Mt. Nusatsum

Mt. Nusatsum

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Basalt

Great rock features deserve to be singled out.  A rock formation called Basalt rock columns are one of the great rock features in this country and likely anywhere in the world.  They stand out for their uniqueness because of their geometric shape.  While they can have a number of sides, my experience of the ones around British Columbia that I`ve looked at, they are very commonly 5 sided.  When you find a formation whatever number of sides the blocks have, it will be very consistent within the formation.  Basalt is a hard dense rock of volcanic origin, which when it cools does not shrink too well in the horizontal direction, sort of pulling away from their neighbor causes the columns of regular shapes to form.  In the Central Coast and Chilcotin area there are good examples in the Machmell River, the Precipice (eastern Chilcotin near Anahim Lake) and in this one in the photo, the Rainbow Mountains.  A number of areas in the interior have them and one good example is a rock cut that was put through a basalt column formation on Hwy 24 just east of Lone Butte. Grizzly

1 comment:

  1. Hello,nice post thanks for sharing?. I just joined and I am going to catch up by reading for a while. I hope I can join in soon.

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