I'm Going To Test It In The Field

Geological compasses…

Whenever I’m out in the wilds, I’m also rock hounding.  I’ve carried some heavy rocks, a long ways, just because the rock’s shape, color, size, or what not, appealed to me.  But I’ve never considered rocks as possible compasses.

"There are ways to find your bearings by looking up at the stars. But how about looking down at the rocks?

According to Leslie McFadden of the University of New Mexico, there may be a kind of compass in the alignment of cracks in certain rocks.

In trying to explain how a boulder falls apart when water is scarce, McFadden has incorporated the power of the Sun, and the simple fact that it rises in East and sets in the West, roughly speaking.


“It dawned on me that Nature might exhibit the effect of solar heating by having cracks line up in a North-South direction,” McFadden told LiveScience in a telephone interview."

That’s interesting.  I’ll be testing the theory in the field, for my own personal gratification.

“A Natural Compass: Rock Cracks Point North"

Via Fred Lapides.

Posted by on 01/24 at 07:05 PM

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