Igneous Rocks Stefa Grabchenko

Igneous rock is made when magma from inside of the earth reaches the top and is cooled, becoming a hard, solid substance. Colorado has a vast and beautiful history with rock formations dating back millions of years, so my son and I packed up our bags one hot Saturday morning and decided to go explore in our own back yard.

One of my most favorite places to visit is just outside of Denver, it is the Red Rocks Park located just outside of the town of Morrison. The red rocks are a set of, “coarse-grained conglomerate and sandstone beds” (Igneous, n.d.) that are also visible throughout other national parks within the beautiful rocky mountains that our state homes. Being nearly 300 years old it seems that these rocks grew and “shed their gravelly sediment in the oxygen rich atmosphere of the Pennsylvanian times” (Igneous, n.d.). The deposits are bristly grained and did not break down during deposit, so we can see large pebbles and rocks within the stone and conglomerate (Igneous, n.d.). Driving further into the mountains in and around grand lake, where we spend our summers and most vacation time, we have rocky mountain national park. This park contains quite a bit of pre-existing igneous rocks that have been altered within the earth’s crust, metamorphic rocks. Regional metamorphism, “occurs because pressure and temperature change over distance. In the course of a drive  through Big Thompson Canyon from Loveland to Estes Park, you traverse all of the mineral zones of regional metamorphism”(Metamorphic,n.d.). Because there is a presence of biotite at the beginning of the canyon we know that in this area we can find low grade metamorphic rocks. As you follow the canyon wall up we see garnet and staurolite that tell us that higher temperatures were needed and used to create these layers. I also had no idea that there is a 600 square mile granitic batholith that surrounds Estes Park! (Metamorphic, n.d.).

Igneous Rocks. (n.d.). www.coloradogeologicalsurvey.com. Retrieved from http://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/colorado-geology/igneous-rocks/

Metamorphic Rocks. (n.d.) www.coloradogeologicalsurvey.com. Retrieved from http://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/colorado-geology/metamorphic-rocks/