Metamorphic Rocks – Student Activity

Metamorphic Rocks - Laboratory Experiments

Simulating the effects of pressure

Experiment 1:
(adapted from http://192.241.47.201/ourcommunities/rockology/metarock.htm)

Materials & Equipment:

• 48 pea-sized balls of different coloured play dough or modelling clay
• 3-4 sheets of wax paper
• Books

Procedure:
1. Onto a piece of wax paper place a layer of balls in the centre (repeat this step 3
times), finishing with wax paper.
2. Place books on top of the pile.
3. Peel away wax paper.
4. Observe what has happened.

Questions:
1. What was the response of the play dough to the pressure?
2. How many planes was the pressure applied in?
3. Give a real-life example of this.

Simulating regional metamorphism

Experiment 2:
(adapted from http://www.coaleducation.org/lessons/sme/elem/8.htm)

Materials & Equipment:

• Petri dish/Small jar filled with frozen pea size balls of silly putty
• Chocolate sprinkles or drops (small)
• Brick or appropriately sized weight
• Oven or incubator

Procedure:
1. ½ fill/layer the jar/dish with silly putty balls and sprinkle chocolate into the gaps
2. Place the jar into the oven/incubator for a nominated time (10 minutes at 1500C
works well)
3. Remove from oven and place the weight onto the balls.
4. Observe what has happened

Questions:
1. Which of the materials (silly putty or chocolate) was the most affected by the
increased heat and pressure?

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 Metamorphic Rocks – Student Activity
2. If the silly putty and chocolate were representing minerals in a regionally
metamorphosed granite, what minerals would they represent?
3. How does this relate to economic geology?

Simulating Contact Metamorphism

Experiment 3:
(adapted from http://www.esta-uk.net/jesei/meta/home.htm)

Materials & Equipment:

• Shallow transparent dish
• 100 cm3 beaker
• Bunsen burner, tripod, gauze and heatproof mat
• 1 raw egg
• Salt (NaCl) to increase boiling temperature of water

Procedure:
1. Place the egg white into the petri dish.
2. Place 50 ml of water into a beaker and add 2 – 3 spatulas of salt to the water
3. Bring the water to the boil
4. Place the hot beaker into the centre of the petri dish
5. Leave the beaker for 10 minutes and observe what happened.

You should be able to see that a thin layer of egg white in contact with the beaker has
‘cooked’ and changed texture, i.e. it has become white and rubbery.

Questions:
1. What does the beaker of water represent?
2. What does the cooked egg white represent?
3. What does the unchanged egg white represent?

ESWA acknowledges the compilation of this material by Western Australian teachers

 Metamorphic Rocks – Student Activity
Making Slate – Simulating low grade metamorphism of mudstones

Experiment 4:
(adapted from http://www.esta-uk.net/jesei/meta/home.htm)

Materials & Equipment

• Short lengths of thin spaghetti
• 2 rulers (30 cm)

Procedure
1. Pour the spaghetti on the bench (random). These represent the microscopic, flaky
clay minerals in mudstone or shale.
2. Take the rulers and place one on either side of the spaghetti and push together so
they line up parallel with the rulers.
3. Observations

Questions:
1. As you pushed the rulers towards each other how did the spaghetti respond?
2. Explain how you can see their process in slate (metamorphosed shale/mudstone)
3. Where does this process occur?
4. Where is the slate/spaghetti demonstration easiest to break?

A thin section of slate under a microscope, showing the cleavage formed

by the aligned minerals.

Fossils and Metamorphism

Experiment 5:
(adapted from http://www.esta-uk.net/jesei/meta/home.htm)

Materials & Equipment:

• Modelling clay
• Plastic cup
• Stirring rod
• Plaster of Paris
• Sea shell or plastic dinosaurs

Procedure:
1. Soften the modelling clay and make a mould of your fossil
2. Apply lateral pressure to the mould to demonstrate and simulate shearing in
response to directed pressure
3. Make up the plaster of paris mixture in the plastic cup
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 Metamorphic Rocks – Student Activity
4. Pour the plaster into the mould and let it set
5. Unmould the fossil and pass it around the class so that other students can use the
fossil evidence to determine the orientation of force applied

Many metamorphic rocks, such as slate, are formed deep below ground, under great
pressure. They sometimes contain fossils which have been badly squashed. The result of the
squashing gives clues about the directions of the pressures which squeezed the rocks.

Questions:
1. Pass your fossil on to a nearby group. See if they can work out the directions of the
pressures which you used to distort the fossil.
2. Do the same for theirs. Did you get it right?
3. How could the same distortion have been produced by forces acting in different
directions?

Simulating low grade metamorphism of sediments

Experiment 6:
(adapted from http://www.coaleducation.org/lessons/sme/elem/8.htm)

Materials & Equipment:

• small jar/petri dish
• 6 pieces of bubble gum
• oven/incubator
• smaller jar filled with nuts and bolts (to be used as a weight) or another appropriate
weight
• pot holder

Procedure:
1. Fill the jar ½ full of bubble gum (unwrapped of course).
2. Place it in cold oven.
3. Put the weights on top of the gum.
4. Heat the oven/incubator gradually to about 170◦C
5. After about ½ hour at 170◦C, push the weight down gently.
6. Note how the gum deformed.

Questions:

1. How did the gum respond?

2. Why didn’t the gum melt?

ESWA acknowledges the compilation of this material by Western Australian teachers