What could cause this rock formation?

Its so weird and alien but strangely beautiful. Incredible how the holes get smaller and smaller toward the end of the rift. Could be an impact crater 4 miles wide??

Any geologists have a clue?

Hi Stu -

Welcome to Google Earth. I hope you will get as much enjoyment from browsing this big beautiful earth as I have!

You say, about this formation:

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Incredible how the holes get smaller and smaller toward the end of the rift. Could be an impact crater 4 miles wide??

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I think you have been fooled by an optical illusion. What you should be seeing is a hill or mountain, and not a hole in the earth. And what you see as a line (on a curve) of decreasing sized holes is actually a curved line of decreasing sized mounds. This confusion about things which poke out versus things which poke in frequently happens, and I have written about it in a prior post. In that post, I suggest that you first make sure that "Terrain" is checked, under "Layers", on the side bar in the view window. Then you can try turning the scene rapidly upside down, using the navigation "wheel" in the upper right corner, and this frequently makes "innies" (things that go in, such as a hole) change into "outies". Another trick is to tilt the scene and fly around the feature of interest. These should help differentiate innies from outies for you!

I am not a geologist so I couldn't even guess why that structure takes the shape it does. I hope some smart geologist will see this and enlighten us!

hale

Hi and thanks for the reply,

You are right, these are hills and mounds.

I think so much of this landscape around here has been sculpted by Arctic Ice flows over eons of time. Still, makes you think that nature is a surreal artist and sculptor.
This whole area is fascinating to look at.

cheers
Stu

my god! it looks like a dragon fossil to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hi

its the strangest looking landscape ive ever seen.

i just wonder how this formation is geologically created...

thanks for your reply and any other suggestions are most welcome,

Stu

I think the successive mounds you are seeing are actually the remnants of a cliff or a bluff. What happens over time is that as rain and sand collect in channels as they come down from the top of the mountain. That behavior carves the individual mounds and spaces that we are seeing.

thank you for that explanation of the geology of this structure.

It is still amazing in similarity to a backbone of an enormous animal if you zoom out a little.

thank goodness we have well informed geologists Ike yourself to explain these anomalies.

Stu

Yes thanks for that explanation, helmrema. And welcome to Google Earth, by the way!

Yet one part of Stu7's original question has not been answered yet :

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Could be an impact crater 4 miles wide??

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Zooming out, the landscape has a certain rippled, almost liquid appearance. And yes, in roughly circular or oval shapes. I'm not sure these are craters but I suppose they might be. Could they be very old lava flows? If so then they are pretty big.

Nice post and interesting thread.

Not so big if you consider that the Yellowstone Caldera is approximately 34 x 44 MILES, that is...55 x 72 KILOMETERS!! AKA: a Supervolcano.

But luckily these are probably from erosion of sandstone uplifts, nothing so thrilling as Yellowstone.

But likely starkly beautiful!

good find Stuseven!

till i do not know better explanation so far, i have to agree with helmrema!
it really looks like eroded rock-layer terraces sliced by the waterflows from the upper terraces.
maybe that is why these formations are coming so regularly.

have asked a geologist friend of mine to come out with a 100% scientific explanation,
and i hope that a bunch of geomorphologists working on it now... (: