The majestic rocky mountain with numerous stone columns called symphony of rocks in armenia

Located near the Armenian capital, this amazing natural formation looks as if the gods want to play music.

Image credit: Vahag851

Α 23 km east of Yerevan, Αrmenia, just below the town of the same name, lies the impressive Garni Gorge, with well-preserved columnar basalt cliffs sculpted by the River Goght on its sides. This part of the gorge is known as the “Symphony of Stones”, and it is easy to see why. The columns suspended against gravity resemble an organ, which explains why the natural monument is also called “Basalt Organ”. The soundtrack is provided by the river that runs through the gorge and fills the splendor of the stone with the symphony of water.

The organ is made up of enormous symmetrical hexagonal ƴ pentagonal basalt columns (almost 50 meters high), which seem to have been made by hand due to their extraordinary symmetry. These amazing rock formations were formed under high pressure conditions due to the cooling and crystallization of volcanic lava.

Image credit: @globetolter[IG]

Αrmenía’s complex topography was shaped by geological upheaval that pushed up the Earth’s crust to form the Armenian Plateau 25 million years ago. It is not yet known with certainty how exactly the columnar joint was formed, but it is generally explained by analogy with mud cracks that result from shrinkage on the surface of dried mud.

Polygonal cracks in basalt are presumed to be due to shrinkage during cooling, which acts to create a series of equally spaced cooling centers. It is believed that a tension crack forms between two centers ƴ, since each center is surrounded by many others, a multi-sided polygonal crack system is formed, which divides the rock into approximately uniform polygonal blocks. Α As cooling progresses inward, cracks propagate inward at right angles to the cooling surface.