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GEOLOGY ARTICLE

My life as a rock
by KELLY BALDWIN

Science Project Report by Kelly B (4th Grade)

10.17.01: Hi, my name is Rocky. My life began deep inside the earth. I didn't really have any shape or form. I was just floating around in the upper mantle. Then, one day the earth started t shake, and I started moving up! I found out that I was in the magma reservoir. Pretty soon I came out of Mount St. Helens, near Seattle, Washington.

When I cooled down, I became obsidian, which is an igneous rock. Many, many years later, there was an earthquake! Before the earthquake, I enjoyed living in the sun, even though sometimes I got cold when the wind blew and smoothed me down. I could have been resting safely in water, but I was on top of the lava because Mount St. Helens destroyed the water during the last eruption. That's when I came out.
Now, I'm on my way back down to the ocean crust. BOOM! CRASH! BANG! . . . as I hit the other rocks below the surface. "OUCH! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" the other rocks said. They aren't very nice folks. When I finally landed where I was going to stay, it was very dark.

Over a long period of time, heat and pressure turned me into marble, which is a metamorphic rock. After many more years the ground that I was on started moving up again! The walls started to collapse and pretty soon a small canyon formed. I was right on top. The water started washing me down the river and rolling me over and over on the bottom of the river.

Finally after all those years, I became flint, which is a sedimentary rock, and the cycle would have started all over again if Kelly hadn't found me. Now, I'm nice and snug in her house with all her other rocks.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Kelly won "First Place" in 4th Grade at the Collierville Elementary Science Fair in February, 2000, and "Outstanding Achievement in Earth Sciences" at the Memphis Shelby County Science Fair in March, 2000.