A bit of color and light over the odd rock formations known as the tesselated pavement along the Tasman PEninsula. The Tessellated Pavement is an inter-tidal rock platform – a common enough coastal landform. But here an unusual set of geological circumstances have resulted in a rare landform. The flat-lying siltstone was cracked by stresses in the Earth’s crust, roughly between 160 million years ago and 60 million years ago. The resulting cracks (joints) are seen as three main sets, one aligned to the north- northeast, a second to the east-northeast and the third to the north-northwest. This jointing, exaggerated by processes of erosion, has created the ‘tiled’ appearance. When seawater covers the rock platform, fragments of rock are carried away. Near the seaward edge of the platform, sand is the main cause of the erosion. When combined with wave action the erosional process causes ‘loaf’ or ‘pan’ formations.
Tesselated Pavement National Park, Tasmania, Australia
Taken w Canon 5D and 17-40L

5000 Views on 1/31/12