Me standing on a "cannonball" concretion from the Late Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone Member of the Mancos Shale near Ferron, Utah during May 2002.  This locality was one of the stops for the Geology 310 - Field Studies course of May 2002 as we studied the stratigraphy of central and southern Utah.  The Ferron Sandstone is a highly constructive deltaic clastic wedge that prograded eastward into a Late Cretaceous sea.  It contains important deposits of coal and hydrocarbons.  "Cannonball" concretions may form in sandstone, siltstone, and shale as a result of minerals growing in the pore space of the rock. The minerals start crystallizing at a particular place in the rock and grow outward in concentric layers.  This heavy cementation makes the concretions more resistant to weathering than the surrounding rock, thus as the surrounding rock weathers away the concretions remain intact.  The "cannonball" concretions of the Ferron Sandstone occur in various sizes, from spherical concretions the size of true cannon balls to ones the size as shown above.

Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park - New York City.

The obelisk (composed of granite) was originally erected in Egypt in front of the temple of Heliopolis during the reign of Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (1504-1450 B.C.).  It was erected in New York's Central Park behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1881.  All four sides of the obelisk were originally engraved with hieroglyphics.  Notice in the photo that the side to the right is almost smooth, while the side on the left has clearly visible hieroglyphics.  Because of the direction of prevailing winds in New York City, two of the sides of the obelisk have been severely altered by chemical weathering due to air pollution, while the other two sides (one of which is visible above) still show distinctive hieroglyphics. (Photo by Susan Sowards, August 2005)

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From left to right, 1st Row (seated): Amanda Collins (WVUP), Carrie Kidd (WVUP), Nicole Dobrinic (MC), Ryan Stark (WVUP), Sara Litwinowicz (WVUP), Dr. Dwayne Stone (MC), Dr. Ed Crisp (WVUP), Erin Elder (WVUP).
2nd Row (knelling): Craig Townsend (WVUP), Harris Mason (MC), Matt Wolfe (MC), Zak Kohen (MC), Amber Carmichael (WVUP), David VanDeVelde (MC).
3rd Row (standing): Scott Sheldon (WVUP), Cliff Sadler (WVUP), Emily Decker (MC), Brant Gay (MC), Jenny Foley(MC), Jim Sharp (MC), Jenny Cournoyer (MC), Jay Reed (MC), Ivan Brown (WVUP), Beth Jamison (MC), John Bishop (MC)
4th Row (standing): Rocky Freeman (MC), Dr. Fred Voner (MC), Michael Bosworth (MC), Mark Blankenship (MC), Ginger Bennett (MC), Danny Dawes (MC), Shane Bishop (MC).
Not Pictured: Don Esker (MC) and Aaron Scott (MC).

This large rock is a glacial erratic in Acadia National Park, Maine.  This famous balanced boulder at the edge of a cliff on South Bubble Mountain is called Bubble Rock.  This boulder was transported by ice during the Pleistocene Ice Age (1.8 million to 10,000 years ago) from the Lucerne Granite, 19 miles to the north (Gilman, 1988).  Bubble Rock is a porphyritic granite.  The rectangular phenocrysts (2-3 cm in length by 1-2 cm in width) of the gray to white feldspar (probably albite) are in a groundmass of coarse gray granite (albite, hornblende, and smoky quartz crystals, 5-10 mm in diameter).  The boulder is resting on pink, coarse grained granite (the Cadillac Mountain Granite of Devonian age, radiometrically dated at about 365 million years old [Gilman, 1988).  Susan Sowards (for scale) is attempting to push the boulder over the cliff - of course, she failed in this endeavor.   (Photo by E.L. Crisp, August 2005)