thanks for the site, John, those pictures are great, and i love the monastary on top of the rock!

In the case of the monastery, I guess you plan ahead when you do your shopping for food. None of that running out for Chinese food or having pizza delivered if hunger strikes at odd hours. Mail delivery must be difficult, too. It is actually an excellent place for uninterrupted contemplation.

This is the monastery Grigoriou in Athos. You can find enough photos of the monasteries of Athos here (select ����� on the left and click on each small photo in the right): http://www.ert.gr/skyview/ John

I am sorry for the Greek language in this site. John

I love seeing the Greek language in this site. I am the one who is sorry for not knowing how to read it. Thank you for posting this most marvelous picture and where to find more. Thank you also for letting us know which link to follow. *Sigh* I wish my Greek (non-existent) was as excellent as your English, John. As to the monasteries on promonontories, it is easy to imagine how they were created. Those on islands which have houses right up to the edges of the cliff are the ones which amaze me. Do the cliffs erode much in Greece? I suspect they are slowly eroded. We dare not do this sort of building in Hawaii or California. I get acrophobia just thinking about white-washing the buildings, not to mention washing windows or fixing the roof. No wonder I am not a monk on Athos!

For an entire page of little images on which to click: http://www.ert.gr/skyview/mones.html

Incidently, I asked Ginny, who travelled to Greece several years ago, if the entire country was so bounteously endowed with antiquities. She assured me it was. I fear I would contract a serious case of exopthalmia in such circumstances. I would not dare to close my eyes lest I miss something. Tbank you again, John. You live in Paradise, not I.

great aerial view of the monastary--now that i think about it, it would be a great place for a prison (though i'm glad the monks live there and not inmates)

Yes! Lovely Monastery in a most magnificent setting - like an inlay of enamel in a large sapphire. I am bewitched. Devil's Island was not nearly as lovely a place. The French used it as a prison. Molokai, in the Hawaiian Archipelago got all the lepers. Islands are very potent isolation mentally and in actuality.

I should soon photograph my newly found rocks and tell you about them. I have a group of limestone fossils and a group of geodes. It is really far too easy to find them here in Kentucky!

It also helps to have a great guide, and that is exactly what I had!

can't wait to see those pics!!

I have discovered that there ARE no rocks in the part of Illinois I was in. There is dirt. Not fertile stuff. Just dirt with lots of corn fields and soybeans fields and hog growing places. But the only rock I saw was road gravel on the main farm lanes which appeared to have been imported for just that purpose from some plece else. What I did find was highly convoluted granite that was admixed with cherts in some instances and schists in others. And these were the larger ones. Most were quite tiny and showed signs of both glaciation and being water-tumbled into rounded shapes. Alas.

Where I am in Cedar Creek, TX there are no rocks. When the crew my swimming pool they bet me a case of beer they would find rocks. They always find rocks, they said. They didn't find rocks. Maybe a cannonball now and then, but no rocks. Now, down by the creek there are rocks, but they get washed in from somewhere else. There are a few rocks up on the hillside from the Great Flood of '81. The Memorial Day Flood scattered some rocks on the hillside.

Terry, is it too late to connect this topic with Geo Rocks?

No, this can be done.

Thanks, Terry! I have some overlapping but that is ok. Now I can share my new and growing rock collection with Wolfie's conference! I'll be posting images soon. Alas, I leave here tomorrow for the trip home, but will return here ASAP.

marcia, be safe!! *HUGS*

Keep us posted!

Absolutely I will keep you posted. Geo has the finest most supportive people on earth and I would never keep from them what is happening in my life. Back to California for now. I shall return!

If you want to know the weight of a rock, or anything else for that matter. And here's the site to measure anything else in the world: http://www.allmeasures.com/Formulae/

Thank you Terry! That is an awesome page. We were trying to estimate the weight of a millstone (granite) and this website makes it all so easy.

It's fascinating. Here's their list of "all materials":" http://www.allmeasures.com/Formulae/static/materials/

Needless to say, that website is in our prominent bookmarks. Recently I've moved most of my entire rock collection from Hilo to Louisville where it is now sitting (along with my library) in 18 packing boxes recently delivered by UPS. I have no idea when I will see them, but I do enjoy knowing they are still with me.

How are you going to display them?

We've been thinking of that. Don wants labels and full lighted display which would delight me. If I were granted a wish, I'd choose a rotating drum with many sides on which the specimens would be mounted - in other words, a barrel whose slats stay horizontal face up at all times. Does that make sense?

do you mean like the rotating things jewelry is displayed in department stores? HI MARCIA!!!!!!! *HUGS* can't use MSN on this laptop but wanted to say howdy!

Yes exactly, like a rotating jewelry display, Wolfie HI! to you, too. Let me know when and what form you're using and I'll be delighted to talk with you. Welcome back.

actually, i'm using the laptop downstairs and am too lazy to go upstairs and use the pc....plus the computer room is an abyss of clutter!!!! am soooo glad to see you posting here again---have really missed you!

I really have missed being here. Normal to me is getting in here and learning something new despite myself. I have a bunch of new rocks including some very old chert from a spring in Florida and some VERY VERY old lava from Kentucky of which I shall speak more in the near future. Go outside and pick up a rock then tell us what it looks like. Rocks are mostly free. Collecting them is fantastic. There is a collection in Hilo which is world ranked. The collector just traded samples of raw fresh Hawaiian lava with anyone who had rocks to trade. He has some of amazing beauty and value. Of course, he had an unending free source of the lava specimens. I wish I had thought of that!

can't wait to see them posted (haven't been able to post anything or work on my websites and have been trying to hook up with terry to fix it.....am just not thinking about it enough to get moving faster *sigh*) we have lots of rocks in our backyard, just start digging and there it is, a lot of limestone looking stuff. most of it is from when they cleared this subdivision for building, when they were done, they just bulldozed the rocks back in the dirt and covered them with grass!

I think what you are finding is fine grained sandstone. You can test easily whether it is limestone or sandstone by putting some in a bit of white vinegar ( stronger acids work better but you are not as likely to have them on hand). If bubbles form and the rock "fizzes" then it is limestone.

oh goodie, i'll try that this weekend. some of it breaks fairly easy with a shovel and others won't budge!

Limestone and sandstone in KY breaks in long flat slabs so we have walls and fireplaces of surpassing beauty and strength just from laying the slabs one on another.

The barrel idea is very cool. Is it realistic? Can you solve the mechanics of this? I'll fih it, woofie.

Oh yes it is realistic. I've seen them. Actually I had two upright carousels with multilevel shelving in Hilo. It was only for small very special items. I would like to display them all, so I need a large display even if it is on magazine-like leaves of plywood affixed to the wall.

Post a pic if you can find one, ok?

I'll look for a photo. I can think of two actually in action currently but any wallpaper and most rug stores have "magazine" style displays. I'll go find one for you. Better still, I'll go find the alternatives and bring them back here for review !

Interesting about surving Pinatubo in a bat cave. The lone survivor (or was it two) from Mt Pelee on Martinique was in an underground jail cell. NO ONE else in St Pierre survived the eruption. That was a city with a population in excess of 30,000. I prefer my volcanoes a little more gentle.

amazing, isn't it? last night, they had surviving the tsunami.

Did you see last night's Nova on PBS? It dealt with the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa and the resulting devastation of Sumatra but the largest tsunami in recorded history. That eruption was the loundest sound ever heard in historic times on earth. The whole mountain collapsed into its own empty magma chamber and is now subterranean. Amazing.

no, i missed that. was watching something about the vatican on NGC.

I missed it too. But Nova does copious reruns.

so does NGC--they had the super volcano last night!

I have been "up tp here" on the Vatican but as a great history buff, I ca't help watching even the re-runs for some of this stuff. It is like color tv with a feed directly from the Renaissance!

Kia Ora Response #239: Interesting about surving Pinatubo in a bat cave. The lone survivor (or was it two) from Mt Pelee on Martinique was in an underground jail cell. NO ONE else in St Pierre survived the eruption. That was a city with a population in excess of 30,000. I prefer my volcanoes a little more gentle." About 100 survived. For some reason no one thought to talk to 100 people who panicked the night before the eruption when there were violent explosions all night long coupled with thunderstorms, and left town. They were huddled on a hill about 5km beyond the range of the pyroclastic flow. But in the town itself Pierre Augustus was the only survivor. Absolute devasation - did the French Governor keep his job? That moron (pardon my French)was the one who kept saying that there would not be a problem, all was cool, hold your horses and all the rest of it. No one thought to talk to a phone operator in another town on the island of Martinique who was on the phone to someone in the town of St Pierre when the volcano erupted. The operator said there was the most colossal roar on the phoneline and then everything went dead. Not one of the connections she tried could raise a response. St Pierre was dead. I guess there is a lesson in that. Any active lava dome within five kilometres of your house is NOT to be trusted. Rob

I can recall looking at the seismographs in the British Museum of Science in Kensington. We spoke to an employee there who was beside a map of the world's active volcanoes and I pointed out where I lived. He was sghast and said "You live where it explodes?!" Then I asked him where he was from . He replied "Martinique" Now, that is where it really explodes. I assured him Hawaiian volcnoes were much kinder to tourist and geologists. He looked skeptical.

Hi all I will rephrase that - no one should be living within 5km of a lava dome. Too unstable, too short a warning time if it falls apart. You would probably be living on its debris fan where all of the deposits end up after each collapse. Rob

Ah yes, a lava dome. The closest I have been to an actual one of them is in my rock collection. My son did hike up to the dome in Mount Saint Helens volcano and brought me back a small chunk. That is as close as I wish to be to that one, but plans are afoot to take me to the mountain so I can add it to my collection of visited active volcanoes. I agree with Rob though I'd make that a few more km than he suggests.