The knowledge that societies have of their geological environment and of the materials used in their heritage is of great importance for the sustainable use and conservation of traditional natural stone architecture. Similar weathering mechanisms occur in natural environments and the built environment and, in both cases, weathering may endanger both natural and built heritage. The Sierra de Guadarrama (Spanish Central System) is a privileged area in which natural and built heritage coexist. This paper describes an area of particular monumental and geological interest on the northern slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama; its main aim is to propose an itinerary for members of the public, presented as a route through the area around Segovia, in which architecture/cultural heritage and an Earth sciences approach are brought together with an educational purpose. To this end, some connections are established between weathering forms in natural and built environments, as well as between the lithological characteristics of the rocks used in construction of ancient monuments in the area and the distribution of stresses and loads of walls.

All types of stones have been used as building stones, depending on their durability, visual harmony with the intended construction and availability. In the Hellenistic period, as in other periods, tuff was preferred as a building stone due to its convenience – it was easy to extract, transport and use for building. In the present study, three ancient quarries that were the possible tuff sources for the Apollon Smintheus Temple in Çanakkale are investigated by comparing the durability properties of stones in the temple and in the quarries. These properties are determined using physical and physico-mechanical tests, comparing fresh and artificially weathered samples. Microstructural and elemental correlations were found using optical microscopy, stereomicroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, methylene blue adsorption and X-ray fluorescence analyses. The results indicate that temple tuffs and two of three quarries have similar geological engineering and microstructural properties with the strong claim that those two quarries could have been the source of building stone for the temple.

Natural stone was the primary building material in Cyprus in the past. Nowadays, its use is mostly confined to decorative purposes and restoration projects. This study represents the first thorough and systematic investigation of the characteristics of local carbonate stone. The variety of the results recorded highlights the complexity of this natural geomaterial and, hence, the particular attention needed before selecting the appropriate lithotype in construction practice. Stones coming from the same geological formation exhibit significant variations in their physico-mechanical properties. The materials’ durability against salt crystallization is explained with reference to their pore structure and flexural strength, revealing that, in many cases, small differences may have a significant impact on stone performance. The study also investigates the use of novel microdestructive techniques in the prediction of the mechanical properties of the stones under study. These techniques can be especially useful in the characterization of monumental stone, where sampling is limited, or when in situ characterization of stone is required.

The Netherlands, with only scarce occurrences of outcropping or shallow buried natural stone, has over centuries imported huge quantities of Early Cretaceous Bentheim Sandstone and Obernkirchen Sandstone from Germany. The present paper provides an overview of their distribution and properties relevant to their use as building stone, and their mutual differences and comparative weathering. Evidence in Dutch architecture for the onset of quarrying of the Bentheim Sandstone is presented, and an overview is given of the use of Bentheim Sandstone and Obernkirchen Sandstone in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Highly porous and soft calcarenites, often called ‘calcareous tuffs’, are commonly found throughout Southern Italy and are traditionally used as building materials. The petrophysical features of some of them were determined, focusing on the microstructure (fabric and porosimetric characteristics) and on the properties related to water absorption, drying and water vapour permeability; the compressive strength was also measured. The mineralogical composition was analysed and a variable presence of clay minerals was found for the different varieties. Diverse levels of damage under a salt crystallization test were related to the mineralogical, petrographic and porosimetric features, the latter being a source of the heterogeneity of the investigated stones. Results of laboratory tests and observations of decay in the field suggest protection against water penetration as the primary requirement for slowing down the decay of such highly porous and soft stones. Some water-repellent products were tested for effectiveness in reducing water absorption and for compatibility with the original stones’ properties. Their use in the presence of salts was taken into account, including the performances of the treated stones under the salt crystallization test. Treatment issues were found to be strongly influenced by the porosimetric characteristics of the studied materials.

This study presents a new experimental chamber, which builds upon previous methods of testing salt weathering. This method is based on capillary rising in samples, as this corresponds to the actual imbibition process in building stone. This set-up allows control in setting both a specific thermal regime and cycling temperatures. Some of the significant additions of this experimental set-up are: continuous flow of the saline solution, as the samples will be fed with a constant concentration throughout the experiments; and continuous monitoring of environmental temperature, relative humidity and sample weights. Recorded results in this research belong to limestone samples from Mokattam, Cairo. Results are also considered as a proof to the practical advantages of the experimental chamber in salt-weathering studies and its environmental controls.

Enjoying geology does not necessarily mean strenuous hikes. This day-long, easygoing field trip is literally out of a car with various stops along the northern Colorado Front Range from north of Boulder to the Wyoming state line, with the longest hike being ~1.6 km (1 mi) round trip. We will examine and discuss stratigraphic units and geologic features from the Precambrian to the Quaternary, including the Great Unconformity. Participants will see inclined strata and differential weathering; gravel-topped mesas and inverted topography; vegetation that relies on ancient volcanic ash; evidence of the Cretaceous Seaway; a fracking simulation in the Niobrara Formation; a fault-interrupted S-shaped plunging fold trace; quarried slabs from ancient sand dunes; and impacts of the September 2013 Front Range flood. We will explore pegmatite emplacement and mineralization in the crystalline interior of the Rocky Mountains and in the Colorado Mineral Belt. Continuing north, we will see dinosaur bones in the Jurassic Morrison Formation; a mysterious snaggle-toothed rock wall; evidence of the 1976 Big Thompson flash flood; and Paleozoic strata with calcite spar, and microfossils. In conclusion, we will observe: block faulting of the northern Colorado terrain; the Virginia Dale ring dike and its famous magma mixing outcrop; and a deeply weathered, freely accessible diamond pipe recently discovered by Metropolitan State University of Denver students and faculty. This trip is excellent for anyone who would like to sample the amazing diversity of northern Colorado’s geology, including scientists, students, educators, and rock hounds with opportunities to collect some nice specimens for teaching or personal enjoyment.

The Haile gold mine is located in southern Lancaster County, South Carolina, near the town of Kershaw. Gold was discovered at the site in 1827, and four periods of mining have yielded 360,000 ounces of gold. The mine is located between the past producing Ridgeway and Brewer mines that, when all are combined, constitute a significant amount of historical gold production in the southeastern United States. These mines are hosted within Neoproterozoic to lower Cambrian Carolina terrane rocks and are dominated by volcanic and epiclastic units that have experienced greenschist facies metamorphism. Saprolitic weathering is present in the near-surface portions of the deposit and is locally covered by Cretaceous-aged Coastal Plain sediments. The gold mineralization at the Haile mine is hosted within silicified meta-sediments containing fine-grained disseminated pyrite and pyrrhotite and is a replacement type-epithermal deposit. Re-Os ages from molybdenite associated with the mineralization indicate that the deposit formed shortly after major, arc-related volcanic activity.Haile currently has a measured and indicated resource of 4.03 million ounces at an average grade of 1.77 g/t Au with an additional inferred resource of 801,000 ounces at an average grade of 1.24 g/t Au. Included in the resource is a reserve of 2.02 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 2.06 g/t. Mine construction began in May 2015, and gold production is expected by the end of 2016. The construction cost is expected to be US$380 million. Ore will be extracted from eight open pits with mill extraction and the current mine life is 14 years.

Baltimore, the Monumental City, was founded in 1729. One of the oldest large cities in the United States, it has had a long history of stone use. This chapter discusses the stone used for a number of iconic Baltimore monuments and buildings, including the Battle Monument, the Washington Monument, the neo-classical Basilica of the Assumption, the neo-Gothic Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, Transamerica Tower (Baltimore’s tallest building), and a number of other structures, providing an overview of the major stone types used in the city during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The general trend over this time is a shift from use of local and regional stone to use of stone from a variety of sources, including stone from Europe and Asia. This trend is most apparent in stone used for building exteriors. The various stones used have different properties, which affect their susceptibility to weathering. These include serpentinites, marbles, and brownstones that are particularly prone to weathering.

This guide accompanies a walking tour of sites where masonry was employed on or near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It begins with an overview of the geological setting of the city and development of the Mall. Each federal monument or building on the tour is briefly described, followed by information about its exterior stonework. The focus is on masonry buildings of the Smithsonian Institution, which date from 1847 with the inception of construction for the Smithsonian Castle and continue up to completion of the National Museum of the American Indian in 2004. The building stones on the tour are representative of the development of the American dimension stone industry with respect to geology, quarrying techniques, and style over more than two centuries. Details are provided for locally quarried stones used for the earliest buildings in the capital, including Aquia Creek sandstone (U.S. Capitol and Patent Office Building), Seneca Red sandstone (Smithsonian Castle), Cockeysville Marble (Washington Monument), and Piedmont bedrock (lockkeeper’s house). Following improvement in the transportation system, buildings and monuments were constructed with stones from other regions, including Shelburne Marble from Vermont, Salem Limestone from Indiana, Holston Limestone from Tennessee, Kasota stone from Minnesota, and a variety of granites from several states. Topics covered include geological origins, architectural design considerations, weathering problems, and conservation issues.

The recent discovery of the direct link between Deccan volcanism and the end-Cretaceous mass extinction also links volcanism to the late Maastrichtian rapid global warming, high environmental stress, and the delayed recovery in the early Danian. In comparison, three decades of research on the Chicxulub impact have failed to account for long-term climatic and environmental changes or prove a coincidence with the mass extinction. A review of Deccan volcanism and the best age estimate for the Chicxulub impact provides a new perspective on the causes for the end-Cretaceous mass extinction and supports an integrated Deccan-Chicxulub scenario. This scenario takes into consideration climate warming and cooling, sea-level changes, erosion, weathering, ocean acidification, high-stress environments with opportunistic species blooms, the mass extinction, and delayed postextinction recovery. The crisis began in C29r (upper CF2 to lower CF1) with rapid global warming of 4 °C in the oceans and 8 °C on land, commonly attributed to Deccan phase 2 eruptions. The Chicxulub impact occurred during this warm event (about 100–150 k.y. before the mass extinction) based on the stratigraphically oldest impact spherule layer in NE Mexico, Texas, and Yucatan crater core Yaxcopoil-1. It likely exacerbated climate warming and may have intensified Deccan eruptions. The reworked spherule layers at the base of the sandstone complex in NE Mexico and Texas were deposited in the upper half of CF1, ~50–80 k.y. before the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary. This sandstone complex, commonly interpreted as impact tsunami deposits of K-T boundary age, was deposited during climate cooling, low sea level, and intensified currents, leading to erosion of nearshore areas (including Chicxulub impact spherules), transport, and redeposition via submarine channels into deeper waters. Renewed climate warming during the last ~50 k.y. of the Maastrichtian correlates with at least four rapid, massive volcanic eruptions known as the longest lava flows on Earth that ended with the mass extinction, probably due to runaway effects. The kill mechanism was likely ocean acidification resulting in the carbonate crisis commonly considered to be the primary cause for four of the five Phanerozoic mass extinctions.

The Coles Hill uranium property is located in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, within the Smith River allochthon in Southside Virginia's Western Piedmont Province. The Coles Hill property is bounded on the east by the listric normal Chatham fault at the Triassic Danville basin. Uranium mineralization occurs in the footwall of the Chatham fault and is hosted in healed fractures and in hydrothermal apatite in the Leatherwood granite mylonite that is intruded by the Rich Acres gabbro amphibolite. The granite is silica depleted. The mylonite is foliated with a strike of 030° and dips 30°SE; the Chatham fault strikes 030° and dips 60°SE. The structural trap for uranium mineralization is contained on the east by the Chatham fault and beneath by unmineralized Leatherwood biotite gneiss, which is underlain by the Fork Mountain schist. Hematite staining of the ground surface is from weathering of Fork Mountain schist, which outcrops west of the Chatham fault at a constant distance of half a kilometer. In the southern property, pods of uranium mineralization plunge south at 45°. In the northern property, pods of uranium mineralization plunge northeast at 12°. Saussurite, rapakivi textures, Na- and K-metasomatism, titanite, zircon, apatite, calcite, and hematite are present. One possible uranium source is remobilization from the Triassic basin by westward-flowing meteoric waters that intersected the Chatham fault at depth and migrated upward and laterally into the Leatherwood granite. Another uranium source model may be introduction of uranium mineralization by hydrothermal fluids associated with emplacement and cooling of the Leatherwood granite. These fluids would have migrated upward into a structural trap where uranium minerals were precipitated in hydrothermal fractures.

On this field trip, participants will get their hands dirty while characterizing soils formed on five different rock types: Archean Gneiss, Flathead Sandstone, Wolsey Shale, Meagher Limestone, and Absaroka Volcanics (a basaltic andesite rock). We first recap prior soil survey efforts across the Gallatin National Forest in southwestern Montana and introduce a state factor approach to understanding soils. For over 50 years, Montana State University faculty have explored parts of this lithosequence, using it as a natural laboratory for thousands of students. We continue this tradition with this field guide, emphasizing how the combination of field and laboratory data can enrich our understanding of soil processes. We will observe and measure striking differences in soils; these differences in physical and chemical properties, from textures and colors to pH and elemental composition, are discussed in the context of quantifying the influence of the underlying rock on soil properties. We use these differences to ask whether heterogeneity in soil properties justifies the inference that soil properties are dominated by the underlying lithology. We conclude that the underlying rock strongly influences soil properties, but in variable ways across this lithosequence. This influence is both direct and indirect: chemical weathering of the rock leads to compositional changes in overlying soil, but rock weathering also leads to coarse fragments in the soil profile, which alters soil hydrology.

Following the middle of the twentieth century, Earth scientists increasingly became aware of the significant role played by the incorporation of dust in the formation of soils. Dust plays an especially important role in the development of aridland soils, given the usually abundant supply of dust and generally limited magnitude of chemical weathering that characterizes aridland soils. The recognition that virtually all calcium in pedogenic carbonate is derived from calcium-bearing dust that primarily accumulates in a very common horizon of aridland soils, the calcic horizon, was critical in convincing scientists that soil formation in aridlands differs in fundamental respects from that in more humid settings. Research conducted by Leland Gile and his colleagues in the Desert Soil Geomorphology Project in southern New Mexico produced one of the most important bodies of published research in the 1960s to the early 1980s, that demonstrated both the significant impact of dust on aridland soils and their geomorphic significance. Subsequent research in the Cima volcanic field of the Mojave Desert, southwestern United States, showed that the nature of soil development associated with the formation and evolution of desert pavements is markedly different from that proscribed by the “canonical” A/B/C model of soil profile development described by V. Dokuchaev, the profile model most familiar to the majority of Earth scientists. The soils that develop beneath desert pavements form in parent materials increasingly composed of entrapped dust that is subsequently translocated below the pavement. Vesicular horizons, the key surface horizon of desert pavement soils, and subjacent, thickening clay and calcium carbonate–enriched B horizons form mainly through accretionary and inflationary profile (AIP) development, a type of cumulative soil development associated with rising desert pavements. The “upward growth” model of desert pavement formation profoundly contrasts with the “deflation” model. The behavior of the vesicular A horizon is important in maintaining a balance between rates of dust entrapment and translocation that enables continued AIP, while maintaining desert pavement at the surface. Soil chronosequence studies show that AIP and desert pavement formation are favored on other landforms (e.g., alluvial fans), providing that a weathering-resistant rock type is available to form a persistent pavement. Once desert pavements and soils have formed, most have likely survived exposure to “glacial” periods, despite effectively greater precipitation and locally significant changes in the nature of biotic communities that are characteristic of such periods. AIP is also an important mode of soil profile development in semiarid regions where desert pavements cannot form and vesicular horizons are weakly developed or absent. Increased plant density continues to favor the dust entrapment rates necessary to maintain AIP, as well as to provide a surface stabilizing function. Given the ecologically limiting role of water in aridlands, the nature of and time-dependent changes in soils forming by AIP strongly influence patterns of recruitment and composition of plants in aridland landscapes and their response to environmental change. The hillslopes of aridland hills and mountains are excellent dust traps, and in favorable circumstances, weathering and dust entrapment promotes the development of thick, vegetated and smooth soil-mantled hillslopes. Toposequence studies in selected areas of the southwestern United States indicate that the presence of dust-entrapping colluvium is probably necessary to maintain AIP on hillslopes over long periods of time. Vegetation also promotes entrapment of dust, but vegetation on hillslopes is highly sensitive to episodic drought and/or fires that temporarily eliminate or drastically reduce vegetation cover. Episodically increased erosion potential prevents sustained AIP, and accumulated dust in soils is quickly transported from the hillslopes. Certain types of bedrock in aridland hillslopes weather rapidly and favor the development of soil-mantled, transport-limited hillslopes, but the typically thin, weakly developed soils are prone to rapid erosion, especially when subject to a combination of extreme drought followed by large increases in rainfall. Glacial-to-interglacial changes in climate also cause substantial changes in biotic communities, rates and processes of weathering, and soil development that influence the behavior of aridland hillslopes. Models that employ the soil production function have been developed recently to enable calculation of rates of soil production on soil- and vegetation-mantled upland hillslopes. The results of a half century of soil geomorphological research in aridlands, relying largely on the “CLORPT”-based approach, complemented by studies of the behavior of biotic communities in aridlands, suggest that maintaining the necessary conditions fundamental in the application of soil production functions in studies of hillslopes (transport solely by diffusive processes maintaining steady-state soil thickness and a spatially and temporally constant diffusion coefficient) for thousands to tens of thousands of years is highly unlikely in aridlands. Changing the word soil, in the term soil production function to the term mobile regolith will reduce confusion concerning the actual meanings of these different terms and facilitate a greater degree of integration of very different approaches in the study of soil landscape evolution.

Although the southern Front Range in Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs contains a near-complete record of Rocky Mountains geological evolution from Proterozoic to Present, there nevertheless are persistent geological problems that have eluded understanding for as much as 125 years. In keeping with the 2013 GSA Annual Meeting theme, “Celebrating Advances in Geoscience,” this field trip visits long-known elements of Front Range geology that merit reexamination within the context of new paleoenvironmental and geochronology data. Of note are: (1) the Great Unconformity and its chemically weathered substrate that correspond to a time of profound changes in global ocean chemistry; (2) lower Paleozoic strata that record sea-level fluctuations, attributable in part to regional tectonism; (3) an array of granite-hosted sandstone dikes, for which a new emplacement model is proposed; and (4) the Front Range monocline at Garden of the Gods Park, examined from the standpoint of its temporal evolution, newly bracketed by results of 40Ar/39Ar age analysis of illite generated by shear upon bedding-parallel faults.

The architecture of the critical zone—the distribution of mobile regolith, the thickness of weathered rock, and their characteristics, as well as the topography of the land surface—is shaped by erosion and weathering processes that depend upon both lithology and climate. In this trip we explore the Boulder Creek watershed, a landscape that juxtaposes uplifted Precambrian crystalline rocks of Colorado’s Front Range against Mesozoic marine sedimentary rocks underpinning the western edge of the High Plains. The landscape is strongly shaped by Quaternary climate cycles operating on this template inherited from the Laramide orogeny. Stop 1 will provide an overview of the abrupt topographic step at the Front Range–High Plains join, where we will discuss fluvial strath terraces on the Plains. At Stop 2 in Betasso Preserve, we will discuss the impact of the canyon cutting set off by late Cenozoic exhumation of the High Plains on the hillslopes and groundwater systems lining the master stream. At Stop 3, we will hike 2 miles down Gordon Gulch, a focus site in the Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory. At stops on the hike, we will discuss exhumation rates, climate-modulated weathering, hillslope hydrology and hillslope sediment transport, and the influence of slope aspect on these processes. Our goal is to focus on the history of climate-driven erosion and weathering processes, and how to incorporate these processes into quantitative models of landscape evolution.

Upper Jurassic sandstones deposited in a shallow-marine deltaic setting in the Piper Field of the Outer Moray Firth area, North Sea, show high-frequency fluctuations in apatite:tourmaline ratios that appear to be related to sea-level change. Because apatite and tourmaline are both stable during burial diagenesis and have similar hydraulic behavior, variations in the apatite:tourmaline ratio indicate either differences in sediment provenance or in the extent of floodplain weathering, apatite being unstable during weathering. Other provenance-sensitive heavy mineral ratios (rutile:zircon, monazite:zircon, chrome spinel:zircon) and mineral-chemical data from detrital garnet assemblages show that sandstones with high apatite:tourmaline have the same provenance as sandstones with low apatite:tourmaline. Fluctuations in apatite:tourmaline ratios are therefore attributed to the extent of weathering during floodplain residence prior to the sediment entering the marine system. Sedimentological data indicate that sandstones with high apatite:tourmaline were deposited during sea-level highstands, whereas sandstones with low apatite:tourmaline were deposited during lowstands. The implication of this observation is that during sea-level lowstands, sediment undergoes more prolonged floodplain residence than during highstands, apparently the direct result of the increase in areal extent of the floodplain. The fluctuations in apatite:tourmaline offer an opportunity for high-resolution correlation in the Piper Field. If similar patterns become apparent in other areas, variations in apatite:tourmaline ratios could also provide a basis for identifying highstand and lowstand events, and help establish whether deep-water submarine fan sandstones were deposited during highstands or lowstands.