 Building on earlier discoveries that the quartzite formed in the Precambrian Era and had metamorphosed, Van Hise was able to determine the forces that deformed the rock; his discoveries helped form the key principles of structural geology.Van Hise also used his studies of the quartzite's conversion from sandstone to write the "Treatise on Metamorphism" in 1904, the first publication to describe the process of metamorphism in detail.University of Wisconsin geologists used Van Hise Rock to demonstrate the properties and principles which Van Hise discovered; the rock is still used in geological education and research.