Sandstone

I saw natural orange-colored structures, in Arizona and New Mexico, that reminded me of Uluru. I declared they were made of sandstone like Uluru, even though that may or may not be true. I'm not a geological expert.  But still, I've been slightly obsessing over sandstone the past few days.

I know there's at least one sandstone structure in Arizona. It's called The Wave. We didn't see it. According to their website, Wave Rock in Western Australia is NOT sandstone. It's made of granite. Lord Wiki says that Karlu Karlu (the Devil's Marbles) are also made of Granite.

What about the Pinnacles? Are they granite, sandstone...or something else?

Ah! Lord Wiki says they're limestone.

I love the Pinnacles. Maybe I should stop having a love affair with sandstone and open my heart to granite and limestone as well.

I loved the rocks we passed by quickly in Dragoon, Arizona. I wonder what they were made from.

I just learned that there's a town in town in Western Australia called Sandstone. It has a London Bridge, but it's different from the human-made structure in London.  Western Australia's London Bridge was formed by the earth. I assumed it would be made of sandstone, but their website says it's made of basalt.

Lord Wiki says basalt is a volcanic rock. What is sandstone?

Lord Wiki says it's a sedimentary rock.  I wish I remembered what that meant. Then all that middle school earth science wouldn't feel like such a waste of time.

Lord Wiki says sandstone is mostly made up of quartz and something called feldspar. I do know what quartz is. I have a quartz rock sitting on my desk.

At least I think it's quartz. I've been wrong about so many other things....

Lord Wiki says the University of Sydney is made of sandstone.  It's a specific sandstone found in Australia called Sydney Basin Hawkesbury Sandstone. And some people call it yellowblock.

Most of Sydney's bedrock is made from this sandstone. Do I know what bedrock is? I wish. To me, it's just the town where the Flintstones lived.

Jack interrupted by blogging to announce that it was lunch time.

Before going into the kitchen, I retrieved a little  educational card about rocks from my nightstand drawer. So, this isn't the first time I've had a longing to know more about rocks. Though when I got the card, my interest was more spiritually based. I was into gemstones a few years ago.  I'm not sure why I bought the educational card. Maybe it came free with my other purchases? Or maybe I thought it would be wise to expand my knowledge beyond  the spiritual. Either way, I don't think I educated myself very well. There's a whole explanation about sedimentary rocks on the back. Did I fail to read it back then? Or maybe I read and learned; then forgot.

Anyway...if I'm understanding the card correctly, sedimentary rocks are rocks that are formed by erosion. But then there's something called metaphoric rock. I'm not sure how that differs from sedimentary rock.

I'm lost. Confused.

I also retrieved something I remembered seeing in the kitchen drawer. I think Tim's father sent it to us. It's a mineral educational card from a museum in Arizona.

Both cards have actual samples of rocks on it. It's really cool, actually.

The card I had ordered has a sample of sandstone. It doesn't look too exciting.  It's grayish, and looks like the rocks we'd easily find outside.

I'm going to get back to what I was talking about before lunch—Sydney Sandstone. Lord Wiki has a list of buildings made from it—Saint Andrew's Cathedral, The Great Synagogue, Sydney Grammar School, Australian Museum, Central Railroad Station, Sydney Town Hall, Queen Victoria Building, and many others.

The ABC has an interesting page about the history of Sydney Sandstone. I saw a little of it while skimming Lord Wiki's information.

The sandstone caused some problems for the early European arrivals because it made farming difficult. Then they realized they could use the sandstone for building.  An area was dug out from The Rocks, and this has become known as the Argyle Cut. I think I know what that is. It's that tunnel, I believe.

The website says that people started getting rocks from Pyrmont. There were a lot of quarries there.

Although people used sandstone for building their little homes and such; it didn't become popular for public buildings until the 1850's.

Then in the mid 1900's, people lost their love for the sandstone. It was seen as old fashioned. And here's something shocking and awful. There was talk of tearing down the QVC building and turning it into a car-park. WTF!  Fortunately that stupid idea didn't come to fruition.

In weird news that probably has nothing to do with Australia or rocks, our printer mysteriously printed out sheet music. It's a composition by Vittirui Monti called "Csardas". The only normal (not eerie spiritual) explanation I can think of it somehow one of our neighbors somehow connected onto our printer network.

I'm listening to the music now on Spotify.  It's quite lovely.

Here's the song being played via violin on YouTube.  The sheet music we have is for the horn, though. So now I'm watching a video with that.


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