Chapter 8
ROCK CLUBS, geology students, and visitors have all contacted us about field trips. We are going to put together some information about a few favorite places that you can visit.
If your club has been on a field trip and would like to share it with us, please email us at the address below. We are always getting requests for places groups can go to.
A trip to the Malvern clay pits yields some interesting finds. Permission and reservations are required first before your group can go here. Page 2.
A field trip by canoe. Few experiences can compare to a float trip down the Buffalo. The park's geology, with its numerous caves, cliffs, sinkholes, waterfalls, springs, and interesting rock formations, typifies the Arkansas Ozarks. Page 3.
A float trip on Lake Ouachita. It can be self guided, or if you provide the boat and a bona fide group of 15 or more, the Corps of Engineers will provide a guide to explain the lake features. Page 4.
Gypsum Mine Page 5.
If you are interested in geology, then one of the crystal mines in which you get to see the veins and host rock in place would be what you want. Perhaps Sonny Stanley's Fisher Mountain or Wegner's Blue Phantom mine would make a good trip. If you want to collect quartz, clusters and singles, then perhaps Miller Mountain, Starfire, or Leatherhead mines would be more appropriate. Prices vary depending on location, how much time you spend there (a day, a 1/2 day) and size of your group.
Check feepay mines for information about these places.
If you stop by Sonny Stanley's crystal yard while in the Mt. Ida area, he will give you directions to the wavellite site at the County Quarry near Mt. Ida. Check the link list and you will find a link to a local weather radar and forecast for this area. Check it the day before you leave on the trip.
Road Trips. On the way to the Ozarks from Hot Springs, you will note a couple of significant changes in topography. First, when you leave the Ouachita Mountains with its narrow twisty roads to the Arkansas Valley with broad valleys and scattered broad flattopped mountains. Then when you leave the Valley and enter the Ozarks you will note twisty roads, v-shaped narrow valleys and broad flat plains.
Each region has some unique geology. When you cross from the Ouachitas into the Valley, you will be leaving an area dominated by intense folding and thrust and reverse faults and entering an area of open folding and widely spaced faulting. When you leave the Valley and enter the Ozarks, you are entering a highly dissected plateau region with only sparse normal faulting. The rocks of the Ozark dip gently to the south at about 1 degree. You have also crossed from south to north from deep basin or trench stratigraphy across to shallow continental shelf facies. The ages of the units are all Paleozoic, ranging from Cambrian to Pennsylvanian.
Rockhounding Arkansas revised July 1998
©Rockhounding Arkansas 1998 http://rockhoundingAR.com