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		Science Buildings Anderson Biological Laboratories | Keith-Weiss Geological Laboratories | George R. Brown Hall | Old Chemistry Building   Anderson Biological Laboratories This green stone, called serpentinite, is photographed from the outside of the Biology Building. Similar green "paneling"appears on the Geology Building, Space Sciences, and also Herman Brown. Subtle differences, however, tell us that the stones were from different outcrops or were quarried at different times. back to top   Keith-Wiess Geological Laboratories   The serpentinite shown here on the Geology Building is a lighter color green than the serpentinite in the Baker Institute. This is probably due to the weathering that it has experienced. The Geology Building, completed in 1958, includes other stones, not shown, such as sunset red and cold spring granites from Minnesota, and Lueders Limestone from West Texas. This is a view from the Geology Building looking toward the Biology Building. Those tan pillars blocking the view appear to be made from cement. However, they are a sedimentary rock which you can see from the closeup below. This closeup of the sedimentary rocks shows fossil remains and burrows by organisms, so we know that this is not a cement, but a natural coarse-grained marine sandstone. back to top   George R. Brown Hall This sidewalk decoration sits between George R. Brown (the Biochemistry Building) and Hamman Hall. The circular engraving is made up of three types of granite. The first granite, which is the most distinct and makes up the center of this piece, is a Texas Pink Granite, similar to the granites around the buildings in the Academic Quad. The other two granites, which are both whitish in color, are more difficult to tell apart at first glance. This is a closeup of the circular division between the two white granites mentioned above. As you can tell from this picture, there is a slight color differentiation. The granite on the right is whiter than the one of the left. What appears white in these granites is the feldspar. There are many different kinds and colors of feldspar, depending on the different cations present. Alkali feldspars, which contain sodium and potassium, are the white feldspars in these granites. The other differences between these two granites are the accessory minerals present, their texture, and their slight size difference. The granite on the right contains more amphibole and the one on the left contains more biotite. These minerals are the black spots around the feldspars. This is the limestone on the wall of the Biochemistry Building. This limestone is pinker than most other limestones around campus because this building was built much later. This limestone matches the kind found on Shepherd School of Music (Alice Pratt Brown Hall); both were completed in 1989.   back to top   Old Chemistry Building This picture shows the front steps of the Old Chemistry Building, or what used to be called Dell Butcher Hall. The "scratch" markings are a sedimentary feature called ripples. This is a closeup of a stone containing ripple marks. Ripple marks are a bedform that appear on the surfaces of beds of sand and silt as a result of air or water flow in a particular direction, such as waves in shallow water. 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.