Oldest Rocks in Kansas

Oldest Rocks in Kansas (HM1HUT)

Location: Blue Rapids, KS 66411 Marshall County
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Country: United States of America
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N 39° 40.895', W 96° 39.569'

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Inscription

The Monument to the Ice Age

— Blue Rapids, Kansas —

The oldest rocks in Kansas can be found right here in Blue Rapids. They are called Sioux Quartzite, a metamorphosed red sandstone originally deposited as sand in riverbeds, buried, and made extremely hard by heat and pressure. This quartzite was formed over 1.5 billion years ago in what is now southern Minnesota. In Kansas, only meteorites are older.
Glaciers picked up pieces of Sioux Quartzite near Pipestone, Minnesota and brought them nearly 300 miles to northeastern Kansas.
Sioux Quartzite boulders were used by Blue Rapids residents for building materials and decorative hardscaping.
The rock called pipestone was once river mud. It was part of the same river system that had the sand that became the Sioux Quartzite. Pipestone is now the special claystone from which Native Americans carved pipe bowls.
Can you imagine something that is 1.5 billion years old?
Details
HM NumberHM1HUT
Tags
,
Year Placed2012
Placed ByGeorge Callison and Concerned Blue Rapids Citizens and Organizations
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Sunday, November 16th, 2014 at 9:01pm PST -08:00
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Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)14S E 700721 N 4395035
Decimal Degrees39.68158333, -96.65948333
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 39° 40.895', W 96° 39.569'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds39° 40' 53.7" N, 96° 39' 34.14" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)785
Which side of the road?Marker is on the right when traveling North
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 601 Main St, Blue Rapids KS 66411, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

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