Exposed in a road cut near Brady Mountain dam, the that forms Lake Ouachita, there is some spectacular folding. It is here that students learn about tectonics and deformation during the Ouachita Orogeny. Standing at the base of the fold are a few of the 2010 Mineralogy class students and Dr. Hanson.
At this stop, Sarah spends a little time lecturing before the students set out to decipher the folding.
We spend the better part of a day looking for quartz crystals at the Fiddler's Ridge quarry. The folks at Fiddlers Ridge always take great care of there by excavating new areas for us to search. We all go home with some beautiful quartz crystals!
Searching for quartz crystals...
We also stop at a great outcrop to search for little brookite crystals. Brookite is one of the TiO2 polymprphs and a rather rare mineral.
This road cut near Magnet Cove exposes a quite common mineral, calcite, with an extremely rare mode of formation. Called carbonatite, this rock is igneous in origin as it crystallized in a magma chamber, many miles below the surface of the earth. For this reason, the outcrop is well hammered on by hundreds of geology students every year.
It is also here that we find aegerine crystals weathering out of the syenite.
It is also here that we find aegerine crystals weathering out of the syenite.
Across the stream here there are some wonderful pyrite crystals weathering out of the rock. The shiny brass colored crystals are always a student favorite!
Like all of the geology trips, we camp every evening. These are the 2012 students sitting around a campfire. The fire is really lit, but the camera flash washed the small flames. So we made the fire bigger...
The Arkansas trip takes place in the November so the fall foliage is often at peak color. To the left are the Quachita Mountains at near peak! The photo was taken from the Fiddlers Ridge quartz quarry.