Stone Sightings in the Stony Swamp, Ottawa

By Geophile, posting for Bruce from Ottawa

I received two emails from Bruce from Ottawa, containing some interesting photos and observations. It's not surprising that there are rock piles in the area, since it was Algonquin territory. The first email:

The Stony Swamp has several small escarpments and ancient shorelines,visible both on and off the public trails. Within a couple of the eroded cracks - so-called "joints" - in the escarpments, are quartz blocks. Small quartz blocks are seen in these splitting roles .. not just a stone, and not a dark stone. If there's a stone in the cleft, it is quartz. The implication that these stones are deliberately placed is strong. The other [third and fourth] pictures are of a large boulder that seems to have split off the bedrock at some distant time. I'd estimate this boulder to weigh a couple of tons. However, the oval eroded hole could only have appeared on the flat upward-facing surface of the block. But this side is now vertical. This considerable block of rock has been tilted on its side at some time after it left the bedrock. I suspect this was to expose the quartz vein and the hollowed face now on top.

I can't prove these are not natural.  My feeling, though, is that they are not.   /bruce/