Science & Nature

Finalists Announced in Boulder Naming Contest. Time to Rock the Vote, Chicago

Officials chipped away at nearly 2,900 submissions — pun 100% intended — in a “name that rock" contest for a 50-ton prehistoric boulder discovered at O'Hare Airport and arrived at six finalists.

And no, Rocky McRockface did not make the cut.

Now it's up to the public to choose the winner from:

— Chicago Rocks

— Da Rock

— No ORDinary Rock

— Orchard Rock

— O'Rock

— Sweet Stone Chicago

Members of the public can cast their online ballot through 5 p.m., Nov. 2. The winning name will be announced across O’Hare’s social media channels and featured as part of the boulder exhibit outside the airport’s Multi-Modal Facility at 10255 W. Zemke Road.

"Whether it’s a close race or a landslide, we’re ready to give this larger-than-life discovery a name worthy of our city,” said Michael McMurray, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation.

The boulder — 11.5 feet wide, 8 feet deep and 7.5 feet tall —was discovered in June, 30 feet below the airfield’s surface.

Ron Pitelka was the excavator operator who unearthed the boulder as part of a construction crew working on the airport’s latest expansion project.

“I’ve never seen a boulder this big come out of the ground. It’s pretty damned rare,” Pitelka, who lives in Homer Glen, previously told WTTW News. “I was like a kid on Christmas.”

Pitelka's choice of a name — “I would probably call it ‘Geo,'” he said — isn't up for consideration.

A geologist analyzed the boulder and determined it was dolostone, the hard bedrock that lies underneath most of Illinois’ glacially-deposited soil. Dolostone formed during the Silurian period of the Paleozoic Era, some 400 million years ago, when the Chicago area was a tropical hot spot.

Here's a look at the boulder being moved to its new home on the O'Hare's grounds.

Contact Patty Wetli: [email protected]

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