Saturday, April 4, 2009

dinosaur overseeing the sea

Look at this photo,do you think the shape of the rock is like a big dinosaur?The is a famous scenery in Dalian JinShitan Resorts called "KongLong Tan Hai" in English which means "Dinosaus overseeing the sea". This is formed because of the coastal erosion of a headland.
Through this blog, I'll talk about the formation of this fantastic landform I learned form my Geography class.

The first step in the process of headland erosion is the formation of a cave. A sea cave is formed by the forces of the sea, waves erode the rock face of a coast line, produce huge caverns.Already existing caves are continously eroded by coastal erosion and the water starts to widen the cave. Further erosion of the cave will result in a natural arch. This is formed when the wave's erosional power cuts through the headland. This scenery "Kongling Tan Hai " is actually a natural arch.

Based on my geography knowledge, after thousands of years, this scenery will become a stack and finally it will be a stump.Because wave energy will continue to erode through the arch, especially its roof. Then the roof will become too thin to support itself. Eventually it will collapse, leaving an isolated pillar called a stack. The stack, will then, be further eroded until it is all broken down into small pieces of rocks known as stumps which is an isolated upstanding rocks .

So, after thousands of years, this view will no longer exist as the coastal erosion continuous. The shape of this rock will change. Maybe this view will be called "lonely pillar" or something.

No comments:

Post a Comment