The City of Stone The eroded sandstone pinnacles in the photo are found in the (somewhat misnamed) S

The City of StoneThe eroded sandstone pinnacles in the photo are found in the (somewhat misnamed) Saxon Switzerland National Park, close to the border between Germany and the Czech Republic (who have their own park linked to this one). There are over a thousand pinnacles in the region, and the forested park is a Mecca for free climbers. The highest peak is 556 metres above sea level, but only 120 above the Elbe river that it overshadows. The area got its name in the 18th century from a couple of Swiss artists who thought it resembled their home in the Swiss Jura.The rock they are made of is the Cretaceous (145-65 million years ago) Elbe sandstone, deposited on the floor of a long gone sea inlet. The formation is some 600 metres thick. The hills have been eroded out of a peneplain (an area of flat eroded gently sloping land) since the area was uplifted in response to the huge forces generated by Africa’s collision with Europe. The forces shattered the stone and the uplift provided the gradient for water to have the energy to erode the landscape. During the Tertiary the area was also a zone of intense volcanism, with basalt cones and underlying granitoid rocks.Some of the park is pristine forest and closed, but the area hosts a variety of habitats and microclimates that can be explored, and hosts animals and birds including rare falcons. There are a couple of ice age survivors living here as well, in the shape of two flowers from tundra climate zones who have clung on through the balm millennia of the Holocene epoch (since 10,000 years ago). The hills are dotted with romantic castles, the remnants of the area’s history as the borderland between Slav and Germanic tribes and kingdoms.The region contains a huge variety of types of terrain in a small area, which was part of the basis for classifying it as a national park. Many of these result from minor differences in the rock, in particular the cements between the sand grains, which varies considerably within the region, exposing the complexity of the processes of rock formation. Clay-silt cement leads to terraces and gentle banks, while those with silica cements form the hills and pillars. The rock is also famous for its square jointing, the networks of cracks that form in rocks when the pressure of overlying rocks is removed by erosion, leading to cracking.LozDear Readers,Most of our posts are not reaching your news feed due to fb’s filtering system. If you wish to enjoy our posts more often, use the following for information on how to go about it: http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1VWMUJ0.Image credit: Kilian Schönberger/Gestaltenhttp://on.natgeo.com/1IJho0Dhttp://bit.ly/1DOM1k2 -- source link

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