Pikes Peak Granite - Pikes Peak, CO
N 38° 50.463 W 105° 02.555
13S E 496304 N 4299139
The pink Pikes Peak granite on display at the Summit House. #250
Waymark Code: WMT4VZ
Location: Colorado, United States
Date Posted: 09/26/2016
Views: 15
Pikes Peak, part of the Pikes Peak batholith, composed of pink granite called Pikes Peak Granite. This granite, once molten rock located as deep as twenty miles beneath the earth's surface.
Approximately one billion years ago, this magma began to pool under central Colorado, forming a 1,300-square-mile batholith. Batholiths are like underground volcanoes, and with the magma underground, it cools slowly and turns into granite.
About 60 MYA, parts of the Western United States were subjected to a series of uplifts eventually formed the Rocky Mountains and raised Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak is still being uplifted as a part of larger tectonic processes.
Pikes Peak Granite typically forms smooth and rounded boulders, and erodes into granite gravel. The pink-colored Pikes Peak Granite has many joints and fractures. Water seeps into cracks and it easily crumbles into gravel. When freezing, it expands and forces wider cracks. For millions of years this freezing and thawing has caused the Pikes Peak Granite to shatter in slow motion.
The three most noticeable materials of Pikes Peak Granite are the milky/smoky quartz, the pink feldspar and the silver/golden/black mica. Feldspar and mica weather easily. Quartz is a harder, more durable material.
Type of Display: Geological
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