Pluton in Mondulkiri

Anyone in my earth science classes at college would probably call me out as something pretty far from God's gift to geology.  Maybe that would be an understatement.  A wave of genius (and Geology 101) slammed into me a couple weeks ago when I was able to point out a pluton.  (This is about as basic as geology gets.) A buddy and I were told there was a massive rock that we should check out.  Up for the adventure, we followed Pastor Trovey to what looked at first to be the earth's largest pile of asphalt.  It looked fake, like a dollop of a blackened alien planet dropped onto the jungle.  The black color is actually a small lichen or moss on the surface.  I suspect after a few rains it may be green but I'll have to go back and look.  

Underneath that black surface is a phaneritic (you can see the crystals of the individual minerals), felsic (rich in silica-based minerals), igneous (came from liquid-hot magma) rock.  My mineralogy knowledge is rusty at best but I think it's a really phaneritic quartz-diorite.  Btw, if any geology nerds out there read this, please feel free to correct any mistakes here.

Geology is fascinating and I recommend everyone learn at least a little bit of it out in the field.  Doing it well is a challenge but it'll change the way you look at the earth.

Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.   (Job 12:8)