The JUNIATA JOURNAL of GEOLOGY, 1, 1-4 (2014)

Review Article

Long Term Plants Can Grow Directly on Sandstone

Bedrock: Evidence from the Alexandria Pike Road
Sandstone (Ridgeley Formation)
Michaela Dempsie

Sandstone, as bedrock, has the capability to provide the essential nutrients a plant needs
to thrive. The pore space in sandstone is a key factor that allows plants to obtain these
essential nutrients within the rock itself. One of the reasons for this is because the
moisture, trapped in the rock, is carrying many key nutrients a plant needs to survive. A
plant needs both macronutrients and micronutrients. Even though sandstone is a very
porous rock, moisture still gets trapped in the pores and the water gets moved around
within the sandstone. The pores also create a space where plants can grow their roots. As
these roots are growing and breaking up the rock, the formation itself is leaving off CO2
which is both helping to cool the atmosphere around the formation and giving the plant
the carbon dioxide it needs to grow. The bedrock in which a plant grows has a significant
impact on why plants can survive.
Keywords.Sandstone; Plants; Porosity; Micronutrients; Weathering

Department of Geology, Juniata College, 1700 Moore Street, Huntingdon PA 16652.

Email: dempsme12@juniata.edu

INTRODUCTION
The Ridgeley sandstone formation can provide
all the essential things a tree needs to grow. This
formation is part of a bigger formation called the
Oriskany formation, which was formed during
the Devonian time period. This sandstone
formation is formed primarily from sand sized
quartz. Over a long time these particles of sand
will cement together to form a sandstone. There
are many different factors that affect the quartz
cementation process. Some of these factors are
the temperature history of the quartz, the grain

size, and the depositional environment in which

the cementation process is taking place.
(Worden & Morad, 2009, p.39)
The main things plants need to grow on bedrock
are water, minerals, CO2, and a place to grow
roots. (Barta, 2009, p.37) The general nutrients a
plant needs are P, K, N, Mg, Ca. (Roccuzzo et
al., 2012) Trees will take up these nutrients as
ions. These ions were not originally ions, but
became ions by being dissolved in water. The
plant gets its water from the pores in the
sandstone. This space in the rock formation

PLANTS GROWING DIRECTLY ON BEDROCK

provides a way for the plant to grow roots,
access water, and obtain nutrients. Another
reason trees can grow directly on bedrock is
because they can keep the atmosphere in which
they live cool by growing there roots in to the
rock which gives off CO2 for the plant to use to
grow and keep it cool. (University of Oxford,
2014) This CO2 comes from the breaking down
of the rock itself through mechanical
weathering, because sandstone can hold CO2
directly in the rock.

place and the parts that are remaining are the

ones that have not been weathered away yet.
INTERPRETATIONS
The rock formation along Alexandria Pike Road
is made up of quartz sandstone and is part of the
Oriskany formation whose age is early
Devonian. Sandstone is known to be very porous
and most people dont think of it being able to
hold or transport water through the rock which
in fact it can do. In South Africa there was a
study done on sandstone moisture regimes
because on the particular sandstone in which the
study was being done on contained ancient art
that is currently being weathered. The sandstone
along Alexandria Pike Road is also being
weathered away, but even though there is an
environmental difference between to two
sandstones the one in Africa shows that moisture
has been moved to the surface of the rock
causing the weathering and flaking of the
paintings on the sandstone. (Mol & Viles, 2010)
This shows that even in a hot environment that
moisture can be held in sandstone, so the
sandstone along the road should be able to hold
moisture. This moisture is being held in the
pores of the sandstones. Water is held in these
spaces due to capillary action, which allows the
sand particles around the pore to hold on to the
water. When a pore gets to big then gravity will
exceed the strength of the capillary forces and
the water will be pushed out of the pore. If the
pore space is small then the capillary action will
be stronger then gravity and the water will start
to move up to the pore space above the one it
was originally in.

OBSERVATIONS
There are two parts to this formation, the main
focal point and the other parts surrounding that
focal point. These parts surrounding the focal
point have been weathered away and are still
part of the main focal point. This main focal
point looks like a rock coming out of the side
and top of the little hill. This formation is a little
taller than two cars stacked on top of one
another and consists of many different crevasses.
Besides the main focal point of this formation
there are also smaller parts to it. These smaller
parts surround the focal point and range in size
from regular car tires to truck tires. On one of
these smaller parts there is a tree growing
directly off the side of it. The tree is located in a
gap in the rock. This geological feature is grey
when far away and then as people go closer it
looks more like a brownish green color with
moss growing on both the main focal point and
the other parts of the formation. When people
blow directly on the rock little particles come
off. This shows that this particular sandstone has
not been completely cemented. The grains of
this rock are the size of the pointy end of a push
pin. This formation is made primarily out of
quartz particles. This formation has already gone
through significant weathering because there is
soil around this whole formation and because the
smaller parts that look separate from the
formation really are not separate. They only look
separate because of the weathering that took

Pore elasticity of a sandstone decreases with

higher pressures. This means that as the pressure
increases on the sandstone the pores get smaller
and as the pressure decreases the pores get
bigger. (Blocher, Reinsch, Hassanzadegan,
Milsch, & Zimmermann, 2013) There is not that
much difference in one individual pore space,
2

DEMPSIE
seeing as though sandstone is a somewhat rigid
structure, but when all the pores in sandstone get
added up this can make a huge difference in the
amount of moisture particular sandstones can
hold. The sandstone in Africa has moisture in it
and it is also has more than one atmosphere of
pressure on it because it is located underneath
another type of rock. (Mol & Viles, 2010) So the
sandstone along Alexandria Pike Road should
have the capability to hold more moisture in the
rock then the one in Africa because this one has
less pressure on it because there is nothing
above the rock except the atmosphere. This
decrease in pressure makes the pore space in the
sandstone bigger, but not by such a big amount
that the force of gravity beats the capillary
forces acting in the pore space.

quantities compared to the

micronutrients a plant needs.

amount

of

These different nutrients that a plant needs can

be found in rain water or in running water over
the surface of the earth. The Ridgeley sandstone
formation along the Alexandria Pike Road can
easily obtain both sources of water because the
formation does occur along a hill, which water
can run down and on the way down the hill it
can pick up these different nutrients. The rock
can also get some of the nutrients through rain
water. Rain water is acidic so it carries H+ ions
in it so thats how it can react with both the soil
it comes in contact with and the rock formation
itself, it also can contain SO42- and NO3- ions. (
Krupa, & Nosal, 1999) Depending on the soil or
rock formation the water comes into contact
with depends on what things are in the water. If
the rain water runs over soil that is a pasture
then the water is more likely to have a fair
amount of nitrates in it. The Ridgeley formation
along the road isnt downhill of a pasture so it
wont pick up nitrates in that way, but it is
surrounded by organic matter which will contain
these different nutrients. This water that is
surrounding the rock will leak down into the soil
and eventually into the rock below. In the case
of this formation the rock below is the formation
and through the rocks capillary action the water
will be brought back up through the rock.
Another reason why plants can live directly on a
rock formation is because as the plant roots
grow into the formation they are breaking up the
rock. The process of weathering that is
happening allows the rock formation itself to
release CO2 that it has. This breaking of the
formation releases CO2 into the atmosphere,
which will cool down the atmosphere around the
plant. (University of Oxford, 2014) This would
explain why weathering rocks on hot summer
days are cool.

Moss and trees are growing on this part of the

Ridgeley formation. Moss and trees are able to
grow here because the rock formation is able to
provide them with the things that they need to
grow. Moss can temporarily store nitrogen in the
rock, and obtains its nutrients through air borne
particles. (Krmar, Radnovic, & Hansman, 2014)
This nitrogen being stored in the rock is one of
the macronutrients nutrients that a tree needs in
order to grow, but the nitrogen stored in the rock
is not in a form that the tree can use. The
nitrogen has to first get put in a form that the
tree can use. This process can be done by
bacteria that live around a trees roots. All plants
have a certain amount of both macro and micro
nutrients that they need in order to stay alive.
The micro nutrient a plant needs consists of Iron,
Manganese, Copper, Zinc, Molybdenum, Boron,
and Chlorine. Plants use these nutrients in their
enzymes such as Laccase and Aconitase. Micro
nutrients arent only needed for enzymes they
can also be used in giving a plant protection
against
infections.
(Sharma,
2009)
Macronutrients that a plant needs are nitrogen,
potassium, and phosphorus. These are the
nutrients that are needed in relatively high

Plants have a certain requirements that a host

must meet for the plant to survive. One
3

PLANTS GROWING DIRECTLY ON BEDROCK

requirement is that the host must have sufficient
space for roots to grow along with a source of
water. Another requirement is that the host has
to be able to provide the plant with the right
nutrients, especially seeing as though the plant
cant get up and move by itself. Some rock

formations make great hosts because they

contain or can provide all these requirements to
the plant. This shows that the bedrock which a
plant is growing directly on has a significant
impact on whether a plant can live on it.

REFERENCES
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