23 September, 2011

Geology Was Invented Here

This is Van Hise Rock.





It was named after Charles Van Hise and, if you live in Madison, that name probably rings a bell as there's a building on the UW campus named after him. Van Hise was UW president and a geologist by trade. It's probably not too far off the mark to say that structural geology was born right here. College students still come to the area to check out the rocks and see what they've only read about first-hand. Indeed, there was a caravan from some college in the UP there while we were.





Now here's another angle with Des posing.





Here's a close-up. On the left is more of that quartzite while the lighter stuff on the right is phyllite.





A neat bit of history. The older I get, the more interesting geology becomes to me. Perhaps this is because I can appreciate the vast amounts of time that come into play. However, I've still got a lot to learn about geology generally and the geologic history of Wisconsin specifically.

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