Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Your places unique, interesting or historic stuff

Here is my contribution. This is a photo of a concrete railway trestle that crosses the same stream that feeds our ponds. It is located in the wooded area just behind our house. It does not look like it in the picture but the height of the tunnel is almost 6 ft. 1907 is etched as the date of construction. The railway operated for a short period but was closed down in 1929 as the great depression started. We can still find huge amounts of rail road spike along the track right of away.

This has no historic significance but it holds a special place in our hearts.

This rock we originally called Big Azz Rock (hope that get's by censorship but you get the idea). It sits in a hidden and serene location on our ranch surrounded by Oak and Incense Cedar trees. When our cat passed away we buried him on the far side of this rock and created a sitting area. It's a beautiful out of the way location. At that point we renamed the rock Conan's rock (for our cat).

Since my father and Ricki's father have passed away we have decided to affix a plaque to the back side of this rock to honor each of our fathers. It offers us a place of quite solitude to remember our loved ones.

We have decided to rename the rock Remembrance Rock.

JHAP is that a glacial erratic?, we have alot of them here from when the glaciers started to recede 10,000 years ago due to caveman made global warming.

This is the biggest one in my pond, over 7ft. high.

Don't know AP. DIED came over to my place and gave me a geologist tour of my property. It was very informative, I wish I had taken notes. I'll ply him with a few beers and make him give me the tour again.

All I know is that it's a rock and it's rather large. My Max IV, that is about 3 or 4 feet this side of the rock is 8 feet long. The part of the rock that is visable is probably 8-10 feet tall and about 20 feet long.

Great pics and idea - to post pics of historical/neat things from the ponds area.

Note do not post here any info with respect to archaeological info like Indian mounds , arrowheads , burial sites , ancient camp sites , etc. You don't need others aware of those as someone may decide to try to tell you what to do with your property or worse try to tell you it’s off limits and they will be there Monday to archive the location.

Gotcha, ewest.

We found this pile of rocks when we were excavating my second pond. I had the dozer knock it apart and used it for SMB beds.

Does this mean the a large dinosaur bone the dozer guy pushed up when he was digging our pond. Wait I didn't just say that.

I have a couple of interesting things to share about our place but need to get some photos in one case and find a photo in another case. Here are a couple hints and I'll try to post something this weekend. One has to do with Jesse James and the other has to do with fur trappers. I will be holding back on the Woolly Mammoth one since it is only documented in local gravel pit lore.

as intersting as my place is, its not very interesting.

49ers made their way through here, you see small exploration pits here and there, altered seasonal creek beds, there is some neat stuff throughout the region though.

jhap, that beautiful boulder is no boulder really, its the top of an outcrop. you are very lucky to have property on the somerset/fairplay pluton which is composed of Mesozoic grano-diorite and yields some of the best soils in CA.

Thats what I thought.

Hey George!; translation please!!!!

An outcrop is an exposure of bedrock or superficial deposits at the surface of the Earth . A place where rock sticks out of the ground often exposed by erosion by the elements or glaciation or tectonic activity . A pluton in geology is an intrusive igneous rock body that crystallized from magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Somerset/Fairplay are locator towns.

ewest, what's "Mesozoic grano-diorite "?

Mesozoic Era is one of three geologic eras (time period) of the Phanerozoic eon.
The Mesozoic is divided into three time periods: the Triassic (245-208 Million Years Ago), the Jurassic (208-146 Million Years Ago), and the Cretaceous (146-65 Million Years Ago).

Mesozoic means "middle animals", and is the time during which the world fauna changed drastically from that which had been seen in the Paleozoic. Dinosaurs, which are perhaps the most popular organisms of the Mesozoic, evolved in the Triassic, but were not very diverse until the Jurassic. Except for birds, dinosaurs became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous. Some of the last dinosaurs to have lived are found in the late Cretaceous deposits of Montana in the United States.


granodiorite - medium- to coarse-grained rock that is among the most abundant intrusive igneous rocks. It contains quartz and is distinguished from granite by its having more plagioclase feldspar than orthoclase feldspar; its other mineral constituents include hornblende, biotite, and augite.

nice job eric. c'mon esshup get w/ the program, everybody knows that the Mesozoic is between the Paleozoic and the Cenozoic, and grano-diorite is compositionally in between diorite and granite

jhap's rocks are part of the great Sierran Batholith, that as eric described so nicely, is a crustal structure consisting of many plutons that intruded older Paleozoic metamorphic rocks (known as roof pendants). the plutons coagulated, and slowly crystallized some 10 to 50 km below the surface. tectonic activity (uplift) and erosion of the roof pendant have brought them to the surface as we see them today. that's pretty historic

my property is quite different, i own a slice of metamorphosed volcaniclasitc rocks, the remnants of an island arc (like japan is today) that hit CA back in the Cretaceous. they have been folded and faulted, kind of shaley and highly fractured, they have lost their self respect and make lousy clay soil.

"they have lost their self respect and make lousy clay soil."

Yes but they grow gorgeous flowers.

That's good reading.

As Earl Long, one of our more colorful governers said after going to one of the New Orleans restaurants, "a pache tois, ah pah sah, poly pe pop in the pot, I couldn't read a damn thing on the bill of fare".

Jeez and all this time I just thought it was a large rock. Just think some dinosaurs probably walked along my property took one look at that rock and thought to themselves "now that's a big azz rock."

I have two kinds of rocks. Some are pink, Al Gore said they rode in on a glacier. The others are limestone which are here because this used to be a sea, at least that's what the plesiosaur that they dug up not far from here said.