Ijams Family Nature Club meets to talk rocks & rolls (folds)

The boardwalk on the River Trail is mounted into the exposed cliff of the 
Chapman Ridge formation of sandstone. 

It's time for some housekeeping. We need to catch up on some of the fun things we did in 2016, but didn't have time to report. You know—busy, busy, busy. Nature has its pulses and winter is a time to rest and reflect.

The geologic fold towers over us on the River Trail.
Photo by Sara McNally (Lucy and Josie's mom)

On a chilly day in November, the Ijams Family Nature Club met to talk about geology, namely Tennessee rocks and the geological formations found at the nature center. It was the last meeting of the 2016 season and the dreary conditions kept our numbers down. But rocks are not as capricious as birds, they are there no matter the weather.

We bundled up and walked from the west end to the east end, from the Ijams Homesite along the boardwalk on the River Trail to Ross Marble Quarry and the Keyhole. Along the way we passed over four sedimentary rock* formations—all Ordovician** in origin—that make up the bedrock of our 300 acres: Ottosee shale, Chapman Ridge sandstone, Holston limestone and finally to the edge of the Lenior formation of crumbly, silty limestone visible above ground as outcroppings along the old railroad track at Mead's.

Family Nature Club is designed for kids and their parents to experience various natural science topics together. For information about the FNC classes for 2017, contact Lauren at 577-4717, ext. 135.

For a look back on other 2016 Family Nature Club classes, click:

          • Aquatics class

          • Birding class

          • Invertebrates class

* "Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the deposition and subsequent cementation of that material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water."

** "The Ordovician Period lasted almost 45 million years, beginning 488.3 million years ago and ending 443.7 million years ago. During this period, the area north of the tropics was almost entirely ocean, and most of the world's land was collected into the southern supercontinent Gondwana."

- Stephen Lyn Bales, naturalist

The Lenior Formation is only above ground at Ijams along the old quarry railroad track. 

Huge chunks of quarried limestone from the Holston Formation at Ross Marble Quarry