Elephant Rocks State Park in Missouri’s Saint Francois Mountains preserves an outcropping of Precambrian granite whose giant pink boulders resemble a line of circus elephants. Formed from magma about 1.4 billion years ago, the granite fractured as it cooled, then was exposed by uplift and erosion; groundwater weathering along those fractures left resistant rounded corestones that now stand as massive surface boulders. Granite from the surrounding area was quarried from 1869 and used widely in construction, especially in St. Louis. Created in 1967 after geologist Dr. John Stafford Brown donated the land, the park also offers recreation and an accessible Braille Trail.

Pilot Knob, Missouri · USA