The Glorious Gravel Pit

The yard outside my workplace was recently graded, and I noticed right off that the new gravel was pretty darned cool. A few days after it was laid down, I picked up a nice piece of calcite that bordered on optical-grade. Next to it was a black sedimentary rock with a cute, nearly complete cast of a brachiopod (I presented that one to Jon). A cursory inspection of the lot on any given day will net me a handful of partial fossils, mostly brachiopods. I found a few today in the space of five minutes while sitting just outside the door-- and I think I'll run them by Jon for identification.

The fun doesn't end with sedimentary rocks, though. There are some nice frothy igneous bits, and some pretty red pieces of granite, and lots of lovely rocks with crystalline veins, or visible fault lines, and beautiful colours and structures.

Sadly, a good portion of the lot is ground daily by pickup trucks, massive supply vehicles, and my own little Escort. All the pretty rocks, fossiliferous or otherwise, will be ground into smaller and smaller bitses, until only dust is left, and that dust in turn will be sprayed with nasty oil to keep it from kicking up clouds.

Ah well. The brachiopods all could have ended up as oil deposits to be burned inside said trucks and vehicles.