page_title: Enchanted Rock
section_title: Geology
hierarchical_section_title: Enchanted Rock / Geology
caption_attribution_description: English: Geological exfoliation of granite dome rock in the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, Texas, USA.
context_page_description: Enchanted Rock is a pink granite mountain located in the Llano Uplift approximately 17 miles north of Fredericksburg, Texas and 24 miles south of Llano, Texas, United States. Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, which includes Enchanted Rock and surrounding land, spans the border between Gillespie County and Llano County, south of the Llano River. Enchanted Rock covers approximately 640 acres and rises approximately 425 feet above the surrounding terrain to elevation of 1,825 feet above sea level. It is the largest pink granite monadnock in the United States. Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, a part of the Texas state park system, includes 1,644 acres. In 1936, the area was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. In 1971, Enchanted Rock was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.
  Enchanted Rock was rated in 2017 as the best campsite in Texas in a 50-state survey conducted by Msn.com.
context_section_description: The prominent granite dome is visible for many miles in the surrounding basin of the Llano Uplift. The weathered dome, standing above the surrounding plain is known to geologists as a monadnock. The rock is actually the visible above-ground part of a segmented ridge, the surface expression of a large igneous batholith, called the Town Mountain Granite of middle Precambrian (1,082 ± 6 million years ago) material that intruded into earlier metamorphic schist, called the Packsaddle Schist. The intrusive granite of the rock mass, or pluton, was exposed by extensive erosion of the surrounding sedimentary rock, primarily the Cretaceous Edwards limestone, which is exposed a few miles to the south of Enchanted Rock.
caption: Geological exfoliation of granite at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:04:02 14:29:13", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2548", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8704", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:04:02 14:29:13", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:04:02 14:29:13", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "261023/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1623/256", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "118447/32768", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1360", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2048", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1360", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2366", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "512000/223", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "16000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}