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malaskor — Devil's Postpile
Published: 2007-08-20 01:55:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 280; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 0
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Description
Devil's Postpile - a very interesting place. The basalt columns that formed when a very thick lava flow cooled down slowly are very regular and straight, only in this small part are they bent towards the horizontal - this is the result of movement in the lava before it was fully cooled down.Many of the columns show for the typical hexagonal diameter, a result of the jointing that happened when the lava cooled down. In a perfect (model) world all these columns would have a hexagonal diameter, but as that isn't the case we also find those with 5 to 3 corner-diameters.
The surface of the cliff's top has been "polished" by a glacier, as can be seen in the smooth surface with the tell-tale strirations.
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Scan from slide film
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Comments: 7
Hello!
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Incidentally, the columns form perpendicular to the cooling surface.
There's some good (though not nearly as large scale) columnar jointing formations in New Zealand, for example the little-visited columns and lava tubes and pillows at Maori Bay, Muriwai.
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Thank you very much for the comment.
Oh and you yourself aren't too far from a very similar formation (Giant's Causeway)...
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My pleasure
Well... i suppose it's not really but we do have some in Scotland & off the isle of Skye too
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Yep, the Giant's Causeway - both Northern Ireland and Scotland (Skye) have part of it.
I like the myth connected with it, with the 2 giants, one on Skye and the other on Ireland (don't remember right now which one was the male and which the female). The male one fell in love with the female and started to build a path to the other side of the straight out of basalt blocks and so the Giant's Causeway was formed.
After looking around I can't find that myth at the moment, but there are three different (but very similar to each other) variants around a challenge between two giants here: [link] [link] [link]
Seems as if I remember it wrong...
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Yes we have heard of the story... nice one too. There's also Staffa off Iona Scotland, more difficult to get to though.
That's the wonder of myth's... they change with the story teller
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