Craighill Primary School, Tain

The rocks were the stars of the show! Have a close look at some of them!
The Rocks of Ages on PhotoPeach

Here is part of an e-mail I received from Ms Miller. I thought you would like to read it.

Hi Julie

I enjoyed the day too and the kids were great! They all showed interest and did really well collecting their stones.

The stones I gave out today were mostly variations on quartz – Tiger’s eye is quartz with iron, moss agate is quartz with the inclusion of manganese and carnelian is quartz with the inclusion of iron oxide again. In all these cases the structure of the crystals are slightly different. There was also some jet which is fossilised wood after the wood has begun to break down, Apache’s tears are volcanic glass with some volcanic ash involved too and lastly the stromatolites are fossilised bacteria, but these are no ordinary bacteria. These bacteria were amongst the first life on planet Earth and played a big role in producing oxygen for our atmosphere. All the stones had been tumbled to polish them.

It would be good to keep in touch and if you let me know when the kids have finished with the rocks then I’ll come along and collect them.

Regards

Ms Miller

Our class went to Rosemarkie Beach today where we had fun collecting samples of psammite, feldspar and quartz beach stones. We saw examples of strata of sedimentary rock twisted and uplifted by the activity of the Great Glen Fault. We identified raised beaches and found a large rock of gneiss, which geologists think must have been carried by a glacier from the west coast of Scotland.

Geology Trip to Rosemarkie Beach on PhotoPeach

Rock Quiz on PhotoPeach

Have another look at the Powerpoint on Rocks.

powerponit on rocks