Cono de AritaThis 120 meter high feature looks like it could fit in a math textbook to illustrate a

Cono de AritaThis 120 meter high feature looks like it could fit in a math textbook to illustrate a cone shape (how do you cut it to create a circle, ellipse, and parabola?) This feature is Cono de Arita, located in the northwest part of Argentina, in the Andes Mountains, and its name literally translates in one of the local languages to meaning “Sharp cone”.The cone is in a desert surrounded by a gigantic salt flat named Salar de Arizaro, the 6th largest salt flat in the world. The salt environment clearly contributes to the shape – you see almost no rocks from the cone in the salt pan at the bottom because any rocks that do break off the cone and avalanche downward are torn apart quite quickly by interacting with salt. In salt pans like this one, any time there is a little bit of moisture, the salt is wicked up into any rocks sitting on the salt and as salt grains grow, they wedge apart the other grains and tear the rock apart.Although some of the resources online disagree, most indicate that this cone does have an igneous origin, but they’re unclear whether this is a true volcano that erupted at this spot, or if it was intrusive - with molten rock deposited just beneath the salt layer and the cone shape created by intrusion. Because the rocks would cool quickly in either case, and there’s no crater at the top, it may be difficult to tell for certain which of these is the true way it formed.-JBBImage credit: Ben Stubbshttps://flic.kr/p/eCguxZRead more:http://bit.ly/1GVO9YShttp://bit.ly/1r5exYXhttp://bit.ly/1SYVFaJhttps://epod.usra.edu/blog/2018/02/el-cono-de-arita.html -- source link

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