Point of Rocks, a prominent Baraboo Quartzite outcrop along U.S. Route 12 in Baraboo, preserves ancient ripple marks, stratification, and deformation in rock about 1.7 billion years old, showing that the area was once covered by a sea. As one of the best-known exposures in the Baraboo Range, it became a major site for geological study in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Research there by Roland Irving, Charles Van Hise, Charles Leith, and Warren Mead helped establish structural geology and advanced the shift from descriptive surveying to theory-based science. Its scientific importance later earned listing on the National Register of Historic Places.