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Presents...
3 Check It Out! 4 Rock Stars 6 Music of the Rocks 7 Life in a Castle 8 Caves and Caverns 10 10 Cave Dwellers 14 14 Believe It or Not! 16 16 Puzzles 18 18 Canyons in the Earth 20 20 10 Solid Facts 22 22 If These Rocks Could Talk 23 23 Rock Comedy 24 24 Rockin’ Recipes 26 26 Grow Crystals of Salt 27 27 A Lion’s Lounging Rock 8 Cowboy Clark & Larry 2 28 29 29 Kids Corner 30 Puzzle Solutions 2
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We love rocks! A rock can be as huge as a mountain or as small as a stone you carry in your pocket. Rocks are everywhere, but to find them, you have to be outside. You can climb on them, find flat ones to skip across the water, or search for pretty ones that sparkle and shine. Rocks tell us the history of our Earth from long, long ago. All rocks are divided into three groups. Igneous are called fire rocks. They come from volcanoes. Sedimentary are layers of rock that look like a layer cake. They start with the first layer and have more layers on top. Metamorphic rocks were once igneous or sedimentary rocks that changed over time into a different rock. After reading this issue, go outside and see how many rocks or stones you can find. Take a picture and show us your favorite.
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by Lynn Katulka
Mount Rushmore
You can tiptoe through a rock garden or climb a rock wall. You can eat rock lobster or rock candy and challenge your friends to a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. But did you realize there are places that are famous just for their rocks? You may know about Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts, from school. This famous rock represents the landing site of the Pilgrims when they arrived here from England in 1620.
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Plymouth Rock
Stone Mountain
Stone Mountain, in Georgia, has images of famous Americans Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis chiseled into the stone. The carving is 90 feet wide and 190 feet tall. It's 400 feet off the ground. So high, in fact, that you can't see the carving if you stand directly below it.
The Wave, a fantastic rock formation near the Arizona-Utah border, was left after a river and wind carved through sandstone for many, many years. The various colors of different stone types, together with ridges made by the water, give the stone a wave-like look.
In South Dakota, Mount Rushmore also has a large carving. Four American presidents are permanently honored in stone: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. To keep the carving safe and looking good, rock climbers scale the carvings. They fill in cracks and clean up any growing moss on noses and chins.
You might spy the Delicate Arch when hunting for out-of-state license plates on a road trip. This is a natural 65-foot-high stone arch, formed by weather and erosion. It is in Utah’s Arches National Park. It has been selected to appear on the Utah license plate.
Delicate Arch
Though these rock stars don't perform at concerts, they are truly stars that will last a very long time.
The Wave
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by Sue Gagliardi
Ringing bells, ringing phones, ringing doorbells, ringing . . . ROCKS? That’s what you’ll find hidden deep in the woodlands of Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania! Ringing Rocks Park has a seven-acre field of giant boulders piled up ten feet high. The huge rocks ring like bells when struck by hard objects. Kids and adults alike bring hammers to strike the rocks to make sounds that echo like music on the wind. Mystery surrounds these ringing rocks. Scientists do not know exactly what causes some of the rocks to ring while others do not ring at all. The rocks that make a ringing sound are called “live” rocks. Those that do not ring are known as “dead” rocks. Part of the fun at Ringing Rocks Park is striking the rocks to find the ones that ring. Have you ever been to a rock concert where the musicians actually played on rocks? In 1890, Dr. J. J. Ott used ringing rocks as instruments at what could be called history’s first “rock” concert! Dr. Ott collected rocks which rang at various pitches. He played his rock instruments and performed concerts along with a brass band. Local musicians today continue to play the rocks like Dr. Ott, using sticks, rocks, hammers, and railroad spikes to make rock music. So, the next time you want to make music, you could grab some drums or a trumpet – or you can gather your friends and grab some rocks to make your very own “rock music”!
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Lana Kray/Shutterstock.com
I
magine living in a castle made of stone! Let’s discover what it was like. Bring along an imaginary candle. With so few windows, it’s dark and gloomy where we are going.
Can you feel the cold? Even in summer, the sun never fully warms the thick stone walls. Open fires are built for heat – right in the middle of the rooms. The fires create a lot of smoke. Listen to all the noise! This is a bustling place, full of people of all ages working for the noble and his family. As a kid, you’re in charge of turning meat over the fire in the busy kitchen. It’s a tiring, greasy job, but at least you’re warm. When night comes, you’ll find a corner to sleep in. If you’re lucky, you might find an empty table or bench. With so many people living here close together, the castle is smelly. Bathrooms are built on the outside of the castle walls. Forget about privacy. Toilets are benches with several holes cut in. The waste drops into a stinky pit or river below. What do you think? Would you have liked living in a stone castle?
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BELIEVE IT OR NOT, enormous rock heads are poking up out of the ground on a small Pacific island!
Nearly 900 heads can be seen on Easter Island, which is thousands of miles from anywhere. The biggest is 33 feet tall and weighs 28,000 pounds, but most are half that size. Even more amazing, the heads have bodies hiding underground! The bodies became buried under rocks or earth over the centuries. The statues were carved by the early Rapa Nui people over 500 years ago. They used volcanic rock. Nobody knows why the statues were created, not even those living on Easter Island today. Maybe they were made to honor ancestors or important people. Most heads have sloping noses, jutting chins, long ears, and empty deep-set eyes. Other heads are different, with seashells and coral eyes and topknots on their heads. In some places, the towering stone statues are lined up in groups. You can almost imagine them keeping watch over the island.
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BELIEVE IT OR NOT, rocks
in California’s Death Valley seem to move all by themselves across the desert! They even leave trails behind. The rocks are scattered in an old dried-up lakebed called the Racetrack. Some weigh hundreds of pounds. What is moving them? Animals? Earthquakes? Researchers think it could be the perfect combination of desert rain, ice, and wind. Winter rains can turn the Racetrack into a shallow lake. If nights are cold enough, the lake freezes. When the sun shines the next day, the ice breaks up and floats over the slick, slippery mud underneath. Strong, steady winds help it along. As the ice moves, the rocks are pushed or carried along for the ride!
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, there is a tall,
heavy column of rock balancing on the very edge of another rock! This balancing rock is in Nova Scotia, Canada, and is 20 feet high. It looks as though it will topple into the water at any time. But the rock is actually attached to the rock below it in two small sections. How long has it been standing proudly above the waves in St. Mary’s Bay? No one knows. Other solid columns of basalt, a rock formed from lava, have collapsed. But not this one. Through fierce storms and the constant pounding of the ocean, this balancing rock refuses to move.
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