Ancient Oceans, Orogenic Uplifts, and Glacial Ice: Geologic Crossroads in America’s Heartland
This volume, prepared for the 130th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Indianapolis, includes compelling science and field trips in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio. A wealth of geologic and human history collides in the Midwest, a confluence that led to the growth of America's industry over the past two centuries. Guides in this volume depict this development from the establishment of New Harmony, the birthplace of American geology, through the construction of Indianapolis's modern skyline. Underpinning this growth were the widespread natural resources-limestone, coal, and water-that built, powered, and connected a growing nation. Take a journey through the Heartland to sand dunes, outcrops, quarries, rivers, caves, and springs that connect Paleozoic stratigraphy with the assembly of Gondwana, continental glaciation with Quaternary geomorphology and hydrology, and landscape with the human environment.
Monuments, museums, and skyscrapers: The building and decorative stones of downtown Indianapolis
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Published:December 10, 2018
ABSTRACT
This walking trip examines local and imported stones used for a wide variety of monuments, museums, skyscrapers, and other structures in downtown Indianapolis. These include Christ Church Cathedral, the Indiana War Memorial, the Indiana Statehouse, the Indiana State Museum, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian Art, and an assortment of skyscrapers and other buildings of interest because of the local and imported stones used in their construction. Special attention is given to the spectacular use of stone for the Indiana War Memorial, which is patterned after the tomb of Mausoleus. The origin, composition, weathering, and in some cases replacement of stone used for these varied structures built over a span of a century-and-a-half is discussed. Attention is also given to the use of faux stone, use of stone versus glass, weathering and cleaning of stone, bowing of marble, and biocolonization of building stone.
- biogenic processes
- building stone
- buildings
- Carboniferous
- composition
- conservation
- construction materials
- field trips
- Indiana
- marbles
- Marion County Indiana
- Meramecian
- metamorphic rocks
- Mississippian
- monuments
- museums
- ornamental materials
- Paleozoic
- provenance
- Salem Limestone
- United States
- Upper Mississippian
- weathering
- Indianapolis Indiana