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Each semester, students in the “Introduction to Geology” course (Geology 50) are given a firsthand look at how geology is a part of their everyday life. During an hourlong tour across Temple’s Main Campus, they are shown examples of geology in the rocks and stones in many of the university’s buildings, stairs, walls, walkways and monuments.
“You think you can't do geology in an urban setting, but there is a lot to explore in just the few blocks that comprise the Main Campus,” says Laura Toran, the Weeks Chair in Environmental Geology, who helped organize the student tour.
With respect to founder Russell Conwell, while you may not find actual diamonds in our campus backyard, there are several geological gems worth noting. The following is a primer on the geological wonders that we see and pass every day while going about our daily business on campus.
Photos by Joseph V. Labolito / Temple University
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1) Immediately outside Barton Hall, along the Liacouras Walk, are benches of very coarse-grained pink granite. You can easily see feldspar (pink color), biotite and amphibole (black), and smoky quartz (grey) within the polished granite.
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2) Teaching assistant Kathy Gross shows students the polished panels of marble inside the stairwell of Barton Hall. You will notice granular texture, which is evidence of metamorphism, in which pressure, heat and water acting on the rock over time results in a more compact and more highly crystalline condition.
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3) The grey bands that are visible in the Barton Hall marble are graphite, probably from organic material in the rock at the time of metamorphism.
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4) From a distance, the owl statue atop Alumni Circle has the color of granite, but it isn’t. When you get up close you can see this is not a rock, but is a manmade sculpture. There are sharp-edged grains “floating” in a clay-colored matrix, and the grains are not interlocked as they would be in a natural rock. This is a good example of the contrast between natural and manmade material.
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5) This particular rock, which was used to build Sullivan Hall, is Wissahickon schist.
It was mined from small quarries near Philadelphia and is a common building stone from the 1800s. |
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6) Gross points out the schist in the wall in front of Sullivan Hall to the students. Because it weathers easily, it is not the strongest building material. The entranceway to Sullivan features a buff-colored limestone, a well-known building material from Indiana. Close inspection of the rock will uncover visible fossils. This same limestone appears in less-weathered form around Anderson and Gladfelter halls, younger buildings on campus. If you walk up the steps of Sullivan, the flat gray rock in the entranceway is slate.
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7) The façade of Shusterman Hall along Beasley Walk. At first glance, it looks like the same rock. However, the modern-day builder switched from marble (left) to quartzite, a more stable building material.
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8) If you look at the outside steps on the west side (facing Broad Street) of Carnell Hall from the middle of the sidewalk, you can see that the right side of the steps is more weathered than the other. One story is that Carnell is where the Bursar used to be, and the students entered to pay the bursar with their pockets full, and exited with empty pockets, so that is why the steps are more worn on the right side. The real reason is probably that the door is located more on the right side of the steps. Built in 1922, the steps have weathered about 2 cm, a weathering rate of less than 0.2 mm per year.
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9) The black wall in front of Wachman Hall is gabbro, and the polished finish brings out the rock’s crystals, some of which are up to 10 cm long. Note the one directly opposite the doors to the gym across the street. Contrast this with the unpolished gabbro that was used for the steps leading up to the main entrance of Wachman.
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10) The slate roof of Barrack Hall. Slate is a dense, fine-grained metamorphic rock produced by the compression of various sediments such as clay or shale and has often been used as a construction material for roofs or siding. Slate roofs can last more than 100 years; however, some Pennsylvania slate has a reputation for weathering faster, only lasting about 50 years.
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11) A small fossil is visible in the Indiana limestone in the rear wall of the Baptist Temple along Beasley Walk.
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