When you arrive at the coordinates listed, you will find yourself at Rivergate Tower. Rivergate Tower is the sixth tallest building in the city. Completed in 1988, the Rivergate Tower is nicknamed the Beer Can because of its cylindrical style. The building is faced in French and Texas limestone making it one of the tallest limestone buildings in the world. The building glows yellow-orange at sunset, and is round to symbolize a lighthouse in Tampa which is supposed to represent optimism.
Designed by celebrated architect Harry Wolf, Rivergate Tower is widely recognized as a fixture of Tampa’s skyline. Built in 1988, its distinctive cylindrical shape was meant to symbolize a lighthouse—sending out a brilliant beacon of economic light from downtown Tampa.
Rivergate Tower’s measurements are based on what mathematicians refer to as the Fibonacci Series, a complex formula invented by Leonardo of Pisa, a 13th Century Italian philosopher and scientist.
The ceiling and floor of the curved lobby are unique and memorable, laid out as a circular calendar—with concentric rings measuring the passage of time and the degrees of a compass. Designs set into the floor suggest ancient alchemic symbols representing the phases of the Sun, Moon and seasons.
As architects attest, Rivergate Tower has “good bones,” with no expense spared in its construction. The fit and finish are first-rate—and extensive use was made throughout of Texas and French limestone, polished marble, and gleaming bronze.
About Limestone:
There are numerous very specific types of limestone that are recognized on every world continent other than Antarctica. These types often have specific regional names and possess distinct color, hardness and other morphological distinctions.
Egypt: Tura Limestone, used for facing stones of the Great Pyramid; Mokattam Limestone, used for Great Pyramid core and head of the Great Sphinx
Morocco: Turonian limestone scarps in southern Morocco
Israel: Meleke limestone is a white, coarsely crystalline, thickly bedded formation thought to be used in the tomb of Jesus; found in the Judean Hills and West Bank
Canada: Eramosa lagerstätte is a Silurian formation, dating to 425 million years ago, notable for fossils of organisms whose soft tissue is preserved in phosphate
Croatia: Istrian stone, whitish stone used widely in Dalmatia, likely a chief component of the Diocletian Palace, the largest extant Roman palace
France: Caen stone is a light creamy-yellow Jurassic limestone quarried in northwestern France near the city of Caen
Germany: Solnhofen limestone is a Jurassic formation preserving a rare assemblage of fossilized organisms
Australia: Wallabi limestone is the dense calcrete limestone platform underlying the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos, an archipelago off of Western Australia
New Zealand: Oamaru stone is a hard, compact limestone, quarried at northern Otago, South Island
England: Bath Stone is a honey colored Oolitic limestone; Lincolnshire limestone occurs in the Inferior Oolite Series of the Middle Jurassic strata of eastern England; Portland stone is from the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset: used in many major public buildings such as Buckingham Palace
USA: Kaibab limestone is a geologic formation occurring in much of the southwest including northern Arizona, southern Utah, east central Nevada and southeast California; Bear Gulch Limestone in Montana is a fossiliferous lagerstätte laid down in the Mississippian
Limestone from Texas: Cordova Cream and Cordova Shell from the Hill Country; Lueders Buff, Gray, and Roughback from the Abilene area.
History and uses:
Prehistoric uses of limestone included lime mortar, pulverized limestone for agricultural uses and burnt lime, also for crop fertilization. In Turkey, lime mortar dating to 15,000 to 7,000 years before present has been recovered in terrazzo floors. Lime mortar was also used for portions of the Great Wall of China.
Since ancient times limestone has been an important material for building and industrial purposes. Very early civilizations employed limestone blocks in many of the grandest edifices of the ancient world, including the Great Pyramids, many of the greatest Roman cities including Volubilis, HIstria and Rome itself; most of the Mayan cities; the Parthenon and other monuments of early Greece; Knossos and other late Neolithic centers in Crete; many Persian monuments such as the tomb of Cyrus the Great. The great structures and outdoor sculptures from antiquity and the Middle Ages are at risk of decay due to the impact of acid rain.
To log this cache, e-mail me the answers to the following questions:
1. Look at the walls along the sides of the building. Does the limestone show any wear? If so, what kind of wear do you see happening?
2. Looking at the walls still, do you see any discoloration of the limestone? If so, what color does it look like?
3. Can you spot any fossils in the limestone? If so, where?
Thanks for visiting
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