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Elephant Rocks State Park
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Elephant Rocks State Park is just one of the Parks in Missouri. It is located in the Northeastern part of Missouri, near a little town called Graniteville. Elephant Rocks State Park is a very interesting place. Elephant Rocks State Park was founded back in 1869. There are not really elephants if you are wondering there are just giant boulders in the shape of elephants. These giant boulders are 1.5 billion-year-old granite. This Granite stands end to end and it appears to be a train of circus elephants. Elephant Rocks State Park got its name because of these rather large boulders. The park is consisted of 129 acres. The herd of elephants came to be about 1.5 billion years ago, it all began during the Precambrian era. Magma a form of molten rock accumulated from below. While the magma cooled it formed red granite rocks. Slowly over the years as the weight of the rock was slowly removed by erosion, vertical and horizontal developed. This then fractured the rocks of granite into huge angular blocks. Then eventually water permeated down the fractures and rounded the edges of the rocks. Erosion then removed the disintegrated material from along the fractures and then brought them up to the earth’s surface where they are now exposed. The jointing of the granite produced huge, oblong blocks that eventually were laid bare by surface erosion. Natural weathering of the granite blocks rounded off their corners, giving the boulders their present shape. The trees and shrubs growing in the cracks and joints also have aided the weathering process. As the roots and stems continue to grow, the enlarged existing fractures wear away the rock surface. The physical and chemical weathering on the low areas crest of the large boulders and on the barren granite outcroppings has produced small circular depressions, called tinajitas. They are several feet in diameter. The short-lived or ephemeral are pools of water, which form in the depressions, provide a home for grasses and mosses. Although the rocks are continually decomposing as time goes by, more stone elephants are in the making between the cracks and joints of the granite hillside in the park.
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