Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Rocks

Where could you go and not find rocks? Taiwan is a rocky island and the population density is much higher than the quotient of population by area would say because the mountainous center is very sparsely inhabited.
 In HuaShan park, near where I live, there are benches made of polished basalt hexagonal column, formed when basalt slowly cools.
I saw similar columns on the island of Penghu almost 20 years ago. Penghu is about halfway between Taiwan and China
Another interesting rock here in Taiwan is this section of an agate. It looks like a slab of meat.  Maybe bacon.
I bought some similar agates in the Taipei Jade Market, they look like they might have come from the Minnesota Iron Range, but they are from Mongolia (according to the vendor).
And in one of the local museums of indigenous people there are some agate beads, several thousand years old.
Everybody likes agates.

1 comment:

  1. I like agates, too. The bacon one is fun. You'd love the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show.

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