Kannesteinen Rock
Located in the rural village of Oppedal, Norway, Kannesteinen Rock is an unusual mushroom-shaped structure easily shaped by the crashing of waves on the eclogite that it's composed of. Although the bedrock in western Norway is mainly composed of a banded/striped grey rock called gniess, eclogite is found here in the form of lumps in the bedrock. This beautiful metamorphic rock is made up of granular red and green minerals, typically, garnet and pyroxene. Eclogite is rare and it forms under much stronger pressures and hotter temperatures than those on the Earth's crust, such as the pressure and temperature existing in the upper mantle or the lowest regions of thick continental crust. This is proven by its unusual density for a silicate rock (3.5g/cm cubed), suggesting that it has formed under hotter and more pressurised conditions than ordinary silicate rocks. However, this rock is also very prone to weathering and erosion, which is what caused Kannesteinen Rock to have its unusual shape.
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Crystal Cave of Giants
Located above a magma chamber in Naica, Mexico, with an air temperature of 50 degrees and humidity over 90%, this natural phenomena was accidentally found by miners working at the lead and silver mines in 2000. The magma under the cave heated the ground water, saturating it with minerals including large quantities of gypsum, a soft white/grey mineral occurring in sedimentary deposits and consisting of hydrated calcium sulphate. The empty cave was filled with hot, mineral rich water and remained in this way for 500 000 years at a stable temperature around 50 degrees Celsius. Crystals, which are minerals that have been under the required conditions to take the shape and form that they are meant to be, easily began to form in the mineral rich water, and with perfect and stable conditions, they continued to grow until the silver miners pumped out the water so that they could explore it further. The cave lies 300 metres underground and certainly contains the largest crystals known to exist on Earth — the largest crystals are over 11 metres tall and weigh 49 895 kilograms!
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*As the Crystal Caves are underground, they're not directly located on Google Maps.
Giant's Causeway
According to geological research over a period of 300 years, the Giant's Causway is the result of a volcanic eruption in the Tertiary, 50 to 60 million years ago. The existence of the 40 000 huge black basalt columns has inspired many legends about giants crossing the sea to Scotland, hence the name. Like all extrusive igneous rocks, basalt forms from the rapid cooling of lava. The columned structure of the Giant's Causeway is easily explained by the columns being made of the dark, fined grained volcanic rock, which has found to have sometimes displayed a columnar structure. However, the interlocking hexagonal shape is somewhat unique to the site. In fact, the perfection of it's formation gives the natural site a man made impression. Along with being heritage listed by the National Trust, the Giant's Causeway is also a UNESCO heritage site.
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