Paddled over to the Visitor Center....pics of the exhibit...and the Grey Owl pic, which is knockdown!...handheld manual exposure...it's a plastic model of course...but very cool!...with Granite on my mind, went over to the Bookstore, thinking to get one book I've been meaning to buy on the Valley's Geology, but there was one there I hadn't seen before, and bought that one...Shuttled to Lower Falls, hopped off, and went out into the Delta and found a shady spot to sit and read the book....review after I've gone through it more thoroughly, but here's the title:The Geomorphic Evolution of the Yosemite Valley and Sierra Nevada Landscapes, Solving the Riddle of the Rocks, by Jeffery P. Schaffer...I bedeviled a friend at work who has degree in Geology with some questions...and..well, let me present those...
How does Granite form?
No one's sure.
Plutons under Volcanoes?
Yes, and under Volcanoes that haven't erupted too, or partially formed.
The Continents are made of Granite?
Yes, and the Ocean floors basalt.
Mountains under the ocean where the tectonic plates are separating, have a serrated look, does that happen to Mountains on the Continents?
Perhaps, one idea has it that the Western Basin and Range Mountains are from plates separating.
Again, how is Granite made?
Under pressure and heat, and conditions that cant be recreated in the laboratory...
No ones made Granite?
No...
(a side spur here about Diamond anvils!)
By Elephant Rock are the Cookie Boulders, they look like chocolate chips, how'd that happen?
Solidified Granite will have molten Granite (magma) intrude into it...
Oh, and Granite will melt, and re solidify...all kinds of possibilities of mixing...??
Yes...
Again, the Continents are all Granite, is that all the Granite there is?
One idea has it that Granite is formed where one Tectonic Plate is being subducted under another, and this under the ocean, where the water plays a part.
Uranium decay is how Granite is dated, do I have it right that the decay 'time' begins when the Granite solidifies?
Yes.
Is molten Granite radioactive too?
Yes. But it cant be dated as the lead atoms are in molten state. When the Granite is rock, the lead atoms can be measured.
(Uranium is in all Granite, and when it decays, it has a 'half life time'...the time it takes for half of the Uranium's mass to turn to lead...my questions next latched on to this!)
Is molten Uranium deep in the earth turning to Lead?
Yes.
Will it all turn to lead?
It has a very very long half life.
Uranium turns to Lead, do other heavy elements decay and become other elements?
Yes, but they have very short half lives, and are made only in laboroities.
How are elements made?
The lighter elements, under great pressure, form the heavier elements.
And here I relented, and released my friend, but went away wondering if how elements are made is the other way around...heavy elements making the lighter ones...maybe through the same decay process that makes uranium into lead.
While working, another friend was in the food line, and I asked, How are elements formed?
And they suggested I search up the new collider in Europe!
Anyway, there are a couple things I want to look up...one is the heavy element decaying into lighter ones...and the bit about the Granite being made where a plate is subducting under another...do that one first...brb....
quote
Surface volcanism (volcanoes at the ocean floor or the Earth's surface) typically appears above the melts which form directly above downgoing plates.
unquote
and now the element idea...
quote
In the latest news, focus has turned to the companion star of
GRO J1655-40. Researchers from the Institute of
Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of California, Berkeley have detected large abundances of heavy
elements in this companion star - elements created in such abundances only in supernova explosions. They think that the supernova that created
GRO J1655-40 may be responsible for flinging this material into its companion star.
Astronomers Find First Direct Evidence Linking Black Holes and Supernovae
unquote..
quote
LEAD TURNS TO GOLD?
It would be handy if lead turned to gold, but it doesn't usually go that way, as lead isn't unstable. What usually happens is that a heavy radioactive element turns into another radioactive element which then turns into lead.
THE TIMESCALE
Each different radioactive element has its own characteristic and will turn into another material at a particular rate. The timescale at which this happens is known as "the half life".
unquote
Well...what I'm fishing for here is the matter inside Black Holes...and if it ever comes out again...apparently it can...small ones may 'evaporate'...
but what I'm fishing for is if the elements 'evaporate' out of Black Holes!....this from because it seems like the pressure and heat inside a Hole would be the equal of the Supernovas, where it's said the elements form...or at least the heavy ones...bit mystified by this where the light elements come from!...but all elements, or a lot of them anyway, appear to have half lives, and transform like uranium to lead, from what they are to a lighter element lower on the Periodic Table.
So, again, How are elements made?
Look up the Collider...
hmmph...brb...well...here's a link to one of the usual stories about it..
....curiosly, the same folk that made it, made the world wide web!..hmmphmmph!
sunny hot blue, and the fires made the news...
oh!...here's a good page...and answers a few doubts...and a question of why Granite has big crystals (the magma cools very slowly..over millions of years)
This post up, and the previous, go together...and I likely wont add any more on Granite!...bit like wading the Merced...snow cold water up to my hips...and barefoot!...but the Valley is entirely made of Granite, from the Walls to the gravel and sand riverbottom I walkabout on...ouchouch...
