the continuous branch and discontinuous branch) which meet in the middle and form a Y-shape.

On the continuous branch: there exists mafic calcium-rich plagioclase feldspar as well as intermediate sodium-rich plagioclase feldspar.  The calcium-rich plagioclase feldspar breaks down uninterrupted by chemical reactions.

On the discontinuous branch: there exists mafic olivine and pyroxene as well as intermediate amphibole (hornblende) and biotite.  The magma composition changes as chemical reactions occur between each location of this branch, thereby forming new minerals at each point.  Essentially, some magma precipitates out and forms the different minerals.

These two branches meet at the bottom where the felsic minerals potassium feldspar, muscovite mica, and quartz are formed.

What’s the big deal about being mafic, intermediate, and felsic?
Mafic: high in magnesium content, less viscous, darker in color
Intermediate: a mix or in-between point with both mafic and felsic rocks present
Felsic: high in silica content, more viscous, lighter in color

When someone is looking for different types of rock (or different minerals) the Bowen’s Reaction Series is a great way to lead the way with trying to find out the best places to look for specific rocks and minerals.  Granite, for example, is a very common felsic igneous rock which is prevalent throughout much of the mountains in North Carolina.  Quartz, mica, and feldspars are all very common compositional minerals for granite rocks.  Therefore, it makes sense that all of these minerals would be felsic because they are found in felsic granite.  This is more significant and practical when someone first decides “I am going to try to find some _________ in North Carolina” (or elsewhere) on a rock-hunting trip.  One of the best ways to find specific minerals (and the gemstones which can come from so many minerals) is to know where to be searching for these based on the Bowen’s Reaction Series.  It would not be a good idea to search for olivine (where peridot can come from) in granite, for example, because it is very unlikely to find this mafic mineral in felsic rock.  It is easy to do some research about the best types of rocks to find specific minerals in by reading online or in the plethora of mineralogy books available.

Higher temperature minerals and rocks (which are more mafic) are often the ones which weather and erode away the quickest.  This is because the surface of the earth is so much cooler now than when these minerals and rocks were forming.  Lower temperature minerals and rocks (which are more felsic) are the ones which we see more of today because they take longer to erode because of how the conditions at earth’s surface are similar to the conditions in which these rocks and minerals formed.  The earth’s crust is mostly felsic.  The earth’s mantle is mostly mafic.  There is so much more which could be said about this, but after I learned more about Bowen’s Reaction Series I definitely had a greater appreciation for igneous rocks.  Minerals are still my favorite (compared to rocks) because so many of them can be breathtakingly beautiful to me.  The majority of igneous rocks are varying shades of black and gray (which are less than awe-inspiring for me), but now I see the bigger picture of how these igneous rocks can point me toward my favorite minerals that I seem to constantly be looking for whenever I am outside exploring and hiking.

Morrow Mountain

Here is a quick post about my first hike through Morrow Mountain State Park.  Miles and I went out to Morrow Mountain State Park a couple of weeks ago, and I am finally getting around to writing about it as I promised.  I was really impressed with Morrow Mountain in general. Each trail intersection is clearly marked with signs indicating the available routes to take with small descriptions which include distance. There are busy spots to see the views from the top of Morrow Mountain as well as secluded ones which I definitely prefer. My right knee was in tons of pain that day, so I was glad to be able to hike on easy trails which were only steep for small bursts. There is plenty of parking too.

We spent the day talking about rocks, trees, and other places we wanted to hike. I consider that a good date!

I didn’t have high expectations for the views because I figured that it would be overlooking housing developments of some sort. We were happy to see probably half a dozen small lakes from different vantage points along the trails. We didn’t look over housing developments. The whole place felt like a secret. The area around Morrow Mountain is very rural and beautiful.   I was thankful that there were views of the other small “mountains” in the area instead!  This area has a really nice network of trails which can be combined to make loops (which is nice because I don’t really like to hike the same trail twice in one day).  We went to the top of Morrow Mountain and Sugarfoot Mountain within the park.  I had three problems.  My right knee hurt terribly.  The motorcycles were very loud and distracting whenever the trail intersected or came near the road which takes people straight to the top of Morrow Mountain.  And the route we took to the top of Sugarfoot Mountain was very steep and would have been easier to do backwards.  Woops. Overall, the trails were very visually interesting throughout the park. I bet this area is even more beautiful when there are leaves on the trees. There were small streams and a various amount of trees I could identity (botany shoutout–loved that class) in the surrounding forested areas.

We noticed large amounts of quartz and calcite at three or four areas along the trail.  You can tell the difference between the two based on how hard the they are because they look very similar.  Quartz (hardness of 7 on the Mohs Scale) is the hardest, commonly-occurring mineral.  Calcite’s hardness is Yes, other things are much harder such as corundum and diamond, but Quartz (SiO₂) is the most abundant mineral in the world.  Calcite (CaCO₃) is much softer at a hardness near 3.  Furthermore, the signs throughout the park (any state park has these signs) which said “Please do not remove any plant, rock, or mineral specimens from the park” made us really laugh out loud.  Obviously those signs made me want to figure out which types of minerals the park could possibly be hiding!

Oh Schist!

Schist is a metamorphic rock which consists of many layers of elongated minerals which exhibit foliation.

 

Yesterday a classmate Lisa (http://lisajaneboyer.wordpress.com) and I went on a hike with our geology professor through Crowders Mountain as a field trip lab.  It was unfortunate that not many of the students from our relatively small class could come yesterday, but the three of us had a complete blast!  This is one of my favorite hiking spots in North Carolina.  I was thrilled to go here with someone who really knows about the rocks and minerals found in this area because I knew Iwould be remembering this information to tell everyone else I would take hiking at Crowders Mountain (because that’s what I do–I tell people little bits of information so that I can try to spark an interest in them).  We had an absolutely wonderful day!

The majority of the rocks we examined were granite (igneous), mica schist (metamorphic), and quartzite enriched with kyanite (metamorphic). I spoke about the kyanite in Crowders Mountain before on at least one blog post, but I did not ever know where exactly to look for it whenever I hiked along the network of trails.  Thankfully, I know where to look now because of my professor’s explanation of how kyanite remains in metamorphic quartzite.  Quartz (SiO₂) is the most abundant mineral in the world.  It is definitely abundant in the soils of the piedmont as well.

Crowders Mountain rises about 800 feet from the surrounding piedmont and exists as a monadnock.  Essentially, monadnocks are features which remain because everything else around them eroded away over many, many years.  The sandstone, shale, and mudstone (sedimentary rocks) as well as granite (igneous rocks) are the protoliths of the metamorphic rocks which exist in the Kings Mountain Belt in this region of North Carolina and South Carolina.  This area is abundant in quartz, mica, and kyanite. 

Kyanite is actually quite easy to spot kyanite within the metamorphic quartzite rock.  It remains and kind of “sticks up” to the surface of these rocks because the kyanite is very resistant to weathering.  I was thrilled when Lisa helped me to find some kyanite crystals on the surface of a rock similar to this which actually exhibited their characteristic blue-gray color.  This photo was taken at the top of Crowders Mountain.  Smaller rocks which are still full of kyanite are very easy to spot on the trails leading up to the top of Crowders Mountain as well.

There is abundant evidence of weathering and erosion at the top of Crowders Mountain.  It is obvious why this area is so popular with climbers!

The views from the top of Crowders Mountain are of course beautiful, but the weathered rocks which remain at the surface are my real interest.  We were unfortunately unable to see the Charlotte skyline from the top yesterday because it was too hazy along the horizon.

This is a pretty large area of schist which was right along one of the trails on the way to the top of Crowders Mountain.  Not all of the trails are covered in gravel (I think gravel trails are annoying) within the network of trails.  This trail doubles as a service road for the cell phone tower toward the top of Crowders Mountain.  Don’t worry, the cell phone tower is not at the top of Crowders Mountain where one has the best scenic views of the piedmont and Charlotte.  The joke of the day was talking about any schist we saw (for obvious reasons).

Catching up about Spring Break

Sorry to everyone for not making a post about my spring break. The past two weeks have completely gotten away from me. The first Friday of my Spring Break was the day I went up to try to find some rubies and sapphires in a spot which was supposedly very good, and I didn’t find anything else for the rest of the week because of issues with the weather.

On Monday of my Spring Break I drove four hours out to the border of North Carolina and Tennessee to try to get on the Appalachian Trail for an enjoyable hike with some plans to search for kyanite on the way home. Well, that plan was a bust. We got half a mile from the trailhead within the Pisgah National Forest just to be blocked by snow. It was about 55 degrees for us without any snow recently in the forecast, but we were stuck there unable to pass because of it. Additionally, a snowstorm came through the mountains on Tuesday and Wednesday which eliminate any chances of getting some minerals before my sister was due to come home for her Spring Break. I spent the week catching up on sleep, doing homework, and hiking close to home. I’ll do a post not really focused on gems or minerals, but more about the interesting geological features I noticed on my trip hiking to the top of Morrow Mountain and Sugarloaf Mountain tha I did a week ago on Sunday…that area is beautiful and I’ve never been to it before last week.

Corundum Fail

I initiated spring break with three of my best friends by traveling about an hour away to go try to find some rubies and sapphires. The corundum in the particular area we visited is mostly of a pink color, thereby qualifying it as pink sapphire rather than red ruby. The red rubies were our main target for today’s trip, however. Another friend had success at this location earlier in January and told me about the spot, thereby sparking my interest in visiting this area to try to find my own corundum. My friends have never been out to find their own gemstones, so I was really hoping that we would find some so they would have a good time.

The corundum crystals in this area are found in weathered remnants of pegmatite. Think of a pegmatite as granite with much larger crystals making up its composition. Pegmatites are very similar to granites with respect to how their compositions are often quite varied. A pegmatite predominantly consists of feldspar, mica, and quartz. Therefore, it makes sense for the corundum crystals in this area to be found near veins of quartz. Additionally, Jenna and Marissa noted how beautiful the shiny flakes in the soil we dug up were today. I would guess that these flakes were of mica even if I had not known about the corundum crystals being found in a pegmatite just from their consistency in the soil.

I would post the name of the area we went to if it seemed worth it to ever go back there to search more…but it was absolutely not worth it. To put it simply, it was just a wreck. It was nothing like I expected it to be. The area we were digging in was typical North Carolina red clay. I expected that. The rains from earlier this week made the soil pretty manageable. I expected that. What I did not expect was having a twelve foot deep pit in the ground dug (backbreaking work) without coming across a single rock. We did not even find a single piece of quartz here either. My friend who found a sapphire in this area in January found a lot of quartz which served as an indicator of becoming close to the corundum vein. I could go dig through the red clay in my backyard and find quartz. Quartz is very common in the soils of the Piedmont.

So much of what I read online about this spot emphasized that there would be a rock layer about nine or ten feet deep which held the corundum we hoped to find. There is a small stream which flows along this property, so I hoped that rock layer would be at a depth of about nine feet as the online resources emphasized. Well, we did not find it. Jenna commented that she liked how the soil layers changed color because we were not finding anything else in our pit. Once we got about nine feet deep in our pit we were becoming very discouraged. We did our homework before setting out to start searching for corundum crystals today. What baffles me is that the soil in this particular area did not have even a single piece of weathered rock in it. This was such a bummer.

The look on my roommate Jenna’s face when I pulled out our gear was pretty priceless. Here she is hard at work!

So many gems, so little time

My spring break is coming up soon! I plan on spending at least a few days out getting some new minerals. You could have probably guessed that would be my plan. My friends and family know how excited I am about these trips and have asked me to give them smaller, less awesome versions of the minerals I find. Please check back during the first full week of March because I will have several posts about where I go, what I find, overall impressions, and helpful directions. Seriously, one of the hardest aspects of planning these mineral-hunting trips is finding out a proper address or at least a good parking location. My plans are to travel in the mountains with maybe one stop in the foothills or piedmont.

Garnets (A²⁺₃B³⁺₂Si₃O₁₂)
*A represents Ca, Fe²⁺, Mn, or Mg
*B represents Al, Cr, or Fe³⁺
I got a handful of nice garnets last year with my cousin Connor. I have a greater appreciation for garnets ever since I did some more research on a whim a month or two ago on my own time. I did not have an assignment to learn more about geology and mineralogy–I just wanted to learn more. Garnets come in almost any color. I knew about some of the green garnets such as demantoid garnet and became fascinated by them. Grossular, tsavorite, pyrope, almandine, and spessartine are several other types of garnet which are also common. Garnets are colored by calcium, iron, and manganese. Garnets have a hardness of 6.5-7.5, so they are very desirable for jewelry or as an abrasive in powdered form. Almandine garnets are very common in North Carolina’s garnet-mica schists. A schist is a metamorphic rock which can have many different types of minerals within it. The rock which undergoes metamorphism in order to produce a schist is normally a felsic igneous rock or shale. Felsic igneous rocks contain more than 75% of a felsic mineral such as plagioclase, orthoclase, or quartz. These felsic rocks are characterized by being abundant in silica.

Kyanite (Al₂SiO₅)
I became fascinated by kyanite when I went on a hike with one of my professors to Crowders Mountain in Gaston County, North Carolina. This mountain is a monadnock which remains today because the surrounding landscape eroded away from it. It is a beautiful area which I have visited in every season. Crowders Mountain exists in Crowders Mountain State Park which will protect it in the future. Originally, people wanted to mine the kyanite which Crowders Mountain is full of before it became protected. Kyanite is a blue-grey mineral which has a hardness of 5 or 7 depending on the way it is cut. It is recognizable because of its color as well as because of its elongated crystals which look similar to columns. It occurs in the metamorphic rocks schist and gneiss as well as in igneous pegmatites. I think it is interesting that kyanite is used very frequently in spark plugs. It seems like a waste of a very beautiful mineral. I would LOVE to find some new kyanite. I definitely will not be trying to get any of the kyanite from Crowders Mountain. My sights are set on somewhere much more remote near the border of Tennessee.

Corundum (Al₂O₃)
North Carolina’s rubies and sapphires are very famous. That is a good enough reason for me to want to get some. Corundum includes the aluminum oxides called sapphires and rubies. Sapphires are colored based on the trace amounts of elements which are in them including iron, copper, and magnesium. Chromium is the element which makes a ruby red. So, a ruby and sapphire are the basically same thing. Both make excellent gemstones for jewelry because they are very hard (basically only diamond and “fake-diamond” moissanite are harder). You may have seen clear corundum (lab created, of course) used for a watch face so that it would not get scratched. Corundum crystals are easy to spot because of their hexagonal structures.

Wish me luck! I am very excited to find some beautiful specimens. Maybe I will even find something I can have cut!

I’m Amy

         

I have put up a few blog entries without really introducing myself. I guess it is better late than never! Since I started this blog I have enjoyed looking at the “site stats” about how people find my blog. I do not possibly know how so many people found it so quickly! I wanted to introduce myself to the people reading this in case anyone wanted to know my “street cred” as a blogger. I make these entries as science lessons disguised as stories about cool places to hike, about how to identify minerals and gemstones, and about sparking an interest in getting your own. I am currently completing a BS in Environmental Science. I did not come to college thinking that I wanted to be in this field. Too many tree huggers, psh. (Totally joking) I wanted to be an interior designer who specialized in sustainable design.

I absolutely loved Steve Irwin when I was a kid. (Didn’t we all?) When I started my blog my dad asked me to put a big picture of him up because he motivated me to be a scientist. Yes, I admire my dad’s curiosity, intelligence, and love for science for sure. His father, I call him Pawpaw, is one of the most amazing naturalists I know. I think he is fascinating because of how much he knows. He loves talking about all of it as well. I love to talk about things happening in the scientific community and telling people facts that they have probably never heard. Pawpaw knows every tree, every wildflower, and everything about everything else it seems. He can feed a squirrel a peanut basically right from his hand. He hunted frequently when he was younger (my dad did too) and rides his motorcycle up on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia whenever he can. Hunters get a bad reputation I think. So many of them have an immense amount of respect for the animals they hunt. I love learning about plants and animals from him. By the way, take a botany class if you ever get a chance. Plants rock. A strawberry isn’t even a berry! Back to the point… Both of my parents grew up in Wild and Wonderful (the state motto) West Virginia. Oh yes, West Virginia. So many Environmental Scientists talk about mountaintop removal and how people and the environment are impacted by it. This state is beautiful to me. I love West Virginia.

Back to Steve Irwin…Steve Irwin’s conservation efforts absolutely inspired me when I was a kid. I had the shirts, tapes, games, and everything else it seemed. I watched his shows and was completely captivated by those animals. I definitely have a greater appreciation for his work now that I have a few years really studying Environmental Science under my belt. He was a “life lover”–someone who just enjoyed every moment and actually took the time to appreciate things that so many people take for granted.

I was blessed to travel throughout Australia for three weeks during June and July of 2008 after Irwin’s death. The whole reason I was interested in going there was because of him. I worked on a farm, went to the Outback, and snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef. Something which stuck with me was just how huge everything in Australia is compared to where I live. The untamed wildness of that landscape awoke this part of me which craved adventure.

You can see that seeds were planted by multiple people. Why are you interested in geology? Why are you a scientist?

I always ask “why.” I always thought gemstones were interesting, so I started to learn more about them as a hobby. I am a gem snob. It comes in handy though when someone needs help buying jewelry though.

         

I enjoy reading the works of Muir, Thoreau, and Emerson. They are classics for a reason! I hike, often alone, because I like being able to hear animals and my footsteps with nothing else. I hiked and biked almost 200 miles for an internship last summer where I mapped trails with a GPS and wrote about them. I am very proud of this. I fixed my bike alone a mile away from anywhere. I got lost and found my way back by observing the landscape and navigating a terrible map. I had a complete blast.

My friends make fun of how I want to live off the land, hunt my own food, and give my kids nature names like Meadow and Timber Stone. I like identifying trees with my tree book. I like minerals, rocks, and soil. Much of what first caught my interest in being a scientist was for a simple reason, but the appreciation I have for the big picture is what keeps me going. I love geology and do indeed think “geology rocks,” and I’m just fine with how I study something which not too many people even contemplate. I love knowing about geology and minerals because it helps me see a bigger picture when I look at a landscape. We do not need to know the reasons why a landscape formed in order to have a great appreciation for it. There are plenty of things I do not know. I am just an undergrad after all. A lot of what I know is self taught. It’s that curious spirit.

Granite and Quartz

Granite is one of the most common types of rock in this area, especially in the North Carolina mountains. Not many crystal specimens form within granite because granite’s structure often prevents outward crystals from forming. This is not always the case, however. Granite is an intrusive rock which forms from slowly cooling molten material within the earth’s crust. The most common minerals found in granite are quartz, micas, hornblende, and feldspar (both potassium feldspars and plagioclase feldspars). These minerals, in addition to smaller amounts of other minerals, are what give different colors to various types of granite. Micas are often responsible for the shiny bits which are so commonly seen in granite countertops, for example. All igneous rocks, including granite, form from melted or molten rock called magma. Granite is also an intrusive igneous rock which forms underneath the surface of the earth and also breaks through existing layers of rock. Many mountain chains such as the Appalachian Mountains are formed with a lot of granite in them.

I took this photo of this vein of quartz which is clearly visible from the trail of Table Rock within the Pisgah National Forest.

It is particuarly interesting to me that a lot of granite is radioactive because of how much uranium is found in it. It is more radioactive than other common rocks, but the structure of granite also contributes to how much radioactive material can actually escape and pose a threat to the environment and humans. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the likelhiood that radioactive material which is found in granite would actually pose a threat to humans is actually not as high as we would think after hearing such a statistic. This uranium does not often escape because granite is not very porous. On the other hand, it is interesting that the majority of uranium ore deposits worldwide are attributed to granite. I never knew that before doing more research for writing this blog post.

These small pockets of quartz are also visible from the Table Rock trail located within the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina. Linville Gorge, where Table Rock is located, is an absolutely breathtaking area which is fascinating to study from a geologic perspective. So many millions of years of erosion are visible in the gorge. I love hiking here and traveling here.

I discussed quartz (SiO₂) in my previous blog post North Carolina Beryl in some detail, but it is important to go over some more aspects which make it form so commonly in granite and other igneous rocks. The hardness of quartz is 7, and it often forms six-sided prisms which end in six-sided pyramids. There is indistinct cleavage with conchoidal fracture. Indistinct cleavage means that the mineral has cleavage which is hard to even notice because it barely even occurs. Conchoidal fracture means that the mineral is very brittle and breaks without defined planes of separation. Additionally, the melting point of quartz is near 1670-1700°C. All of these factors make it easier for quartz to form in granite because it is hard and very stable. Its low density of 2.66 g/cm³ also helps it to form in granite because granite needs to slowly form underneath the surface in a deep area. This may not make sense because a low density of quartz would make it seem as if it would not form in a very deep area within the earth, but actually the granite mountaintops people see while hiking (such as at Table Rock where I took these photos) were heavily eroded. The cleavage and fracture of quartz prevent it from breaking apart or dissolving when it forms in granite as well. The other constituting minerals (micas, hornblende, feldspars, etc.) of granite form before quartz does, thereby allowing quartz to fill the remaining spaces in the granite.