Rocks

[goose63]

@thecfarm do you have rocks that look like this ? 60 miles south of Mandan N. D. the ground is coverd with them from small to large



 

Smoth as glass and heavy

I know its upside down

[thecfarm]

Nothing like that on my land. Mine just about all look the same. I just came in from making 2 trips up into the bog. 
I've been watching videos on how to split big rocks. Either I buy something bigger to haul off some big rocks, 4 feet across and more or I buy a big drill and start splitting them. 

[Don P]

I've got 2 whoppers that have slid into the creek you can come experiment on  .

I've rigged up the skidsteer to be able to take a jackhammer, $165/week rental here. The boulders in the creek are gonna take the generator and the handheld jackhammer... the stars just haven't lined up quite right yet, or maybe I'm still seeing stars after the last session with it  .

That looks like old quarried limestone?

[SwampDonkey]

A lot of the rock up here is this: granite, calcareous shale and sandstone.

white granite




pink granite




shale with quarts (metamorphic)  I've seen this along the highway that looked like layers of ribbon undulating and looping like shoe laces.




fossilized/calcareous shale/mudstone

[Ianab]

A chunk of sandstone I picked up off a beach a couple of hours up the coast. 



 

Would have been a sandbar in some estuary a few million years back. Now it's part of a cliff face that's gradually eroding into the sea again. 

[thecfarm]

SwampDonkey, most of mine looks like that first picture.
I do have some "ledge" around here. They ditched the road many years ago ,left a drop off about 3 feet high. I got tired of trimming that. I sloped it off so I could mow it. I find a section of ledge. A sledge hammer took care of that. I had a rock sticking up in the field the same way. No more mowing around that one either. I do have a few rocks that kinda looks like ledge.

[SwampDonkey]

Yep, I have a few big round white granite pushed up from the field into the orchard. But there is lots of quartz around here to, big milk white rocks.

[Don P]

We have much the same as SD, our main "basement" rock is the pink granite known as cranberry gneiss here. The white granite is locally known as Grayson granite but a little south of us is the largest quarry of it, many government buildings are faced in that rock. No fossils to speak of right here, its pre cambrian rock in the blue ridge but that stuff starts showing up a ridge or two over in the valley and ridge and then in the coalfields of the allegheny plateau. The ones that slid into the creek are banded sandstone, a capstone that has worked its way down from the mountaintop over much time. Pretty rocks when they aren't in danger of blocking up the creek in high water.

[aigheadish]

Man, I love rocks! I don't know anything about them but I'm collecting them as much as I can and I do backhoe work for neighbors and will gladly take big rocks for payment. The various rocks above are beautiful! I'm collecting them for landscaping around my pond, when I finally get to that project.

@thecfarm have you tried fire for splitting your big rocks? I've started a thread on the Heavy Equipment Forums to discuss rocks and there are folks up in your neck of the woods that have some very big rocks to address and some of them just build big fires under and around those rocks to break them up. It seems to work well, if you have a wood supply and some time. 

If anyone ever wants to get rid of their rocks let me know! I prefer grapefruit sized and bigger but will take just about anything! Granted, I don't have a way to move them if you are more than about 2 miles away from my house, but that could change if there is really ever an offer!

[SwampDonkey]

We have enough to balance a second layer on top.

[thecfarm]

Yes, I remember my father talking about it. If I did that I would raise the earth temperature by at least 1 degree.     I have about 50, most start at 4 feet across and bigger, that need a fire treatment. 

[HemlockKing]

I got large roundish smooth stone all over my property. You can find them through the woods usually a couple a acre that are big and exposed. I certainly have no shortage of stone here  like c farm. Stone farms

[Sauna freak]

@goose63 .  Without putting my hands on it, I'd guess some kind of Chert, calcite or flint.  All are limestone derivatives, formed in solution cavities or by metamorphosis of the limestone itself. I see a lot of it in Southern MN through the Eastern Dakotas.  It's chemically very similar to glass.