Pictured above is a mineralized vug (approximately 3 inches long) in chert. A vug is a void or open space in a rock. Many vugs are filled with minerals after water that is saturated with a certain mineral flows through the rock. This mineralization can happen in multiple stages. The vug above was initially filled with silica-rich fluid therefore quartz precipitated out of solution and lined the walls of the vug. Afterwards calcite precipitated, as is evident from the larger crystal on the interior left of the vug.
This vug is present in a section of ornamentally banded chert. Chert is a sedimentary rock made up of microcrystalline quartz. It can be a variety of colors or banded and quite beautiful. The chert above is Devonian age (416-359 million years ago) from northwest Arkansas.
Accessory minerals are minerals found in igneous rocks that are not used for the classification or naming of the rock. These minerals may be commonly present in a type of rock, but the absence of the mineral would not change the general classification geologists give to the rock.
The two accessory minerals in the center of the picture above are greenish-black needles of aegirine (AY-jur-EEN) and orangish-pink analcime (uh-NAL-seem) crystals. These minerals are frequently found together in igneous intrusions of syenite like the one present at Granite Mountain, where this sample was collected.
Accessory minerals give important clues to geologists when trying to determine details about how a rock formed and how it changed over time. They can make up a substantial portion or a fairly insignificant portion of a rock. Some accessory minerals make up a sufficient portion of the rock to be included as a modifier in the name, such as “biotite syenite”. Adding such a modifier gives geologists quick and useful information about how this rock differs from standard syenite.
Continuing with our previous theme “Sharkansas”, this week’s geo-pic is on Arkansas corals. Of course, corals don’t live in Arkansas today, but from about 480 million years ago, up until roughly 40 million years ago, coral would have been a fairly common sight in the natural state.
The picture above is of a tabulate coral: a now-extinct variety of colonial coral. Each hexagonal corallite chamber housed a simple, individual animal, called a polyp, that could protrude and retract to filter food from the water. The chambers in this fossil are in-filled with the mineral calcite, but that occurred after the coral died and was incorporated into the rock. It was photographed in the Ozark Plateaus, in the Prairie Grove Member of the Hale Formation.
Other varieties of coral are found in the rocks of Arkansas. For more views of Arkansas corals click here