Rock Science for Candy Lovers
Cheerilee followed Maud Pie up the narrow staircase which lead up to the attic room of the Pie family farmhouse. Her class of young foals followed in single file, with Pinkie Pie bringing up the rear. They all filed into a large room with a wooden floor, filled with glass display cases which housed the elder Pie sister's collection of rocks and minerals.
“Thank you so much for agreeing to give the class a tour of the rock farm,” said Cheerilee to Pinkie and Maud. “It's very good for their education. And it's surprising, these days, how many foals grow up without ever setting a hoof on a farm. It does them good to get a bit dirty now and then.”
“Always happy to help,” replied Pinkie with a cheerful grin. They had taken the foals for a long walk around the rock fields, and shown them all daily operations of a working rock farm. Cloudy Quartz had shown them the gravel beds; Igneous Rock had explained how it took several hundred thousand years to properly cultivate a volcano. After giving all the class radiation dosimeter badges, Limestone and Marble Pie had given a guided tour of the nuclear fuel reprocessing facility. The foals were now all tired, but as a final stop on the tour, Maud had agreed to show them her rock and mineral museum.
“This collection contains a range of geological samples from all around Equestria and the Crystal Empire,” said Maud. “There are several hundred rocks, fossils, and minerals. The first case contains the igneous collection, with pieces of granite, basalt, dacite, rhyolite. There are also some ultramafic samples, and several different varieties of trachyte.”
The foals all peered through the glass to make out the rocks. She walked over to another case in the centre of the room. “These are the sedimentary rocks. Including eight sandstones, and a smaller number of mudrock, limestone and chert samples. They show a wide range of different colours, reflecting the varying conditions under which they were formed. There are also a large number of fossils from many different eras.” She walked across the room to another case. “Here we have the metamorphic rocks, including slate, marble, schist and gneiss.”
She turned to face the audience. “Are there any questions?”
A row of blank faces stared back at her. Cheerilee smiled nervously. “Well... I guess not. Thank you very much for the tour. Now, I guess, we should be getting back to Ponyville.”
She lead the class back down the staircase, giving Diamond Tiara a stern look on hearing her mutter, “stupid rocks.” Once the foals had departed, Maud turned to face Pinkie.
“I thought they might be a bit more interested.”
Pinkie put a hoof against her neck. It's not nice when you introduce somepony to a friend, and they just ignore them, and the rocks were her sister's friends. Then she gave a decisive look.
“They weren't paying proper attention. That wasn't very gneiss of them. They need to learn that rocks rock. We can't let them take rock farmers for granite. This calls for serious action. Pie family style!” She put a bakers cap onto her head, and her rock-candy-research-goggles over her eyes, then ran down the stairs.
A few minutes later the class had been herded into the rock farmhouse kitchen. Pinkie stood at the kitchen table, in front of a hot stove, with her sister standing to one side, and a selection of kitchen tools laid out in front of her. The foals all stood in front of her, and behind them, her parents and sisters, and Cheerilee.
“Okay,” said Pinkie to the audience, “Maud is going to give a super interesting lecture on the rock cycle and you are all going to give it your full attention and learn all about rocks.” She narrowed her eyes and stared at the row of foals through her safety goggles. The audience remained silent, with a few foals fidgeting nervously. She turned and nodded at her sister, who began the lecture.
“The rock cycle is a model which describes the geological processes which lead to the creation and destruction of the different types of rock. All rocks are originally formed out of molten magma, which solidifies to form igneous rocks.”
Pinkie picked up a large pan from the stove and tipped the molten chocolate contents over the table top. On hitting the cold polished-stone surface, this quickly solidified creating a chocolate mountain peak. The young foals quickly stopped fidgeting and stared at the demonstration with gleeful eyes. At the back of the room, Cloudy Quartz winced as the first drops of chocolate magma hit the clean flagstone floor. Pinkie then created a second mountain out of white chocolate, and tipped a third pan of molten marshmallows on top of this. Several lava flows of chocolate and marshmallow ran across the landscape and dribbled onto the floor creating cocoa and candy stalactites and stalagmites.
“Igneous rocks have a variety of different textures and mineral compositions depending on the magma from which they were formed, and the rate of cooling,” continued Maud. “Dark mafic rocks such as basalt, contain large amounts of magnesium and iron. Light felsic rocks are mostly feldspar and silica.”
Seizing a geologist's hammer in her mouth, Pinkie chipped off some dark and light igneous rock samples.
“Who wants a igneous rock sample?”
A row of hooves shot into the air. Pinkie walked around the table distributing the rock samples to allow the foals to examining the different textures and compositions, while Maud continued the lecture.
“We now consider sedimentary rocks, made from the sediments resulting from the erosion and weathering of rocks.”
Pinkie jumped onto the table top and stomped on the igneous massif and volcanic islands with four hooves. This cumulative weathering and erosion soon reduced the peaks to piles of chocolate chip sediments.
“Sediments are transported by water flow, and other processes, and are deposited in layers.”
Pinkie tipped a vat of molten butter over the table. The liquid ran down the mountains under gravity, forming rivers, carving out valleys, and transporting the sediment down onto the plain. It dribbled onto the floor, and splashed butter onto the audience.
“Over time, the sediments are cemented together forming rocks such as limestone, mudstone and sandstone. The texture varies depending on the size of the sediments, often with a layered pattern due to the many layers of sediment deposited. Organic matter can also be incorporated, to form rocks such as coal, and fossils can be formed from the imprint of plants or dead animals caught in the sediment.”
Pinkie sprinkled a layer of cookie crumbs onto the landscape. She then placed a plate on top of the sediment layer and compacted it with a hoof.
“That will take a bit of time to set,” she said to the audience.
“A few million years,” said Maud.
This statement caused a few smiles to disappear, but this quickly changed when Pinkie produced a plate of chocolate fudge layer cake.
“Here's some I made earlier,” she said. Everypony took a slice. As an encore, Pinkie cut open a layer of fudge to show the fossilised imprint of a strawberry.
“Finally we have the metamorphic rocks,” said Maud, “rocks which have been changed by a large heat or pressure. This creates chemical reactions which change the structure of the rock, such as changing granite into gneiss.”
“For this I need the help of my assistant,” said Pinkie. On cue, Spike walked into the kitchen wearing an apron and chef's cap. “Actually he's Twilight's assistant, but I'm borrowing him for the day.”
She lifted the baby dragon up to one end of the table stacked with igneous and sedimentary samples. These were duly enveloped in dragon fire to leave a stack of toasted caramel metamorphic treats.
The young audience all crowded around anxious for a taste of the metamorphic produce. After passing these around, Pinkie held up the plate. “And we mustn't forget the final step. Ultimately all rocks will return to magma.” She tossed the remaining metamorphic rocks back into a pan. Then used a knife to prise a tectonic plate of fudge topped chocolate off the table, and threw this in as well. With a bit of heat this was soon reduced back to a molten mixture.
The sugar infusion had re-energised the class, who were then let out of the farmhouse. They raced around the yard happily. The cutie mark crusaders discussing plans to get cutie marks in volcanology. Maud walked up to her sister and they gently rubbed necks. Cheerilee walked over to join them.
“Thank you Maud. Thank you Pinkie. You make a great pair of teachers. That demonstration was a real gem.”
Spike stood to one side licking the chocolate off his claws. “It was okay, but I prefer the real thing. You haven't got any sapphires or rubies in the kitchen?”
Author's Note
Thanks for reading.
Always ask a grown up's permission before using the kitchen.
