Imagination can be overrated. Visitors to Carnegie Museum of Natural History have long been asked to imagine the creature that made the mysterious tracks on a one-ton block of dark coarse sandstone that greets them at Benedum Hall of Geology. An adjacent label challenges them to visualize the seven-foot-long invertebrate

The Canal de la Bruche is a canal in eastern France that originally connected Soultz-les-Bains, near Molsheim, to the city of Strasbourg. It was built in 1682 by the famous military engineer Vauban, principally to transport sandstone from the quarries of Soultz for use in the construction of the fortifications of Strasbourg. The last commercial load was carried in 1939 and the canal formally closed in 1957, after bridges damaged during World War II were rebuilt with insufficient headroom for navigation.The canal is 20 kilometres (12 mi) long and has 11 locks on its course, with a total rise of almost 30 metres (98 ft). It roughly parallels the river Bruche (river), taking its water supply from the confluence of the Bruche and Mossig rivers at Wolxheim, with a secondary supply downriver at Kolbsheim. It enters the river Ill at Montagne Verte in Strasbourg, just downstream of the confluence of the Bruche and Ill, and some 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) upstream of the centre of the city. When the canal was built, the Ill provided navigable connections to the city and the Rhine, and in later years to the Canal du Rhone au Rhine and the Canal de la Marne au Rhin...

Red Rock Canyon State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of California which features scenic desert cliffs, buttes and spectacular rock formations. The park consists of approximately 27,000 acres (110 km2) within the Mojave Sector of the Tehachapi District of the California State Park System, and is located along State Highway 14 in Kern County, about 80 miles (129 km) east of Bakersfield and 25 miles (40 km) north of Mojave, where the southernmost tip of the Sierra Nevada converges with the El Paso Mountains. Each tributary canyon is unique, with vivid colors due to alternate layers of white clay and red sandstone, further accented by pink volcanic rocks and brown lava formations. The canyon was formed 3 million years ago. After wet winters, the park's floral displays are notable. Three overlapping desert ecosystems provide for the wildlife that includes eagles, falcons, roadrunners, hawks, coyotes, kit foxes, bobcats, lizards, mice and squirrels. Red Rock Canyon provides magnificent views of the pristine desert landscape, includes two natural preserves, and offers, among other recreational activities, camping, sightseeing, equestrian activities, hiking...

Natural Bridges National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the Four Corners boundary of southeast Utah, in the western United States, at the junction of White Canyon and Armstrong Canyon, part of the Colorado River drainage. It features the thirteenth largest natural bridge in the world, carved from the white Permian sandstone of the Cedar Mesa Formation that gives White Canyon its name. The three bridges in the park are named Kachina, Owachomo, and Sipapu (the largest), which are all Hopi names. A natural bridge is formed through erosion by water flowing in the stream bed of the canyon. During periods of flash floods, particularly, the stream undercuts the walls of rock that separate the meanders (or "goosenecks") of the stream until the rock wall within the meander is undercut and the meander is cut off and the new stream bed then flows underneath the bridge. Eventually, as erosion and gravity enlarge the bridge's opening, the bridge collapses under its own weight. There is evidence of at least two collapsed natural bridges within the Monument. History ...

Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock containing 25% to 75% ash is described as tuffaceous (for example, tuffaceous sandstone). Tuff composed of sandy volcanic material can be referred to as volcanic sandstone.Tuff is a relatively soft rock, so it has been used for construction since ancient times. Because it is common in Italy, the Romans used it often for construction. The Rapa Nui people used it to make most of the moai statues on Easter Island.Tuff can be classified as either igneous or sedimentary rock. It is usually studied in the context of igneous petrology, although it is sometimes described using sedimentological terms. Tuff is often erroneously called tufa in guidebooks and in television programmes. Volcanic ash The material that is expelled in a volcanic eruption can be classified into...

Abernathyite is a mineral with formula K(UO2)(AsO4)·3H2O. The mineral is named after Jesse Evrett Abernathy (1913–1963) who first noted it in 1953 in the U.S. State of Utah. It was described as a new mineral species in 1956. Abernathyite is yellow and occurs as small crystals. Description Abernathyite is a transparent, yellow mineral that occurs as tabular crystals up to 3 millimeters (0.12 in). The mineral has a single perfect cleavage on {001}. Abernathyite fluoresces yellow-green in longwave and shortwave ultraviolet. Because of its uranium content, the mineral is radioactive. Occurrence and formation Abernathyite forms as a coating on fractures of asphaltic sandstone containing uranium deposits. The mineral occurs in association with heinrichite, scorodite, and zeunerite. Abernathyite is known from France, Germany, Poland, South Africa, and the United States. Structure and formula When first described in 1956, the formula was identified as K(UO2)(AsO4)·4H...

A turbidite is the geologic deposit of a turbidity current, which is a type of amalgamation of fluidal and sediment gravity flow responsible for distributing vast amounts of clastic sediment into the deep ocean. Sequencing Turbidites were first properly described by Arnold H. Bouma (1962), who studied deepwater sediments and recognized particular "fining-up intervals" within deep water, fine-grained shales, which were anomalous because they started at pebble conglomerates and terminated in shales. This was anomalous because within the deep ocean it had historically been assumed that there was no mechanism by which tractional flow could carry and deposit coarse-grained sediments into the abyssal depths. Bouma cycles begin with an erosional contact of a coarse lower bed of pebble to granule conglomerate in a sandy matrix, and grade up through coarse then medium plane parallel sandstone; through cross-bedded sandstone; rippled cross-bedded sand/silty sand, and finally laminar siltstone and shale. This vertical succession of sedimentary structures, bedding, and changing lithology is representative of strong to waning flow...

The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800 when the national capital was moved from Philadelphia. The "White House" is also used as a metonym to refer to the Executive Office of the President of the United States. The residence was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the Neoclassical style. Hoban modeled the building on Leinster House in Dublin, a building which today houses the Oireachtas, the Irish legislature. Constructed between 1792 and 1800, its exterior walls are Aquia Creek sandstone painted white. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he and architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe added low colonnades on each wing to conceal what then were stables and storage. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by British forces in the burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed...

Egyptian archaeologists draining water from a temple in the southern city of Aswan uncover sandstone sphinx.