Week 2 Post Mount Ashland - Phung La

Last summer my family and I went to Oregon and we decided to visit Mount Ashland to hike. According to the brochure that we got, it said that Mount Ashland is the highest peak in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon. I found out from the brochure that Mount Ashland is mostly composed of granite with other igneous intrusive rocks like diorite and granodiorite. From geology class I got to learned that igneous rocks are classified into two groups, granite and rhyolite.  Mount Ashland is classified in the first group. From class I learned that granite is made up of 10-20% quartz and 50% feldspar. If you look closely at these rocks on Mount Ashland you can see that it has specks of black on them, which is an indicator of small amounts dark silicates and that will tell you that it is a granite type. Mount Ashland is a large pluton of igneous rocks that was formed from slow cooling of granitic magma that intruded the Khalmath Terranes at depths of several miles below the earth’s surface. From these rocks I can tell that they are dikes because some of the rocks were forming from preexisting rock body. You can’t tell from the picture, but there were a lot of granodiorite, and you can tell it was them because they have more feldspar than granite and because of their specks of dark silicate. The brochure also said that the pluton of Mount Ashland deposits minerals like gold, silver, and other minerals! That would’ve been cool if we found some. Oh well, better luck next time. Until then….

Week Two - Igneous Rocks - Taylor Mills

As someone who hasn't traveled very much, my boyfriend and I thought it would be a good idea to visit Acadia National Park in Maine.  Created more than 500 million years ago, Acadia's landscape was formed by various geological activities such as mountain building, molten magma, and ice sheets and is actually still shaped today by several different forms of erosion.  As a result of said erosion, Acadia's rocks are now exposed.  Fortunately, the rocks' exposure allowed me, with a little help from a park ranger, to explain to my boyfriend that Acadia is abundant with intrusive, or plutonic, igneous rocks since magma crystallized underground instead of at the Earth's surface.  Upon further examination, we couldn't help but notice that the rocks looked a lot like our granite countertops!  From the image I snapped of a mountainous trail in Acadia which depicts the rocks' gray and salmon-ish color and blocky shape(s), you can probably see the resemblance to granite as well.  My thoughts were confirmed by their rather coarse or porphyritic texture because it took a very long time for the magma to solidify and cool which caused the crystallization of different crystal sizes and gave it that granite look.  The ranger then informed us that the color of the rocks is due to their silica content, making them felsic igneous rocks made up of light-colored silicates such as quartz.  I'm glad that my boyfriend and I went on this trip because we had a really great time AND I was able to teach my science-loving guy a thing or two.  Well, I guess the park ranger helped too...

Figure 1. Mountainous Trail in Acadia Composed of Granite (Sheffied, 2018).

Week 2 Post Devil's Backbone - Donovan Olson

 For many years, I have hiked the very popular Devil’s Backbone located in Loveland, Colorado about 45-60 minutes away from my house. It is a pretty “easy” hike when speaking of other trails that I have been a part of. At first glance, one can see that Devil’s Backbone is relatively long when speaking in terms of the overall rock feature itself. It somewhat resembles what looks like a backbone or takes a vertebra like a shape. Although the picture does not do the best justice, the rock itself takes a longer shape almost perfectly linear in fact. Additionally, another feature of this rock is very smooth in nature. From Chapter 1 of our textbook, this sort of resembles that of what sedimentary rock would look like. Sedimentary rock is formed by tiny segments that ultimately bind together to form a rock that is pictured. The other pretty obvious feature about this is that there are clear signs of weathering on the rock. This meaning that a river probably ran through this area of land millions of years ago and the sediments that were flowing through collected in this spot. With a river running through this land, it would give the rock it’s smooth appearance. The rock itself looks like it would be sandstone as it is brownish in color. In chapter 7 of our textbook it talks about the sandstone particle shape in which states that if they are rigid in nature, the traveling distance was short. On the opposite side of the argument, if they travel a long distance they are often times more smooth. From this lesson, it is apparent that this sand traveled quite some distance.

Donovan Olson

Test Post

This is my first SCI205 travel journal post. If this post was made incorrectly (or in the wrong place) please let me know!

Thanks,
Steven

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Testing...testing...testing 123

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This is a test post to see if the images and test will display.

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This is a test post for Fall 2018 8 Week 2 semester.

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Test for Fall 2018 week 2.

Ismael Rodriguez

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With a photo of a Giant Panda, my favorite animal

Test Post (2018 Fall 8Week2)

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Post!

Geology begins

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This is a test post for SCI205E Fall 2018

-Donovan Olson

Practice Entry

Figure 1: Geology from http://gloucester-ma.gov/index.aspx?NID=718.

Test entry....I hope you all are well and having a great week :)