What is a Natural Arch?
A natural forming structure in nature is a formation of rock that has experienced erosion and weathering that forms a hole through the arch. These usually occur due to persistent winds and freeze-thaw action that erode an opening through sandstone blocks (Lawley, 2018). This process is also known as frost wedging and breaks the sandstone off in chunks to form a cave until, ultimately the erosion causes a complete breakthrough. A well-known example of a natural arch is the “Delicate Arch” located in Arches National Park, Utah. Delicate arch is also the largest freestanding arch in the park which contains over 2,000 stone arches. (Ohio’s Natural Arches, n.d.)
What are they formed from?
Typically, arches are formed from sandstone or limestone. Sandstone can be comprised of many different minerals which allows for partial erosion to create the arch shape. Where the stronger minerals will be more resistant to erosion and the weaker bonded mineral grains will be eroded, leaving the stronger minerals to support and form the arch. For instance, an outcrop that originally contains quartz, hornblende, biotite, and orthoclase will result in a higher combination of quartz and orthoclase due to their makeup and resistance to weathering. (King, 2018)
Differences between a Natural Arch and a Natural Bridge?
A natural bridge is formed by a constant current of water that cuts through the sandstone to form a bridge over the water. Conversely, a natural arch is formed by weathering processes but not a flow of water over time. (Lawley, 2018)
How are natural arches named?
Natural arches get names by their characteristics. They are named with simplicity and purpose. They are known for their very impressive look and characteristic in them of their size, beauty, and attraction. Anything named an Arch from years and years ago have all been strong significant meaning with bold attractive characteristics to them that stick out their look and style. The majority of natural arches are not names because they are unimpressive, smaller or even hard to get to as they do not show the distinguished characteristics.
How big does a natural arch have to be to qualify?
This was a harder one to determine as doing some research behind this showed a variety of answers and thoughts behind it. Natural arches are considered natural arches that symbolize the needed characteristics in their dimensions. Though all structures are considered a natural arch with the required characteristics, not all are named as such. This is because the arch name is a distinguished name for its great characteristics and giving it to all the smaller ones and very unimpressive starts to devalue the meaning behind it.
How old are natural arches?
There has been really no way to determine the exact age of any certain arch. It was examining and understood that the features within these are short lived through the geological scale. These have also been mainly being found around areas after the Ice age that have experienced a huge rapid erosion occurrence. Through multiple surveys of research that there are probably no natural arches older than thirty-five thousand years old as the average natural arches are from five to ten thousand years old.
How should a natural arch be measured?
Looks through many field investigators and how they research and measure natural arches comes in a variety of ways and rater all different but still showing their distinctive characteristics. These measurements have no one way of being done. These types of measurements come with many tools such as using a range finder, steel tape, pacing, differential GPS, photo estimates, visual estimates, triangulation and more. Field investigators measure them by their dimensions but the way they use them is by the ones they have most experience with and availability to. They will measure natural arches in dimensions such as Span, Height, Width of opening, separation, divergence, Width, Thickness, opening Breadth, opening Depth, Lintel breadth, Lintel Depth. (A red-rock wonderland, 2018)
Areas where natural arches are in Ohio.
There are many various locations in Ohio where these natural wonders are located. Hocking Hills state park, Fort Hill State Memorial, Wayne National Forest, and Scioto County. However, there are also arches located underground in the Olentangy Caverns which is a cave located in Delaware County as well as “The Needle’s Eye” which is found on Gibraltar Island in Lake Erie. (Snyder, 2014).
How many arches are in Ohio?
There is no exact amount of natural arches named in Ohio but the most known who have the distinctive traits to by symbolized as one shows there at least 80 natural arches all over the state of Ohio.(
What is the largest arch in Ohio?
The largest natural arch in Ohio is in Hocking Hills state park in southern Ohio. This arch, known as Rock House, is the largest arch in Ohio spanning at 20 feet, with a clearance of 40 feet and a total length of 185 feet. (Snyder, 2014). Also, in the state park is Rockbridge, at 92 feet long is the state’s longest natural bridge. Both natural creations were formed out of the Mississippian age black hand sandstone.
Works Cited
Hansen, M. C. (1975). Geology of the Hocking Hills State Park Region. Retrieved from https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/
Hansen, M. C. (1988). Natural Bridges in Ohio. Retrieved February 9, 2018, from www.naturalarches.org/files/
Murphy, J. L. (1975). Ohio’s Natural Rock Bridges. Retrieved February 9, 2018, from https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/
A red-rock wonderland. (2018). Retrieved from
http://www.nps.gov/
Ohio’s Natural Arches. (n.d.) Retrieved from
naturepreserves.ohiodnr.gov
Snyder, T. A. (2011). Ohio’s Natural Arches. Retrieved February 9, 2018, from http://naturepreserves.
Snyder, T. A. (2009). Rainbows of Rock, Tables of Stone: The Natural Arches and Pillars of Ohio. Granville, OH: McDonald and Woodward Publishing Company.
Jorgen Alverson (2018) Natural Arch