Why do Olympic curling stones cost so much? A trip to Ailsa Craig with Kays of Scotland, who have the only licence to cut the rock, quarrying the granite, and then transporting it to Newton Stewart for working into Curling Stones
A bright orange piece of granitic rock - I've never found a bit with this colour before. Likely dragged down to County Clare from Galway by glaciers during the last ice age.
Is there a specific name for this kind of rock? @drsadhbh
Ok, these photos from the hike need a little explanation.
Being as New Hampshire has so-much-damn-granite, it's hard for a tree to find purchase. Even after decades it just might not have enough to keep it upright. The tree leaning in first photo is one such tree, probably tipped over in the last Nor’easter. As a result, the myriad web of roots spread across smooth granite were lifted up and it formed a long tent. Which we see in the second photo, camera poked inside the root tent to show a smooth, almost clean granite slab.
In the Northern Black Forest, sandstone is the most prevalent #rock on the surface. In some locations, such as rivers, the older #granite emerges, as seen here at the Gertelbachwasserfall. The photo was taken on a late winter afternoon.
The Strontian Granite was a long, hot, drawn-out affair it seems: new zircon dates show that the first bits crystallized about 427 million years ago, and the last bits about 417 Ma. https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/6474/#Geology#Granite
#DogWalkingGeology Frosty but no snow in the Ross of Mull this glorious morning. Here's Spud photobombing a wee aplite vein emplaced along a west-dipping proto-joint in the Ross of Mull granite. #Geology#Granite
In a garden in #Guernsey, could this be the capstone of F.C. Lukis' "lost" cist that he excavated in the mid 1800s. He reported some finds, but the exact location has been lost for over 100 years. If this is indeed the same site, it consists of a huge single #capstone lying on a hill, with many orthostats lying nearby in the walls, of the favoured high #quartz content #granite by the builders. Discovery by our member Karolus, more on our page: #FindsFridayhttps://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=59201
Looking closely at the #granite#boulders, you can see they are covered in #lichen and they make the surface rather spongy or flaky depending on moisture conditions. They remind me a bit of Jackson Pollock paintings.
This river #valley looks more bleak than the one I posted last week but it features prominent boulders of #granite strewn everywhere. The land is used for grazing of #sheep and #cattle. You can also see the undulating horizon with many hills in the background.
#Dartmoor in #springtime. The landscape of Dartmoor is quite varied although it is geologically a #granite intrusion into the Earth’s crust it has been shaped by weathering, erosion and human intervention, such as #agriculture and #forestry. Here we see a #river#valley in the background and a #TreeStump in the foreground. The weather was as benign as can be expected there as you can tell by the blue #sky and light clouds.