Note 1 — THE ROCKS AND THEIR HISTORY

The granite found in Darling State Park is white or pinkish in color and most times is speckled with shiny black mica flakes. On close inspection, grains of smoky to clear color are seen within the rock. The white and pink grains are the mineral, feldspar; the shiny black flakes, biotite mica; the smoky to clear grains, quartz or silica. A magnified picture of a slice of granite (see Fig. 2) shows the individual mineral grains and their interlocking nature with each other. Granite belongs to a major family of rocks, termed Igneous rocks. Igneous rocks are formed through the hardening or lithification of molten rock-material when subjected to the cooler temperatures at or near the earth’s surface. The molten rock material formed at some depth beneath the surface of the earth, where temperatures were many hundreds of degrees hotter than at the surface.