More from latest water visit

 You knew I did more than just listen while sitting by Flat Creek last Sunday... I did swivel my head, trying to discern which voices of the creek came from which direction. But then I looked more closely and had to capture some of the designs that nature offered.

This strange marble boulder was golden in comparison to the rest of the rocks.

Below the bridge is a nice pool which is always washed away during the next rain...see the rocks going across the water?

Today's quote:

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.

RUMI

Flat Creek soothes my soul

 Rapids pour over a new dam that was made in the summertime...and still hasn't fallen to the rushing water or logs of this wet season.

 The waters were certain of their direction, always moving down, around and over rocks that got in their way.

To sit on a rock beside the stream

 An easy choice for me, where I can bend to sit, and get back up without falling in the water!

 This rock has been smoothed by the water many years.

 The rough edges of this rock show it hasn't been underwater, or perhaps it's broken apart many times.

Water smooths the edges of rocks, as they tumble against each other for years.

More BIG Rocks!!!

 One of the Blue Ridge Parkway maps tells us where we are...it skews north over towards the left upper corner of the long parkway, showing where US 221 intersects with the Parkway.
It's also the place where you go to Spruce-Pine from Marion...or you go to Little Switzerland the other way.

The Museum of North Carolina Minerals

We stopped to stretch our legs, and for me to gather more pictures of rocks...

 A gathering of rocks.  I wonder what that should be called as far as "grouping" names.  Murder of Crows, parliament of Owls...maybe a Troll of Rocks?

 

 I used to take this mineral as a vitimin supplement.

I had to joke about amphibolite, saying it was named by a zoologist who got together with a geologist...amphibians, get it? Groan.

 The familiar stone arch is how the Blue Ridge Parkway crosses over US 221 as it goes left towards Spruce-Pine.

My friends were happy that we were getting on the road again, and one of them knew how to show us how to get to Catawba Falls from Old Fort...so we drove down that road but didn't hike to the falls.  That's for another trek!

For the rock lovers...

I enjoy seeing pretty rocks. I admit to not knowing much about the formations and geology of any area.  So I'm glad to share some photos, but I don't really know much about them.

These are similar to large rocks that are positioned at a Geology/Mineral museum on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Spruce-Pine NC.  And they may have been provided by the same museum to the Swannanoa Valley History Museum, where they are located outside the building.  These huge boulders are facing the parking lot.

Geologic Time:
Western North Carolina's rich geologic history is as dramatic as its topography.

Geologic events beginning over one billion years ago influenced the type and structure of rock that formed, guiding where mountains, valleys, streams and rivers developed.  Take a look at the first rock in our garden, which was mined right here in Buncombe County; it's not every day you can touch something that's a billion years old!

Western North Carolina's mountains consist mostly of igneous rock (cooled, molten material) such as granite, sedimentary rock (formed in bodies of water) such as sandstone, and metamorphic rock (formed under heat and pressure) such as gneiss.

Approximately 270 million years ago, North America and Africa collided, pushing up the Blue Ridge Mountains that surround us.  At that time our mountains were among the highest in the world - as high as the Rockies are now - over 12,000 feet in elevation.

Today, due to hundreds of millions of years of erosion, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River, Mount Mitchell, is "just" 6,684 feet high.  Mount Mitchel is located 10 miles to the north.

GRANULITIC GNEISS

MIGMANTITIC GNEISS

AMPHIBOLITE

MYLONITIC GNEISS

PEGMATITIC GRANODIORITE

A summer creek activity

Sculpting with leaves and rocks in July 2011

Submitted to Weekend Reflections meme for this week.