Assignment task: How do geologists determine rock types and formation mechanisms?
While exploring a fictitious planet, you find an outcrop that shows several different rocks. As you study the rocks more closely, you are able to determine what type of rock (i.e., igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic-or a mix!) is present at your outcrop. Your fictitious outcrop must have at least three of the following characteristics: sedimentary structures, hydrothermal alteration, igneous plutons, fossils, contact metamorphism, minerals from Bowen's reaction series, or foliation. Describe outcrop with at least the following information:
Which of the three rock types are present?
Which specific rocks (e.g., sandstone, granite, etc.) are present?
What characteristics are present in your outcrop?
In what type of environment did each of your characteristics form (e.g., sedimentary depositional environment, metamorphic conditions, in the crust, on the surface, etc.)?
Using your understanding of rock types and relative dating, explain the sequence of events that occurred to create your outcrop (i.e., what processes happened to create your outcrop?