Academic Quad-East Academic Quad-West Baker Institute Herring Hall Shepherd, RMC Cohen House and Allen Center Engineering Quad Hamman Hall, Herman Brown, and Mudd President's House Residential Colleges Science Buildings Main Page Contact		Academic Quad - East Lovett Hall | Willy's Statue | Physics Laboratory | Sewall Hall Lovett Hall This picture shows the white marble pillars that tower above the Sallyport on the quad-side of Lovett Hall. Limestone which has been altered through metamorphic processes is called marble. A metamorphic rock is one that is altered by temperature and/or pressure in the earth's interior. These orange pillars decorate the inside of Sallyport on Lovett Hall. They are probably also marble, which was quarried from a different place than the white marble above. The orange color can be attributed to clay and different chemicals involved in weathering and metamorphism. These reddish pillars tower above Sallyport on the front of Lovett Hall. These two-multi-colored columns are tectonic breccias. Although breccia is a sedimentary rock, formed from angular rock fragments, this texture is not sedimentary. Rather, it is a tectonic texture. These pillars, as well as the greenish pillars inside Sallyport, are examples of fault gouge. This material has been fragmented and later recemented along a fault plane. This greenish pillar is also inside Sallyport on Lovett Hall. This pillar and its counterpart are fault gouge. Fault gouge is abraded material that occurs as a result of movement of a fault. You can tell that this material has been ground between the walls of a fault.   This granite is located at the base of a column at the front end of Sallyport on Lovett Hall. A granite is a coarse-grained rock containing mainly quartz and feldspar, and the main accessory minerals include hornblende, biotite, and muscovite. Lovett Hall, completed in 1912, contains Premier Rose Granite from quarries at Llano, Texas. This Rose Granite is phaneritic (a textural term applied to igneous rocks which indicates that the crystals in the rocks are large enough to see with the unaided eye). Judging by the grain shapes and sizes, the alkali feldspar crystallized first and was followed by the biotite, amphibole, plagioclase, and quartz. For the petrologist, here are the grain sizes and the modal abundances of the minerals: K-feldspar - 40%, euhedral crystals ~3.5 cm quartz - 25%, anhedral crystals ~0.5-1 cm plagioclase - 15%, anhedral ~1 cm biotite - 10%, subhedral ~ 0.5 cm amphibole - 10%, subhedral ~0.5 cm Back to top  Willy's Statue This founder's memorial statue was dedicated in 1930 and sits in the center of the academic quad facing Lovett Hall. Every year for Willy's birthday Rice throws a big party in the quad. This is one of the most famous landmarks at Rice. A B The base of Willy's statue is pink granite, as seen in picture A, but this granite contains distinctive black markings like the one shown in B. At first glance these spots may appear to be gum, but in fact they are xenoliths in the granite. A xenolith (pronounced zee-no-lith) is a fragment of rock that has broken away from its parent rock and is "floating" in a host rock. Xenoliths are usually good markers of unconformities, or time gaps, that have occurred in bedding. In this case, this black rock broke off and became incorporated into the granite, and we can assume that the xenolith is older. Using the penny for scale we can see this rock fragment is roughly three inches long.  Back to top   Physics Laboratory On the outside of the Physics Laboratory, marble decorates the arch windows. This Gray Tennessee Marble is the same marble that appears on Lovett Hall, which was completed in 1912 a year before the Physics building was finished. This is a picture of the water fountain outside of the Physics Building, quad side. This fountain is no longer in use, but is still displays its brilliant black serpentinite and marble, surrounded by White Limestone from Cedar Park, Texas. Also outside the Physics Building is another famous spot for O-Weekers and perspective students to see. It is the Whispering Wall, where students climb on either end and hear each other's whispers. Aside from the physics of the wall, geologists love to come here to point out the remarkable stylolites that are abundant in the marble throughout the buildings. Stylolites are features that result from a combination of pressure and water. Ground-water circulating along a bedding plane will dissolve parts of a bed of rock (limestone, dolomite, marble) which are more soluble than others. This results in the less soluble parts to protrude as teeth or columns. Solution is also augmented by increased pressure.The stylolites that form are a common feature of most marbles used in bathroom stalls and decoration, as in the marble that appears on the Physics Building floors and on the Whispering Wall. The main entrance to the Physics Building welcomes people with a beautiful arrangement of various stones. The center is made up of marble in several colors. Surrounding these marbles, which appear on many other buildings on the Rice campus, is a pattern of black and red breccias. This appears to be the same tectonic breccia on the outside of Lovett Hall. Back to top Sewall Hall     This granite bench in Sewall Courtyard has large crystals which show zoning or alteration. This plutonic (igneous and intrusive) rock cooled slowly. In some places you can see potassium feldspar inside plagioclase crystals and vice versa. This texture of plagioclase around orthoclase phenocrysts is called rapakivi, and it results from simultaneous crystallization of alkali feldspar and plagioclase under the influence of volatiles, or from sodic material moving into fracture zones in the granites. Here are the grain sizes and modal abundances: K-feldpar - 50%, euhedral crystals ~2 cm quartz - 20%, subhedral ~0.5 cm plagioclase - 15%, euhedral ~0.5 cm biotite - 15%, subhedral ~1 cm  Back to top Academic Quad-East Academic Quad-West Baker Institute, Herring Hall, Shepherd and RMC Cohen House and Allen Center Engineering Quad Hamman Hall, Herman Brown, and Mudd President's House Residential Colleges Science Buildings Main Page Department of Geology and Geophysics, Rice University, Houston.