OuiSi Nature card 5: Columnar Basalt, Aldeyjarfoss Waterfall. Photograph by Camille Seaman The whole photograph behind card 5: Columnar Basalt, Aldeyjarfoss Waterfall. Photograph by Camille Seaman

OuiSi Nature · Card 5

Columnar Basalt, Aldeyjarfoss Waterfall

Location
Northern Iceland
Date
May 24, 2019
Photograph byCamille Seaman

Description

Basalt columns are beautiful sculptural natural phenomena that form when lava cools and cracks, this process takes hundreds of years. A thick lava flow cools from its top, bottom and sides toward the center, and because rock contracts as it cools, cracks grow inward at right angles to those cooling edges. In some flows the cracks meet in near-perfect hexagonal columns, the shape that best relieves the stresses in cooling rock.

Photo linkinstagram.com/p/Bx3CcsTo1No
Learn moreicelandfalls.com/svartifoss
Camille Seaman

The photographer

Camille Seaman

TED Senior Fellow, Stanford Knight Fellow, Cinereach FIR Fellow, Nat Geo Contributing Photographer

Learn more about Camille Seaman

Explore more with OuiSi Nature

All 210 Nature cards
OuiSi Nature card 5: Columnar Basalt, Aldeyjarfoss Waterfall. Photograph by Camille Seaman The whole photograph behind card 5: Columnar Basalt, Aldeyjarfoss Waterfall. Photograph by Camille Seaman

Columnar Basalt, Aldeyjarfoss Waterfall

Photograph by Camille Seaman