See Rock City!

The Yellow River Stone Forest

Today’s special geographical feature is the Yellow River Stone Forest. Located in Baiyin, Jingtai County, Gansu Province of China, it is an area of about 20 square miles that is a designated National Geological Park. Baiyin, once a major mining city, was also famous for murder.

Located in China’s northwest, Gansu Province is adjacent to Mongolia and the Gobi Desert as well as to glaciated mountains. It is known for scenic beauty and poverty.

The Stone Forest is accessed by a twisty mountain road that was featured in a photograph in The Atlantic’s weekly photo collection, shared with us on Mondays by Wilhelm.

The sandstone pillars, 250 to 650 feet in height, are formed from eroded sandstone. They are adjacent to the Yellow River; the park features river scenery as well as the towering stone “trees” in the canyons.

Similar geological formations can be found in other parts of the world, including the American Southwest. They are known as “hoodoos” and are a major attraction of Bryce Canyon National Park.

As rocks go, sandstone pillars are very young and will have very short lives. The same processes that eroded them into their current shapes are either continuing or will resume when, inevitably, the earth’s rainfall patterns shift, as they always have.

The Baiyin area is also home to the Lanzhou Danxia Landform, one of several Danxia landforms. The Danxia type of stratigraphy is found only in China. It is characterized by exposed rock faces showing large strips of rock, mainly in shades of red, orange, and yellow.

It is similar to Arizona’s Painted Desert, but not exactly the same, geomorphologically.

To summarize this rather rambling excursion, rocks are really interesting, just like animals and plants are. If you happen to be in China, you can see some cool rocks there, but there’s sure to be an interesting geological feature near you, wherever you are.