Posted on 10/28/2009 9:56:20 PM PDT by cogitator
Those of you who have gazed on the various images I've posted here will remember that I have a particular fondness for columnar basalt: the geological formation found at Devil's Tower, the Devil's Postpile, Svartifoss waterfall in Iceland, New York's Palisades, Giant's Causeway in Iceland, etc. There's actually a good list here, with some I hadn't known about before (I know, what a surprise!)
Now, this picture and this feature might not constitute actual unusual geology; in fact, it’s probably rather conventional, though it does result from a fortuitous combination of geological processes; and as you might guess, it has something to do with columnar basalt. It’s really not the most picturesque or striking or gorgeous vista or scene or “thing” (a canyon or waterfall or erupting volcano or ice-covered mountain or pristine lake or any of the many other things I’ve posted pictures of) I’ve ever found, by far. What it is: something that I never imagined the existence of. Thinking about it after I found it, well yes, it is something in the realm of the possible (obviously, since it exists). But it stretched my imagination of what is geologically conceivable.
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Well, the path to this posting didn’t start with columnar basalt, but it did start with volcanism. I will take you along on this journey.
Onekotan Island, Tao-Rusyr Caldera. This is a caldera lake with a volcanic peak, similar to Crater Lake, except that it isn’t nearly as deep, from what I can tell. It is on the Kuril island Onekotan. The volcanic peak in the lake is Krenitsyn – you’ll have to go to the Web site for those pictures.
Looking for other pictures led me to Panoramio, and this showed me many interesting sights in the Kurils and on Kamchatka. Here they are:
Coastal waterfall, Kuril Islands
The frequently active volcano Karymsky. Click for full-size.
Some remarkable clouds
A waterfall on the slopes of Mutnovsky(Mutnovskiy) volcano. The link is to a map of Kamchatka’s numerous volcanoes.
And a Powerful fumarole in the crater of Karymsky. I thought this picture was actually kind of funny. Click for full-size.
And now we reach the picture that astonished me. I made this a link, so that you will get the full impact when you click it, which I hope is as surprising to anyone reading this as it was to me the first time I saw it. It is located along the coast of the Kuril Island Ostrov Urup. The caption reads: Скала в заливе Наталья остров Уруп, which I translated with Babelfish as
Scala in the Bay Natalia is (Uriy) Island
Well? Am I right?
*ping*!
Nice pics!
The Russian says “Rock in Natalya Bay on Urup Island.”
That is just TOO freakin’ cool...
Scala is also cliff or crag, and a ‘podvodnaya scala’ is a reef.
That is just flat-out awesome.
The waterfall pic is incredible. BTT.
I just looked at it again and realized that there's a person sitting down near it, to give it scale. It's tall.
Those pic's are beautiful.......
The Irish may be a little peeved with you for the typo feat of moving their cherished Giant's Causeway to Iceland though.
Big deal. Take a look at a photo of a mile-high column on the Moon, here: http://www.hallofthegods.org/2009/06/moon-anomalies-shard.html
The Island Lair of Dr. Evil & Mini-Me
One letter off: The Giant's Causeway is in Northern Ireland.
Dr. Samuel Johnson famously described it as: "Worth seeing but not worth going to see."
Yes. It's stunning. Thanks for posting these incredible pictures.
That’s the columnarest of columnar basalt I’ve seen.
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