Greatest Geological Wonders !!!

Project prepared by:- Farah Taleb- Jihad Hajar- Ziad Hamdi- Mohammad Dadoun

Course: Engineering Geology (CVEE-215) Instructor: Prof. Hanafy Hlail Department: Civil & Environmental Engineering Term: Fall 2011/2012 Third Semester

Wave Rock

Hell’s Gate

Chocolate Hills

Antelope Canyon

Great Blue Hole

The Wave

Pamukkale

The Geyser

Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks

The Valley of the Moon

Danxia Landform

Sailing Stones

Salar de Uyuni

Eye of Sahara

Wave Rock ,Western Australia

It’s a natural rock formation that is shaped like a tall breaking ocean wave.

Age: More than 2.7 billion years old. Composition: Granite. Origin: Shaped by chemical weathering.

Formation Process: “weathering occurred below ground level before it was exposed”

Surface chemical weathering, Removal of soft weathered granite by fluvial erosion, Result: undercut base, with a round overhang.

Hell's Gate, Uzbekistan

Location: Uzbekistan, Darvaz. Name: The Door to Hell (according to

locals) Formation process:

1. Geologists were drilling for gas (1971),2. Underground cavern was found,3. Cavern was very deep and filled with

gas,4. To avoid poisonous gas discharge, the

cavern was burnt off,5. Gas still burns 40 years later.

Nobody knows how many tons of excellent gas has been burned for all those years but it just seems to be infinite there.

Chocolate Hills, Philippines

It’s an unusual geological formation, there are 1,776 hills spread over an area of more than 50 square kilometers.They are covered in green grass that turns brown during the dry season, hence the name.

The Chocolate Hills are made up of perfectly cone-shaped hills that are more or less the same size. How these hills form is not quite sure, one theory is that an ancient active volcano self-destructed.

Antelope Canyon, Arizona, USA

Antelope Canyon was formed by erosion, due to:

1. Flash flooding,2. Other sub-aerial processes.

Formation Process:1. Passageways are eroded away,2. Corridors becomes deeper,3. Hard edges are smoothed,4. Characteristic flowing shapes are

formed in the rock.

Rainwater plays a huge role in the formation of the canyon (it picks up sand as it rushes into the narrow passageways).

Great Blue Hole, Belize

Definition: it’s an underwater sinkhole, also named vertical cave.

Formation: 1. Its formed during ice ages (sea

level was lower than at present)2. Formations were subjected to

the same erosion (rain, chemical weathering).

Content: freshwater + saltwater.Origin: karst limestone which is formed

before the rising of sea level.

Karst topography is a geologic formation shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone.

The deep blue color is caused by the high transparency of water and bright white carbonate sand.

The Wave, USA

The soft sandstone of The Wave is fragile, one needs to walk carefully to not break the small ridges.

The Wave is a sandstone rock formation.

We notice the original cross bedded dunes shaped into dramatic landforms and exposed by erosion from eons of runoff.

Its formed by movement and precipitation of oxidizing materials such as iron and manganese by ground water.

Pamukkale, Turkey

Pamukkale means “ Cotton Castle” in Turkish

Formation process:1. Flowing water left hot springs and travertine

terraces of carbonate minerals,2. Water emerged from the spring is transported to

the head of travertine terraces, in order to deposit the calcium carbonate,

3. Water becomes supersaturated with calcium carbonate so, Carbone dioxide degasses from it,

4. Precipitation continues until the carbon dioxide in the thermal water reaches equilibrium with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,

5. Calcium carbonate is deposited by the water as a soft jelly,

6. Eventually the travertine is hardened.

This reaction is affected by the weather conditions, ambient temperature, and the flow duration.

Fly Geyser, Nevada, USA

Its not entirely natural, (accidentally created during the drilling of a well in 1916).

The well functioned normally for several decades, but:1. Geothermal heated water found a weak spot in the wall and escaped to the surface,2. Dissolved minerals started rising and piling up,3. Mount where geyser sits is created, which is still growing to date.4. Today, water is constantly squirting out reaching 5 feet (1.5 m) in the air.

The geyser is made up of a series of different minerals, which gives it its magnificent coloration.

Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks, New Mexico

The area owes its remarkable geology to layers of volcanic rocks and ash deposited by a volcanic explosion.

Over, time weathering and erosion of these layers has created canyons and tent rocks

The Valley of the Moon, Argentina

It’s a geological formations left by wind erosion.

Erosion over the millennia unearths the fossils as well as other geological formations such as a host of almost spherical concretions. The wind, has pounded the local bedrock for an age. Revealed, the boulders that mudstone in its original wet form, helped to form look as if giants have been playing marbles.

Danxia Landform, China

Definition: it means rosy cloudDescription: it’s a landform formed from reddish sandstone and characterized by steep cliffsFormation causes:1. Endogenous forces (uplift),2. Exogenous forces (weathering, erosion).

Sailing Stones, Death Valley, USA

Definition: Sailing stones refer to geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention

The stones move only every two or three years. Stones with rough bottoms leave straight tracks. Stones sometimes turn over, exposing another edge to the ground and leaving a different track in the stone's wake.

A balance of specific conditions are thought to be needed for stones to move:1. A saturated yet non-flooded surface,2. A thin layer of clay,3. Very strong gusts as initiating force,4. Strong sustained wind to keep stones going

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

It is the largest dried salt lake (formed by multiple layers of salt and water)

When it rains, Salar de Uyuni sinking and looks like a huge mirror.

Origin: Sequential transformation between several vast lakes,

It is covered with a solid salt crust having a variable thickness.

The center of the Salar contains a few "islands", which are the remains of the tops of ancient volcanoes.

Eye of the Sahara, Mauritania

This structure is a deeply eroded.

The carbonated rocks have been dated as having cooled between 94 to 104 million years ago.

Because of its high circularity, it was interpreted as an asteroid impact structure, but its now believed that it’s a symmetrical and deeply eroded geological dome.

More recent studies, concluded that carbonates within the silica-rich mega breccias were created by low-temperature hydrothermal waters.

The structure requires special protection and further investigation about its origin.

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