Geological Curiosities – by Elizabeth Kay

 

Winter is coming! The edge of the ice cap in Greenland

My grandson did a degree in geology, and which got me thinking about minerals and fossils and rock formations, and how we use them in fiction – and a good opportunity to use some of my photos! C.S.Lewis fired my imagination with the underground scenes in The Silver Chair (many fall down, and few return to the sunlit lands,) and I really wanted to see formations like that for myself. Many years have passed, and I have seen some really interesting geology on my travels, both under and overground, and they provide good settings. Form bat caves in Borneo and Cambodia to limestone formations in China and Slovenia, there’s a lot of atmospheric material there.

Galapagos

I think Cheddar Gorge was my first experience, and I was stunned by the fantastical landscapes and sculptural beauty of what I saw. And that was nothing, compared the Postonja Karst Cave System in Slovenia, which is over fifteen miles long. So long, that you need to use the little train –  the world’s first, built in 1872 – to even get started. Apart from hand rails and decent paths there has been little interference from business ventures, and you get a good idea of what the place is about as well as some useful scientific explanations in the exhibition. What a difference in China, where the weird Karst Mountains which look like beehives are riddled with caves.

The underground tour is extensive and spectacular, and lit with garish lights. The whole effect is gaudy and unreal, and consequently rather disappointing. The salt mines near Krakow in Poland are fascinating, more for what what human beings have done there, as they have sculpted a small cathedral accessed by a metal miners’ cage! I’ve explored a cenote in Venezuela, a sinkhole leading to an underground river system, wearing a life jacket and a head torch.

Above ground, the edge of the ice shelf in Greenland is dramatic, and the glaciers that crumble into the sea depressingly beautiful as they start to disappear.

 

The Singing Sands in Mongolia are something else, as the wind causes grains of sand to move on the dunes, causing them to make a resonant haunting sound. Climbing one of those dunes was the difficult physical challenge I have ever attempted. There are some very beautiful dunes in Namibia, as well.

I’ve climbed volcanoes in Costa Rica, Italy and Nicaragua, and seen red hot lava bubbling in a crater as we flew over them, as well being enveloped in foul-smelling gas on foot, and found myself in the bright yellow of a sulphuric landscape in Galapagos. Pamukkale in Turkey is amazing. Snow-white limestone has been shaped over millennia by calcite-rich springs. Trickling slowly down the mountainside, the water collects on ledges, forms puddles, and overflows down the terraces into pools below.

Me at Pamukkale in 2010

Basalt columns are striking natural pillars which form when basalt lava cools and contracts, causing it to fracture into columns that are often hexagonal. I first saw this Iceland, and again recently in Scotland on the island of Staffa, marking the entrance to Fingal’s Cave.

Lave cools into very strange shapes, and the lava field on Lanzarote is worth seeing. It’s a science fiction writer’s dream. There’s a coach ride to the top, where they cook sausages over a fumerole. The lava tubes beneath are natural conduits, formed by flowing lava transporting molten rock away from a volcanic vent. Some of them are big enough to accommodate a London Underground train, and the ceiling is so smooth and rounded you really could imagine yourself in a tunnel on the Circle Line. These are all landscapes that could make great backdrops to action sequences in thrillers.

The entrance to Fingal's Cave

 

 

 

The other side to geology, of course, is the rocks themselves. Precious stones, rare earth minerals, exquisite crystal formations… and fossils. Fossil hunting these days is resembling the gold rush, as high prices are paid for good specimens.

A velociraptor tries to disembowel
a protoceratops before a sand dune
collapses on top of them

 

Mongolia, which has a treasure trove of dinosaur remains, has made it illegal to export any of them. Bring on the international organised crime gangs. The gaps between the rich and the poor are so extreme these days that there is a thriving market among wealthy enthusiasts to collect. I’ve collected ammonites and belemnites myself on the Jurassic Coast in the south of England, as there are more than enough to go round. Every time there is a storm more of the cliffs erode, revealing bones and shells of creatures long extinct. I’m always disappointed when dramatic chases end up in abandoned warehouses and derelict factories with their predictable rectangles and boring flat walls. The natural world provides far more interesting scenarios, with irregular twisted shapes and surprising colours.

 

The weirdness of karst mountains, riddled with caves