This Deck has an Ocean View EarthCache
This Deck has an Ocean View
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This is not a typical Geocache. There is no container to find and no physical log to sign at the coordinates. This Earthcache is located in Adell Durbin Park in Stow, on route 91, just south of route 59. Here you will be able to enjoy and learn about an important geological feature of Northeast Ohio. Follow the path into the woods to the right of the Indian statue, go down the steps to the first deck, turn right and follow the path until you reach the coordinates. To log this Earthcache, you must email me the answers to the questions asked at the bottom of the page. If you do not send me the correct answers within a week of logging this cache, I will have to delete your log, as per Earthcache rules.
As you approach this Earthcache, you will come to a sign. It reads: “The ledge of this gorge is composed of Sharon Sandstone Conglomerate laid down at the bottom of an ocean that was here over 350 million years ago. This deck, built by area Boy Scouts as an Eagle Scout Service Project, takes you right up against the ledge. Notice the layering of sand formed by the action of ocean water over millions of years.”
The Sharon Formation of northeastern Ohio is a remnant of the Pennsylvanian period--sedimentary rocks deposited over 300 million years ago when most of Ohio lay at sea level. Sedimentary formations are layered rocks formed by the weathering or slow breaking apart of igneous rocks (created by the cooling of magma/the earth’s crust) and/or metamorphic rocks. Streams and the wave action along the shorelines of ancient seas and oceans are what created these formations—grains of weathered rock suspended in the water eventually settled to the bottom in layers. Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock; sandstone has a rougher grain. A conglomerate is made up of different-sized grains of rock, and can contain different kinds of rocks or minerals, as well.
The Sharon Conglomerate is sandstone embedded with white quartz pebbles. As the collision of continents began the uplift of what would become the Appalachian Mountains, quartz pebbles were carried along by fast-moving streams downhill which in turn scattered the pebbles widely when they hit flatter terrain near sea level. The pebbles had their jagged edges rounded from rubbing together during their journey. Sand and mud covered the pebbles, and the layers first subsided to a level where chemical action cemented them together, transforming them into the conglomerate. Later geological action lifted them up once more.
Typically the younger rocks above the Sharon Formation weathered away more quickly leaving this tough rock near ground level. Weak areas, or joints, allowed the surface to crack over time, breaking the formation apart in places. As weak formations below weathered more quickly like those above had, they gave way beneath the Sharon Formation. The conglomerate began to slowly break away and follow the force of gravity downhill along the joints, forming gorges between the chunks of Sharon Formation that remain as ledges that tower above the stream at the bottom. As you walk to the observation deck, you will see chunks of sandstone and conglomerate littering your path that have broken away from the ledges over time.
To log this earthcache, you must email me the answers to the following questions.
1. What range of sizes do you see among the quartz pebbles? Conglomerates can be a mix of different types of rocks—how do the pebbles compare to the sandstone that surround them? Do you think they are sedimentary rocks, too?
2. Describe the different layers you see in the formation before you. Where does the conglomerate fit in? Can you make out more than one layer of sandstone, or does it look the same from the floor of the deck to the top?
3. The last is strictly optional--post a picture of you and/or your GPSer next to one of the chunks of conglomerate that you pass along the way back to the parking lot.
Email me the answers to these questions--don't post them in your log (except the picture, of course), even if encrypted.
***** Congratulations to Dash-ers for FTF!!! *****
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