Northwestern Vermont Geoscience Tour
Todays trip will take us
a little more south to the Vermont Marble Museum in Proctor then return
us to Burlington after a stop at the observatory at Middlebury College.
The Proctor Marble museum (802) 427-1396 is abot 25 miles south of
Button Bay and as you approach the city of Rutland look for Route 3 on
the right and follow the signs to the site. Admission is $7.00. See the
map below for more details. As you drive south make a note of where you
go through Middlebury where you will stop on your return trip. In the
center of Middlebury there are numerous signs that will direct you to
the College and then to the McCardell Science building (802) 443-5000
at 287 Bicentennial Way where the observatory we will visit is located.
http://www.vermont-marble.com/map.php http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/ump/majors/physics/observatory/
Vermont Marble Museum
We have seen various exposures of sedimentary rock in the preceding days of the tour and there are limestone deposits in the northern Champlain Valley that resulted from the paleo-oceanic environments we have discussed previously. In the area around Proctor Vermont the conditions were right for the forces of heat and pressure to metamorphose Cambrian to Ordovician age limestone into marble of world class quality. This site describes the metamorphic process, provides samples of marble from around the world, and allows a tour of the original Sutherland Falls Quarry. The one eighth mile walk to the quarry is lined with interpretive signs along the walk explain the geology and history of the marble deposits here.The Museum which is purportedly the largest marble museum in the world has exhibits on the various uses of CaCO3 as decorative marble as well as in the abrasives, paper, food and pharmaceutical industries which expands the usefulness of this natural resource. The museum includes exhibits about the history, art and science of marble and demonstrations of marble sculpting and the hands on activities of the Earth Alive! exhibits describe aspects of geology at a number of levels. The geology displays provide information about the composition, colors, classification and geographic distribution of marble (36). The majority of active marble quarries in Vermont are in this area and the Swiss company Omya is the most actice using ground marble for a variety of products. There have been recent environmental concerns with some of the quarry operations related to noise. dumping of quarry waste and the effects that the operations may have on groundwater resources. Environmental lawyers have worked towards resolution of those issues (37). The tour of the marble museum and quarry should take 5 hours including travel back to Middlebury.
Photo by Tom O'Donnell http://www.traditional-building.com/brochure/members/vermontmarble.shtml
Middlebury College Observatory
On the return trip nothward we will stop at Middlebury College to visit their Observatory. Middlebury College is a small and somewhat exclusive school and the campus is beautifully laid out with many beautiful stone buildings. As a person interested in geology I am always interested in building projects of any type that utilize Earth materials. as you walk the campus to the McCardell Science Center observe the materials the buildings are made from and identify the types of rocks you see. An interesting but not necessarily obvious geoscience connection imbedded in this visit is that the Bicentennial Hall that contains the observatory was planned and built with ecological considerations in mind. The building is designed to be energy efficient, optimize indoor air quality and use local or recycled materials. The interior of the massive structure is paneled in wood that is "green-certified" and harvested from local Vermont woodlots. When the requests for bids went out for the originally specified grade I green-certified red oak none were received due to the quantity needed. The architects and the college assessed what was available and changed their specifications to one that used various types of local woods many of which were lower grade but attractive and much of the lumber was harvested from trees that had been severely damaged in the 1998 ice storm. You can see the beautiful results that were achieved while maintaining high levels of ecological awareness. The rooftop observatory itself is the best one in the State of Vermont and houses a 24 inch f/8 Richie-Chretien reflecting, computer controlled engineering telescope. The telescope uses a 1024x1024 pixel CCD camera for direct images and a fiber optics fed bench spectrograph located in a nearby laboratory for analyzing the makeup of the observed stars absorption lines from the low dispersion slit spectrograph mounted on the telescope. There are 4 other instruments on the observation deck, 3 smaller optical telescopes and a radio telescope for collecting data from EM wavelenths beyond the wavelenghts of visible light. If you plan on visiting the facility to tour the building and equipment during the day or if you want to visit in the evening on one of the free open house nights from 9:00-10:30 contact the observatory at (802) 443-2266. Middlebury is a more developed area than Button Bay but the night skies are still pretty light pollution free and on cloudless nights the astronomical viewing is good. Funding for the telescope was provided bt the NSF, the Kresge Foundations and private donations. The 24 inch telescope is able to collect light about 10,000 times more efficiently than the human eye which allows the instrument to detect very faint objects like distant stars and galaxies as shown in the images below taken at the observatory. If you are planning to go to one of the open house nights the College provides a Clear Sky Chart to help visitors predict if there will be good coditions for their visit (35). If you are touring the facility take time to visit other areas in this enormous science building that houses the geology, biology, chemistry, physics, geography and environmental studies departments as well as the interesting Armstrong Science Library. This portion of the day including travel back to the ECHO center in Burlington should take 3 hours. upon your return to Burlington analyze the data you have been collecting and finalize your journal notes.
Both Photos above by Middlebury College Physics Department Observatory
This is the final day of the 7 Day Northwestern Vermont Geoscience Tour and I hope that you found it to be an interesting and interconnected mix of destinations that exhibit aspects of a variety of topics in the area of geoscience. There are other things to discover on your next trip to Vermont that relate to this field of study and other points of interest in this quiet corner of our country. Vermont has a rich and varied geologic history, changeable seasons and weather, microclimates within the general climate region of the Northeast, an environmental awareness that maintains the balance of nature and human needs, and night skies that encourage astronomical viewing. Please visit us again when you can.
http://www.vermont-marble.com/map.php http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/ump/majors/physics/observatory/
Vermont Marble Museum
We have seen various exposures of sedimentary rock in the preceding days of the tour and there are limestone deposits in the northern Champlain Valley that resulted from the paleo-oceanic environments we have discussed previously. In the area around Proctor Vermont the conditions were right for the forces of heat and pressure to metamorphose Cambrian to Ordovician age limestone into marble of world class quality. This site describes the metamorphic process, provides samples of marble from around the world, and allows a tour of the original Sutherland Falls Quarry. The one eighth mile walk to the quarry is lined with interpretive signs along the walk explain the geology and history of the marble deposits here.The Museum which is purportedly the largest marble museum in the world has exhibits on the various uses of CaCO3 as decorative marble as well as in the abrasives, paper, food and pharmaceutical industries which expands the usefulness of this natural resource. The museum includes exhibits about the history, art and science of marble and demonstrations of marble sculpting and the hands on activities of the Earth Alive! exhibits describe aspects of geology at a number of levels. The geology displays provide information about the composition, colors, classification and geographic distribution of marble (36). The majority of active marble quarries in Vermont are in this area and the Swiss company Omya is the most actice using ground marble for a variety of products. There have been recent environmental concerns with some of the quarry operations related to noise. dumping of quarry waste and the effects that the operations may have on groundwater resources. Environmental lawyers have worked towards resolution of those issues (37). The tour of the marble museum and quarry should take 5 hours including travel back to Middlebury.
Photo by Tom O'Donnell http://www.traditional-building.com/brochure/members/vermontmarble.shtml
Middlebury College Observatory
On the return trip nothward we will stop at Middlebury College to visit their Observatory. Middlebury College is a small and somewhat exclusive school and the campus is beautifully laid out with many beautiful stone buildings. As a person interested in geology I am always interested in building projects of any type that utilize Earth materials. as you walk the campus to the McCardell Science Center observe the materials the buildings are made from and identify the types of rocks you see. An interesting but not necessarily obvious geoscience connection imbedded in this visit is that the Bicentennial Hall that contains the observatory was planned and built with ecological considerations in mind. The building is designed to be energy efficient, optimize indoor air quality and use local or recycled materials. The interior of the massive structure is paneled in wood that is "green-certified" and harvested from local Vermont woodlots. When the requests for bids went out for the originally specified grade I green-certified red oak none were received due to the quantity needed. The architects and the college assessed what was available and changed their specifications to one that used various types of local woods many of which were lower grade but attractive and much of the lumber was harvested from trees that had been severely damaged in the 1998 ice storm. You can see the beautiful results that were achieved while maintaining high levels of ecological awareness. The rooftop observatory itself is the best one in the State of Vermont and houses a 24 inch f/8 Richie-Chretien reflecting, computer controlled engineering telescope. The telescope uses a 1024x1024 pixel CCD camera for direct images and a fiber optics fed bench spectrograph located in a nearby laboratory for analyzing the makeup of the observed stars absorption lines from the low dispersion slit spectrograph mounted on the telescope. There are 4 other instruments on the observation deck, 3 smaller optical telescopes and a radio telescope for collecting data from EM wavelenths beyond the wavelenghts of visible light. If you plan on visiting the facility to tour the building and equipment during the day or if you want to visit in the evening on one of the free open house nights from 9:00-10:30 contact the observatory at (802) 443-2266. Middlebury is a more developed area than Button Bay but the night skies are still pretty light pollution free and on cloudless nights the astronomical viewing is good. Funding for the telescope was provided bt the NSF, the Kresge Foundations and private donations. The 24 inch telescope is able to collect light about 10,000 times more efficiently than the human eye which allows the instrument to detect very faint objects like distant stars and galaxies as shown in the images below taken at the observatory. If you are planning to go to one of the open house nights the College provides a Clear Sky Chart to help visitors predict if there will be good coditions for their visit (35). If you are touring the facility take time to visit other areas in this enormous science building that houses the geology, biology, chemistry, physics, geography and environmental studies departments as well as the interesting Armstrong Science Library. This portion of the day including travel back to the ECHO center in Burlington should take 3 hours. upon your return to Burlington analyze the data you have been collecting and finalize your journal notes.
Both Photos above by Middlebury College Physics Department Observatory
This is the final day of the 7 Day Northwestern Vermont Geoscience Tour and I hope that you found it to be an interesting and interconnected mix of destinations that exhibit aspects of a variety of topics in the area of geoscience. There are other things to discover on your next trip to Vermont that relate to this field of study and other points of interest in this quiet corner of our country. Vermont has a rich and varied geologic history, changeable seasons and weather, microclimates within the general climate region of the Northeast, an environmental awareness that maintains the balance of nature and human needs, and night skies that encourage astronomical viewing. Please visit us again when you can.
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Day 2 |
Day 3 |
Day 4 |
Day 5 |
Day 6 |
Met. data |
Geogr.
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References |