Photoclubalpha

There's a place (gorge) not far from the capital city of Yerevan (around 20 km or so) called "Symphony of Stones". Honestly I couldn't capture it well, but hope it will give you a hint.

I included a man and a car at the bottom of this picture to have a notion of the height












Hope they will please you and I apologize to dial-up users (probably they'll have hard times downloading the pics).

Hi,

The vertical shot, no:3, shows off the actual chemistry and physical formation best while the wide shots give away the enormous scale of the rock formation. This formation must have taken milions of years till it gained this aligned/stacked-stilts look. Must have a special mineral make up that crystallizes in this manner.

No wonder they are likened to a 'symphony' and music, they look like a huge vertical xylophone or stacked pipes of sound.

Yildiz

Very interesting pictures Doc. I like #3 best, it does look just like a xylophone .

I'm not a geology expert, but this formations look similar to these formations at Staffa off the West coast of Scotland.

http://www.scottishgeology.com/outandab ... taffa.html

and the Giant's Causeway on the North East coast of Northern Ireland

http://www.giantscausewayofficialguide.com/geology.htm#

aster wrote:Hi,

The vertical shot, no:3, shows off the actual chemistry and physical formation best while the wide shots give away the enormous scale of the rock formation. This formation must have taken milions of years till it gained this aligned/stacked-stilts look. Must have a special mineral make up that crystallizes in this manner.

No wonder they are likened to a 'symphony' and music, they look like a huge vertical xylophone or stacked pipes of sound.

Yildiz

This is columnar basalt, as remarked - Giant's Causeway/Staffa etc, and a few other places in small intrusions. It does not take millions of years, it's the result of an intrusion of lava into the crust - a pipe or flow of lava vertically. The hexagonal structure is caused by cooling and by the crystalling structure of the basalt, which I guess must be a rapid event in geological time, maybe hundreds or thousands of years, not like stalactite formation. Looks like a fantastic good example - better than the Giant's Causeway I think, certainly more dramatic. I like the outcrop near the tree and river.

David

The direction of flow really has nothing to do with it. The direction has to do with the direction of cooling. You can see it in the mudflats in our deserts after a rain.

More info: Columnar Basalt

It is visible anywhere a stream or river has cut through the lava flows that cover Idaho's Southern and South-Western plain.

Cetainly learned more about this phenomenon...

Thanks all!

Yildiz

We've got some formations like those here in the states...looks rather like a giant pipe-organ, doesn't it? Your shots give the scale well enough...I think my favorite is the stream though. I like to see the formations interrupting the more natural-looking earth and how the stream slowly takes the pieces and tumbles them away.

Thanks for the interest.
Here is another one shot with A100 with SAL1870 kit lens

And here's the river stream where you could notice those same basalt columns.

What a fantastic sight, I have been to Fingal's cave on Staffa and I don't think it was half as impressive.

Thanks to everyone for your comments.

No3 and No5 are my favs Doc, No3 really shows the "pipes" of the organ well, and that outcrop near the tree and stream is striking, sort of like grandstand seating for midgets..I reckon that one is a winner.
Greg

Thank you, Greg. I appreciate it.

Cool. I have seen this sort of stone formation before, but I am trying to remember where. Maybe I saw some at Zion National Park in Utah. Or, maybe it was in the Todra Gorge in Morocco.