Geology Entry
I’m a very visual learning so being told that for “class” today we were going to to Castle rock to study Geology sounded right up my ally for some awesome hands on experiences. Plus, we got to go rock climbing….
Castle rock is this massive structure protruding from a large hill. It was a welcoming symbol to all the earlier explorers so that added an extra element to its mystique.
Castle Rock
Luckily, we had a couple geologist in the class whose enthusiasm for these really cool rocks got us all excited. With our sketch books and pencils primed we spread out over the base of the rock to analyze the different formations. There were drastic color variations, lots of sediments embedded in the rocks and also a great example of a dike.
a dike pushing up in the weak spots in the rock
Thanks to our field trip to the port hills we knew what we were looking at and how to interpret our findings. There were some tricky maneuvers with notebook pages in the wind so we had to be careful to NOT DROP ANYTHING or it might very well have blown off forever.
check out those lava deposits
Castle rock soon became obvious to us that it had some volcanic activity going on in its past. We saw lava deposits in the rocks, this was only the beginning compared to what we found on the top. But first we had to climb!
Phil, Melissa and Billy taking a break
When we got to the top, the view was stunning. We could see Erebus dwarfing the wee black dot that was our camp, the Transantarctic Mountains stretching all around and also the various island in the sea ice. Lets not forget about the super cool rocks though!
on top of the world
To our amazement we saw on the top of Castle Rock that the small dike on the side was just the beginning of a huge lava flow that seeped up the middle but never quite broke through the sides. I felt like a detective figuring out the story this rock had to tell us. We saw some awesome ventifacts, rocks shaped by the wind over millions of years. I have some very clear memories of what we learned. Much stronger than being taught about rocks in a stuff classroom with a boring lecturer! There truly is nothing like going out and exploring this amazing world we live in. How lucky was I to be able to do this in Antarctica!
ventifacts- rocks at their coolest