Is Mount Rushmore Made Of Granite

He knew that borglum would have the skills and knowledge to get.

Is mount rushmore made of granite.

The memorial is carved on the northwest margin of the black elk peak granite batholith in the black hills of south dakota so the geologic formations of the heart of the black hills region are also evident at mount rushmore. The sculpture of four famous presidents george washington thomas jefferson theodore roosevelt and abraham lincoln was carved into the granite rock face over many decades. In this final step the bumper tool would even up the granite creating a surface as smooth as a sidewalk. In august 1924 robinson wrote to gutzon borglum an ambitious sculptor who was already carving on a granite cliff face in georgia.

A huge portion of that quickly cooled rock now forms the upper part of mount rushmore. From 1927 to 1941 the 400 workers at mount rushmore were doing more than operating a jackhammer they were doing more than earning 8 00 a day they were building a memorial that people from across the nation and around the world would come to see for generations. Mount rushmore was carved from a mountain that was made of exposed granite. The metamorphic rocks we now see began as sediments at the bottom of a shallow sea during the precambrian period sometime between 1 6 and 2 5 billion years ago.

Today the faces of george washington thomas jefferson abraham lincoln and theodore roosevelt gaze over south dakota s black hills their images sculpted on the granite slopes of mount rushmore. There are two main types of rock at mount rushmore very old granite and much older metamorphic rocks. Mount rushmore is located in the black hills of keystone south dakota. The light colored rock that you see on the faces is fine grained granite.

Mount rushmore is largely composed of granite. The granite remains from the construction of mount rushmore are still visible below the heads of the presidents. Mount rushmore basically consists of two kinds of rocks.