Free Rock Report Example

The rock I found was gray in color and appeared to be silky in the sun. As I checked the internet to identify the kind of rock I found, I learned that it was slate. This kind of rock is found in some garden in my neighborhood, with some used as slate gravel while others as stepping stones. Not far from my house, I saw a house with slate as its roof.
Judging by the color and texture of my rock, and the powdery grain that was left in my hands after rubbing it, I surmised that ash is present in the rock. In order to discover other characteristics that may be hiding inside the rock, I tried to break some smaller pieces I found. I discovered that slate can break easily into flat pieces with sharp edges. I also noticed that some slate rocks have white lines and that when scratched, it leaves a light grey color. However, the one I chose was pure grey. When eposed in the sun, there are some parts of the rock that seemed to sparkle, which made me think that it might also contain mica crystals. To assuage my curiosity, I searched the net to confirm if my initial ideas were correct. According to my research, shale is composed of quartz, muscovite, feldspar, calcite, pyrite, hematite, mica, and other minerals.
As I walked more around my neighborhood, I discovered other rocks in some people’s garden and front lawn. I found rusty red ones which were saprolite, pink rocks with some parts white grey, and silver and are called pegmatite, some smooth with a mixture of brown, light and darker color cream which are called brown chert. Some walkways have brown quartzite pebbles on its sides, a kind of rock characterized by its brown, tan, white and sometimes red color. A bonsai plant which I found in one of the neighborhood gardens I visited, I saw gravel rocks surrounding the plant, some of them smooth while the others are rough. The colors also vary, there were some which were white, some were brown, while others are black. However, the most dominant color was grey.
With a variety of rocks I found in my neighborhood, I wondered where they all came from. After a short chat with my neighbor who owned the garden where I got my rock, I found out that she had her slate delivered from a construction hardware. She told me that slates are dug out of the ground or quarried, but she does not know the particular place where they came from. When I got home, I did a little research about the places in America where slate comes from. I found out that there are quarries of slate in Maine, Virginia and Pennsylvania. It was interesting to learn that red slates, which are considered to be rare, are mined around Granville and Middle Granville in New York. The said mine is considered to be important as it contains one of the few commercial deposits of red slate in the world. Other countries which also produce slate include Wales, England, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Brazil and China. In Europe, where most houses use slate for their roof, 90% of their slate is imported from Spain.
Studying my slate, I wondered about how old it was. I already learned from previous science classes that slate is a metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rocks are known to have formed due to physical or chemical alteration by heat and pressure on existing igneous or sedimentary rocks which make the rock denser, thus the term metamorphic. This whole process takes years and years, giving way to a lot of changes on slate and other rocks. Slate, like most rocks, come from bigger pieces of rocks called shale. Shales, according to my lessons in natural science, are sedimentary rocks commonly found in bodies of water such as lakes, lagoons and floodplains. Due to erosion and other human activities, chunks of shale are chipped away thereby froming slates. I have no idea how to tell the age of a rock, but looking closely at my slate, it is not probably any older than 25 years because compared to the other smaller ones, my slate is bigger. I am assuming that its 8x6.5cm size can be attributed to the possibility that it has just been chipped away, or mined, from a bigger shale in Virginia. Therefore, compared to other smaller and more weatherd slates, my rock has just been pushed into the earth’s surface some 25 years ago.
As I think about it, this is probably the reason why I chose this rock for my rock report. Like the rock which was just borne by the earth, I am practically young and inexperienced. The smooth surface of the slate made me think that it looked nicer compared to the others in the garden. At my young age, I am still an idealist who thinks that everything should be nice, and those which are not should be ignored. Aside from its size, the grey color also caught my attention right away. Most slates in my neighbor’s garden were black and small, which made them appear simple and plain. My slate stood out among the rest, and when I look at my life, it reminds me of my desire to do better everytime. I want to accomplish things that will set me apart from the rest, or make me a unique person. Like my slate that stood out, I also want to stand out and be recognized for whatever achievement that I will be able to reach.
The smooth texture of the rock and its seeming young age tells me that my slate is practically a baby. It has yet to experience the challenges of being exposed to the elements which would cause its breaking and eventual deterioration. Like myself, I know that there are still a lot of challenges that I will go through before I mature as a person. I know that it will not be easy, but like the other slates and the shales where they came from, I need to withstand those challenges. After all, the slates did not just break and crumble after a single rain or a hot day in the summer. It took years of battling with the elements and various human activities before the smaller slates were reduced to their sizes. Now that I am realizing these things, I am thinking if it was me who chose my rock, or was it the other way around. If I hadn’t studied my rock, I wouldn’t have come to realize such things. I would have gone on thinking that if I failed at something, then it must be because I was not meant for it so I should just give up. I would still be thinking that because I am still young, I should enjoy my life more and not worry about the circumstances. I would still be under the impression that if something is too difficult, it is not worth trying because I would just fail anyway. After realizing all these things, I feel great gratitude to my slate. It gave me an opportunity to look at my life in a different perspective. It is indeed true that everything in this world is connected, like I to my slate and my slate to me.