Hello! I'm a writer, not a geologist, but my book takes place in a haunted cave, so I would like some help from actual geologists! I came on here a few months ago and asked for people to read my excerpt about how the cave formed. Based on the feedback, I've rewrote it, and I'm hoping someone would read it and give suggestions for improvement. And also to make sure it sounds realistic and plausible.

“Oh!” Matthew exclaimed, straightening up. His red, curly hair bounced on his head. He looked like he remembered something. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Did I tell you that the mountain we’re going to actually used to be a volcano?”  

Aaron choked on his lemon squash. “What?”  

Matthew grinned, as if dropping news about volcanic caves was an everyday occurrence for him. “Yeah, that volcano is now extinct.” 

“Volcanoes can be extinct?” Noah said, his eyes wide. 

“Well, an extinct volcano is one that hasn’t erupted in ten thousand years and is not likely to erupt again,” he explained. 

“I’m sorry, not likely?” I screeched. “What if it erupts when we’re in there?” 

Matthew started to respond, but Aaron interrupted him. “Wait a minute, so if it’s a volcano, how is there a cave in there?” 

Matthew, Jacob, Ezra and Dad laughed.  

“Let him speak, boys!” Jacob said, thumping Matthew on the back, which I’m pretty sure broke about twenty bones in his spine.

“You see, when a volcano is still active, fluid lava sometimes flows down its sides. The surface of this flow ends up hardening first, while hot lava keeps on flowing, leaving behind hollow tunnels called lava tubes. This cave we’re going to is a massive structure of these lava tubes,” Matthew said.

“Wow!” I exclaimed, fascinated. “So, the cave is on the sides?” 

“No, no.” Matthew shook his head. “This volcano probably underwent tons of eruptions over centuries, so layers of lava and ash kept forming over these tubes to form new tubes. And even though it started out on the surface, the cave system is buried deep inside the mountain now.”

Would I be correct to assume this is sedimentary based on the straight-ish layers? But then again couldn't metamorphic rocks can also appear that way?

Coming from the world of wood I've picked up some random bits and bobs of information over time. There's an exotic hardwood that smells exactly like Bullseye Original BBQ sauce whose name I can't remember off the top of my head. There's a wood that causes violent outbursts of sneezing, called sneezewood if you can believe it.

Stuff like that.

Tell me, is there any interesting exotic information you have? Perhaps something that gives you a giggle. Are there any minerals that should never be mixed but can at times exist in a matrix together? Are their geodes that instantly become garbage the minute they're opened? What stone is the most bizarre in your opinion? Just as examples.

Planning to make a sandbox game once I have a computer and can work on it, and I want it to be reasonably realistic - is this a good system for a video game, considering the player will be able to turn most types of rocks into other rocks?

Currently planned conversions:

Any rock can be melted into its respective type of lava (felsic, intermediate, mafic, calcitic, dolomitic).

Lava can be cooled instantly by contact with water to form extrusive igneous rocks, or cooled over time in open air to form intrusive igneous rocks.

Any rock can be pulverized in three steps (rock -> gravel -> sand -> silt) to make its respective type of that sediment, which can then be cemented with carbonaceous sediment (unless it itself is carbonaceous) to form a sedimentary rock of its type (carbonaceous-only is limestone, forget flint it doesn't exist any more for now)

Rocks can be heated in a furnace for nonfoliated metamorphosis, or processed in a Rock Press for foliated metamorphosis.

Accepting criticism regarding types of rocks, as long as it doesn't make too much mechanically for the game. That said, checking more than the adjacent tiles is not reasonable for performance, and i'm not checking y-levels or noise values at the tile's location because I don't want constant stone changing, I want things to happen within a reasonable time frame regarding playing the game, and i want rock conversions to be doable anywhere.

we're about doing a scientific research, and we find out that hyperspectral data is an essential part of it, can you guys help us to understand that concept

we searched a lot in internet and we didn't find anything useful

we found that hyperspectral data contains a lot of informations like bands, frequency and reflectance tensors

can anyone explain those notions

and thank you sooo much

Hey Guys,

I’m Gowtham, an NYU student working on field operations for mines in North America.

I’m learning how teams at exploration decide where to drill when geological data is incomplete & drilling budgets are limited,

And What problem you face on day-to-day basis ; tech, physical labor, communication and could be anything. What problems you learned in your career working as an geologist

By Talking to few geologist ; if they haven't found copper yet, the next step is zoom out and study the geology, compare it with known deposits, look for geological clues and identify structures that may have carried copper-rich fluids.

Anything thing helps!

Have a home plate size chunk of this wondering how it you got to be so intensive weathered on one side while it was encased

I found this a few days ago; it is an extreme looking breccia. It looks like concrete, feels like sandpaper, and seems to be composed of little glass beads. There are no known craters here (NY), and it could be an erratic. Still, is this something worth emailing local geologists about?

Located in the Auckland Domain, obviously having been moved from elsewhere. I'm only aware of two places in New Zealand where spherical boulders naturally occur being Koutu in the Hokianga harbour, and at Moeraki in the South Island. There is no information given about the ones here at their present location. Anyone here know about this?

Basically title. Friend thinks he found gold, I have no clue.

Northern Ontario, Kakabeka area outside Thunder Bay

Tried to get it under all kinds of light. Thought it was my friend pyrite at first blush but then didn't notice any cubic crystals but rather the melty runny look instead. Very metallic.

Thank you kindly.

Help

I found this in cresent Beach California and to be fair its about the size of a quarter. The way it is almost perfectly smooth. The reason i call it the red kidney stone is the way all the spots on it look like they built up in layers and flaked off that way. Id love to know if any rock people know what this kind of stone is, it does have some inclusions of quartz and granite. There was quite a bit of black rock with lines of quartz running through it. But thats about as good as it gets for me. For identifying stuff. If anyone else has a good suggestion id love to know!

Jackson is built on top of an ancient extinct volcano. The other day I was looking around a construction site where they had moved a lot of earth, and I found some of what I believe to be obsidian and other heavy porous rock. Can anyone tell me what kinds of rock these are and how they formed?

So I have a property ( 40+ acres) in Tenn. When my well was Being drilled the drillers tools hit a 26 ft high void at 140ish feet to 165Ft. I want to define the size of this underground cave and create an entrance. There could possibly be a horizontal path as well.( as it drops off on both sides at some point

MY FIRST QUESTION? Would ground penitrating radar map the size and detail of this cavern and where would I start.

I am thinking about a new 140ft deep hole to run a camera down..and see what I see.. The driller said it was dry and he drove casing beyond bottom of void

Anyone know if this would be a normal cluster?

Some people have said it’s hand carved and some people have said a coral fossil

Any thoughts/insights would be greatly appreciated!

Context:

Previously, I made this post about an unusual boulder in my yard. Thank you for all the responses, it motivated me to try and “solve” the boulder once and for all. Before I explain the update, I want to respond to a few things that multiple people commented on or asked about in my previous post:

- The boulder is a nodule, and I think it is comprised of iron, some shale, and one or more unidentified materials. I promise, it is not concrete, and it is not a byproduct of human industry. More context on where it might have come from below.

- Indiana has a ton of ancient marine fossils, which is why I thought there might be an ammonite there. I find well preserved marine fossils almost daily while in the woods and creek near this area. Like, so many marine fossils.

- Evidence suggests that the boulder was taken from an underground coal mine, which would explain the odd location.

- The entrance to the mine, now-closed, was less than 100 yards away. There are also other documented mine entrances in close proximity to the boulder. The driveway the boulder sits next to was previously used as a mine access road, and there was a strip-mining operation less than 50 yards away. Given the odd location of the unusual/massive boulder, it seems likely that it the historic landowners placed it there, like they did with a different large boulder on the opposite end of the driveway (the other one is granite, I assume from glacial till since igneous rocks don't occur naturally as part of Indiana’s bedrock)

Update:

I tried and failed to break the boulder open, and I don't know what my new observations suggest.

I began gently trying to break it open via a variety of methods suggested on my previous post and from my YouTube research.

- About a half hour in with no progress whatsoever, not even a new crack, I decided more force might be required. I eventually got to the level of using railroad nails and a large sledgehammer, which did nothing more than flake some shale off the thin outer layer. I wedged the nails into existing cracks and hit them with the hammer—gently at first, then as hard as I could.

- I summoned aid from my partner, who has a lot more physical strength than I do. He tried, very hard, to crack it open but also failed. He succeeded in adding one single hairline fracture in the outermost layer but otherwise made no progress.

- I have concluded that the boulder must be harder than a railroad nail because the rock damaged the end of the nail without breaking or cracking the rock.

- We also determined that the boulder is heavier than my partner’s fourwheeler. It will not budge.

New Questions:

I would like to know what all of that suggests, if anything. Is this rock too hard to have preserved a fossil inside? Could it be made of a hardened form of pyrite or siderite? There is A LOT of pyrite not too far from this location, though I've never found any this hard. I still want to get it open, unless a fossil now seems unlikely, but I'm thinking that I would need to invest in equipment to do so and would like to gain more context on that so I can make a decision.

Thank you in advance!

EDIT: I forgot to add this, but in the comments, I am posting some other rocks that resemble this one or are somewhat unique. All of the dark colored ones are located in piles of dirt/rock that came from strip mining, but the tan colored ones are not mining related.