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).

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).

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!

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.

John Rock and Looking Glass Rock

Overlooking Looking Glass Rock from the rock face of nearby John Rock

I went on a hike with some friends to the summit of John Rock in the Pisgah National Forest yesterday afternoon.  There was a winter storm in North Carolina the previous day, but the temperature got up to 47 °F which was warm enough to make almost everything melt by the time we started hiking near 1:00 PM.  The nearby Davidson River was swollen with the new snowmelt.

Geologically speaking, Looking Glass Rock is a pluton.  A pluton is a big ball of granite which would have become a volcano if it had not cooled before reaching the surface.  Volcanoes occur when at convergent boundaries when crust subducts and melts underneath the surface.  This melting crust forms magma (the same thing as lava, but lava occurs above the surface whereas magma occurs underneath the surface) which is less dense than its surroundings and rises toward the surface.  What are now the North American and African Plates used to be much closer together and were actually at a convergent boundary.  This convergent boundary formed the Appalachian Mountains when the oceanic portion of the plate subducted.  This continental collision formed the Appalachian Mountains which still exist from Alabama northeast up to Maine in the eastern United States.  We were so excited to view Looking Glass Rock from John Rock because the name “Looking Glass” is comes from how ice appears similar to a mirror when the sun reflects on it.  The warmer temperatures and exposure to sunlight actually made Looking Glass Rock not reflective, but John Rock’s pluton was mostly shaded and still covered in a layer of ice.

I am the biggest fan of hiking and geology in my group of friends by far, so I chose the hiking location and plan for the day.  Basically, they told me they would be up for going wherever I wanted to go.  The Pisgah National Forest is one of my favorite places for hiking because it is such a large area which is well maintained and protected.  My interest in John Rock and Looking Glass Rock came because of a lesson in class we had about the history of the Appalachian Mountains.  I wanted to know if I could see any of these ancient volcanoes which occurred because of the convergent boundary which originally formed these mountains.  Looking Glass Rock and John Rock would have been volcanoes, but the magma in both of these areas cooled too quickly before forming into volcanoes.  The Appalachian Mountains were once connected to the African continent, but later broke apart and moved away based on the hypothesis of continental drift.  The dominant force in this area is erosion, but many think that the Appalachian Mountains were once as high as the Rockies.  Veins of quartz were seen in the granite as well as seen along the trail itself.

Many mountain peaks I have hiked to in North Carolina feature granite outcrops, so I find these areas to be particularly interesting and beautiful.  Beacon Heights and Rough Ridge are two favorites.

A view of the mountains taken from the rock face of John Rock

Mountain laurel and rhododendron were everywhere along the trail and even right beside the rock face

Want to go?  Want more information?
http://www.blueridgeheritage.com/attractions-destinations/looking-glass-rock

Enjoying Geology while Hiking

I like to head to the Blue Ridge Parkway roughly about once a month to do some serious hiking. My major deciding factor on which trail I want to hike is simple. I want to see views.

http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/v.php?pg=61 is a link from the Blue Ridge Parkway’s website of the hiking trails within North Carolina according to overlooks and mile markers. Most of the trails are listed, but somehow there are a few trails missing. Anyone who sees this list may wonder about the trail names and what they mean. I know I did. My goal with this first entry is to give a rough explanation, geologically speaking, about what some of the features in the trial names mean. Balds and knobs are just two examples of features I had never known about before I actually was first able to experience them and see them in real life. How would I describe these features to other people though? These definitions are how I would describe these features and are not completely accurate, so I hope that anyone who reads this can offer some more insight by leaving a comment. My assumption is that these features are probably found in mountain ranges of different areas, but maybe these particular terms are of some sort of southern Appalachian vernacular.

A bald is a summit or crest of a mountain which is covered by native grasses or lowlying shrubs rather than covered by a heavy forest. I was told by a hiker before that a bald occurs in the southern Appalachian Mountains because of the unique climate which has too short of a growing season for forests. So does this mean that a “bald” only occurs in this area? Maybe. This strange occurrence is unique because a bald occurs with a warm climate and high elevation, and these factors are often very suitable for forest growth.

A knob is a hill or mountain with a rounded top. A rock climbing buddy once told me that knobs are fun for bouldering. An important feature of a knob is that it does not have much or any plant cover.

A pinnacle occurs at the top of a mountain where there is a sharp peak. The first pinnacle I ever hiked to the top of was actually part of Crowders Mountain in Gaston County, North Carolina. It is about 45 minutes or an hour from where I live, so it is somewhere I enjoy hiking frequently.

A gap is an area along a mountain ridge which is lower than the surrounding areas. Windy Gap is an area which comes to mind whenever I think of a gap because it is an area I traveled to frequently as a child. Maybe its name is “windy” because this lowlying area acts sort of like a wind funnel?

I may not have defined these terms correctly or in a manner which is the least bit helpful, but the whole purpose of science is the pursuit of new knowledge. I will be the first one to ask questions because I know I do not have all the answers. Keep exploring.

And Wikipedia has a great list of balds at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_balds for anyone interested