Watch rocks grow! Check out the planter boxes in front of the building and see Geology in Action as rocks turn into soil before your very eyes!

Soils form by the weathering of rocks when they are exposed at the surface of the Earth. Where mountains are building and eroding rapidly, thick well-developed soils do not have time to form and it is easy to see how the breakdown of rocks leads to soil. Photos on the right, from top to bottom: the soil pictured in the top photo form from volcanic mudflow deposits and most of the volcanic rocks are of the type geologists call andesites, which are typical of the rocks in the Andes. The soil in the middle form from the break down of rock called phyllite or slate which was formed by deep burial and metamorphism of mudstones. The red, volcanic soil pictured in the lower right form from obsidian, or volcanic glass. Rock of similar composition to the obsidian when cooled slowly underground forms large crystals and makes granite, like the rock that forms the soil in the picture to the left.