Rock Identification with Willsey: Carbonate Sedimentary Rocks (Limestone and Dolostone) 

Thanks again!! Watched several of your videos today, you are a great teacher 🙏

Thank you so very much, this lesson was very helpful to me.

Muriatic Acid is diluted Hydrochloric, and can be bought from any hardware store.

Plenty of limestone in the UK where it is generally subdued / lower in the landscape due to erosion compared with other more resistant rock types as you say because it’s so WET here 😂😢. Often recognised by short very green grass growing on it, and very often grazed by sheep. Karst scenery. If you ever visit the UK do visit Castleton in the Peak District (central UK) for limestones with mineralisation (Blue John fluorospar, barite, lead, pyrite), many caves open to tourists with stalagmites, stalactites, minerals etc. geology heaven! Also a few volcanics and a lot of gritstone in the area too (if you like climbing .. it’s famous). Thanks again for the videos.

I once went to Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky. Awesome. Limestone within the area.

Many thanks, Shawn, for your outstanding videos: Clear, yet challenging, outstanding demeanor and attitude, infectious curiosity, and and clear presentations. Shirley and Larry

Building supply store will sell HCL in 5 litre containers if you want it.

Thank you, Shawn! A tutorial on common invertebrate fossils would be great. 🙂

Enjoy your videos! A ready source of hydrochloric acid can be found at a typical hardware store in the form of muriatic acid which is about 30% HCl. Just dilute it one to three and you have 10%. It costs about $7 per quart.

2:44 6:44 8:15 Thank you for making this video! Very informative

Thanks for your generous sharing! obrigado

Really enjoying this series! Don't forget about phytoplankton as a major contributor to limestone.

Digging into my childhood again... There was a nearby pool where I spent many, many summer days. We'd either walk or ride our bikes to it. If we walked, we'd go as the crow flies as it was all open land. There was this little ravine we'd crawl down and back up the other side. I remember it being white and, well, chalky. I don't know if I knew what it was at the time. The next time I'm up at my parents I'll have to see if I can find it, if it's even still around. I don't remember the exposed area being that big, and I have no idea how extensive it is/was.

I was particularly looking forward to this video. Where I live, field stones are a real dog's breakfast. It's nothing to find fossiliferous limestone next to black or pink granite from the Canadian Shield. The glaciers distributed a real mess. I find fossiliferous limestone commonly, though given the direction of the glaciers, it could be either Silurian or Devonian. Heck, even Ordovician isn't out of the question. I've cleaned up a few fossiliferous rocks by giving them a soak in hot pickling vinegar. I did notice that some reacted vigorously, while some did not. Now I know why. The upper layers of the Niagara Escarpment are Dolostone, so obviously some got deposited in the fields here.

Thank you for this series!

Thanks. Verifying that I know my sedimentary rocks.

Very impressive, good concise presentations, thank you for the videos. Look forward to more for sure.

First time visitor to your channel, and I'm excited to have learned that I most likely found a large chunk of travertine on a recent hike in NM. Very informative!

Nicely presented thank you.

Paint stores typically have Muratic acid for etching concrete it works great!

truly am enjoying your video series. You are a great instuctor

I learned alot, thank you.

Thx Sir Willsey. ✌ good info

Wonderful content.

I would enjoy an episode on common fossils.

Excellent vid

Thanks for another awesome video! Would love to see video about fossils. I live in a kingdom of limestone - North Estonia. We also have some light blue and green type of limestone. Too bad I cant put photos here to show. We also have a lot of fossilized corrals, its amazing to see that they are ~ 500 mln years old, but theyr detalization is preserved so well, that its hard to distinguesh them from the modern ones) I have huge collection of corrals, fossils and calcite (:

Thank you for this video

Thanks again for the informative video! Regarding the info you share at the 4:40 mark - speaking of cliff-forming rocks....Have you ever been to Notch Peak in west-central Utah? If you haven't, you should definitely try to get out there some time! One of Utah's many hidden gems. I'd love to see a video about that! :D

I would really enjoy a fossil identification video!

Thanks!

also can get pure hydrochloric acid down the isle with the rest of the drain cleaners and acids, but one brand in particular cant remember name, but in an slender orange bottle on label its pure hcl acid unlike others that are mixed with different chemicals or muriatic acid is the other avalible one too. anyways hope this helps

I found very smooth, layered gray stones on the Southern shore of lake Erie in PA. It has many small shiny flecks, and some seem to have fossils. It is an excellent sharpening stone and I've flattened a few for that purpose. It is light colored like your micrite but far more layered, like your second stone. I have been researching what these stones might be for a couple weeks. I thought slate, then maybe shale, but now wondering if it is limestone....

I always confuse chalk with Coquina, also looking forward to the episode about crack rocks.

Thanks for your dedication, one question could we use a Dolostone as (sea level uprising) most of the time ?

Thanks for putting that out. I'm very curious about the formation and composition of chert. What the heck is a "real dog's breakfast"?

Thank you Prof, You mentioned that the dolo rocks may contain fossils. How does this relate to what I've heard that the dolomization is the enemy of fossilization? Thanks in advance.

Ah Shawn, I remember the old crunchy school toilet paper

Amazon has 75% acetic acid for $14.00 per quart. It’s also good for dissolving calcite and lime deposits off quartz.

I’m curious why/how ‘lime’ was chosen describe CaCo based rocks. Another great session in classroom!

14:00 yes, please, would like to see common invertebrate fossils

Great video! I live out in the California High Desert and I find all different kinds of rocks out here when on my hikes. This helped me to figure out just what types of rocks that they are. If you don't mind a little advice, try removing um from your personal vocabulary, it really interrupts the flow of your speech and it causes the listener to pause and lose track of exactly what you are saying.

Can you name reference used for limestone

Get your acid at a pool supply company or hardware store- muriatic acid is HCl, just dilute to desired strength.

Question from a geology noob: is marble a kind of natural limestone too? Does it also release Ca2+ and CO2 when react with rain water?

if we cant get the acid to test, would a bit of CLR in a bottle work?

Having lived in Florida and taken geology there I have seen a lot of limestone, fossil coral reefs and coquina but not dolostone. One question: do you know what the deepest depth that reefs form at?

👍

Crazy to think Niagara Falls is lime stone

Good video Shawn. Thanks for using the proper lithological term of dolostone and not continuing the incorrect use of dolomite. As you correctly stated, dolomite is a mineral and not a rock lithology. Mineral terms and lithology terms should not be used as if they're interchangeable. Using dolomite as a lithologic term would be as wrong as using calcite as a lithologic term for limestone. It makes little scientific sense and is inaccurate. A synonym for dolostone that I've seen in some geology reports is the adjectival term, "dolomitic limestone." This is preferable as a lithology term versus using "dolomite", but it is not as correct as using dolostone.

Thank you Shawn. Please do not use venigar. It is weak acid and it foes not produce an obvious reaction

In the northeast we have dolomite quarries in upstate NY that let you mine the crystals that formed there.

if you review that last second before you pulled away from the last sample of dolomite you showed... it was fizzing....