Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: rocks

The view looking east over the Soar Valley from Beacon Hill. The town of Loughborough sits in the valley. Pre-Cambrian metamorphosed volcanics in the foreground with Jurassic sandstones & clays on the horizon. HBM to everyone. Have a great weekend.

It's difficult to capture the depth of the "Big Hole" in Kimberley but the height of the buildings give an idea of the scale. It's a real vertical wall of rock. Kimberlite, an ultramafic igneous rock and a rare variant of peridotite, is most commonly known to be the main host matrix for diamonds. It is named after Kimberley where diamonds were mined from this hole. Kimberlite occurs in the Earth's crust in vertical structures known as kimberlite pipes, as well as igneous dykes and can also occur as horizontal sills. The consensus on kimberlites is that they are formed deep within the mantle, hence at high temperatures and pressures. HWW to everyone. Have a great day!

It was a beautiful day when I climbed Penyal d'Ifac - the Phoenician's Northern Rock to Gibraltar's Southern Rock. This is looking north towards Cap d'Or & Moraira in the right distance. The track winds around the mountainside from the notch - a third of the way down the slope - partially built up with drystone walling. Just visible are the chains fastened to the rock to hold onto in those areas without the support underfoot. It's not a really difficult climb but you have to watch your step in these areas. It's well worth the effort when you reach the 332m summit - or as my iPhone has it: 67 "flights of stairs"!

Saqsaywaman/Sacsayhuamán was an Inca fortress complex & the historic capital of the Inca Empire. The site is at an altitude of 3,701 m (12,142 ft). The complex was built by the Incas in the 15th century. Dry stone walls constructed of massive stones were erected on the site, with the workers carefully cutting the boulders to fit them together tightly without mortar. The figures on the extreme left give an idea of scale. The Spaniards used Sacsayhuamán as a source of stones for building Spanish Cuzco; within a few years, they had taken apart and demolished much of the complex. The site was destroyed block by block to salvage materials with which to build the new Spanish governmental and religious buildings of the colonial city, as well as the houses of the wealthiest Spaniards. HI (Inca) WW to everyone!

The scale of the fabulous compressional tectonic features of the Front Ranges of the Rocky Mountains are definitely best appreciated from the air and the participants in our Mobil Oil field seminar were privileged to have an overflight of the Rockies on the last day of the course. I was living in The Hague, the Netherlands, at this time and working on the sub-surface Alpine tectonics in the North Sea. Superficially the Geology of Holland is pretty boring but 1000m below the surface in the Dutch offshore all hell breaks loose and believe it or not it looks just like this! It could be a seismic cross-section through the Lower Cretaceous oil fields in Block Q1. The subsurface oil and gas fields in the Foothills west of Calgary are trapped in analogous thrust anticlines.

The sun shines over beautiful Kynance Cove on the Lizard peninsula. Lizard Point, the most southerly place in Britain is on the horizon.

Me & Francoise getting a close look at the sulphur around the fumerole of Mount Sibyak volcano.