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Gem-Collecting Tour
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| Length | 4.5 - 5 hours |
| Rates Children Adults Seniors |
$37 $47 $32 |
| Schedule | |
| Sat & Sun |
8am-12:30pm |
Awaken your inner geologist! This tour begins with visits to exhilarating and breathtaking locations along the Blue Ridge Parkway and other routes to visit many of our favorite geologic features. Your experienced and knowledgeable tour guide will provide detailed educational information and fun facts to help you grasp the history of the formation of the stunning Blue Ridge Mountains!
We will visit features such as Looking Glass Rock, the Brevard Fault Zone, Mt. Pisgah, Yellowstone Falls, various igneous intrusions, and many more! The final highlight of the tour will be a visit to a local mineral collecting mine where you can search for all sizes of beautiful, colorful gems that you can take home with you! Be prepared to take home a treasure! You may get slightly dirty on this trip, and you’ll feel like a real geologist!
By the end of your tour, you will be able to:
- Identify and take home precious and semi-precious stones!!!
- Identify rock types that are common to the Asheville area
- Know why Looking Glass Rock looks so different from its surroundings
- Know why the rocks of the Blue Ridge are folded
- Understand why the city of Asheville sits in a wide, flat valley
- Visualize the Appalachians as they were millions of years ago
- Understand why the Blue Ridge Mountains are rounded instead of rocky
- Know which feature “peels like an onion”
- Understand why Yellowstone Falls exists
- Understand the basics of the mountain building process
*All tours include take-home info sheets