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Thursday November 1, 2007 (Day 16)
Tessellated Pavement
We took a short walk from the tour bus parking lot down to the remarkable
tessellated pavement. This unusual geological formation gives the rocks the
effect of being rather neatly tiled by a giant.
It is called the tessellated pavement. The pavement appears tessellated
(it's tiled) because the rocks forming it were fractured by earth movements.
The fractures are in three sets, one set runs almost north, another east north
east, and a third discontinuous set north North West. These last two sets
produce the tiled appearance. The flatness of the pavement is due to initial
erosion by waves carrying sand and gravel and nearer to the cliff, to chemical
action by sea water. The rocks which absorb sea water during high tide dry out
during low tide causing salt crystals to grow and disintegrate the rocks -
a process which produces shallow basins.
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