Igneous Rock Post - Mike Bruno

This week I decided to visit Stone Mountain Georgia. Stone Mountain is a well known igneous rock formation. The formation is considered intrusive because it is the product of magma that hardened underneath the Earth's surface a long time ago. Stone Mountain specifically, is considered Felsic. Felsic rock formations include granitic materials. This means that Stone Mountain is largely made up of granitic materials like granite, quartz, and feldspar. Another indicator that Stone Mountain is Felsic is the lighter color displayed on the rock. Quartz is present in this monument so if you were to get your hands on some of this quartz you would likely be able to observe a hexagonal crystal structure on its surface. The Quartz present in Stone Mountain would have had hundreds of millions of years to form and space to leave it unimpeded underneath the Earth's surface. This would result in larger crystal surfaces. I didn't know much about this monument going into this week, however, it was very interesting to see how geology formed such an impressive rock formation over such a long period of time.