I'm back from my weekend trip to the mountains... and while I was taking a long walk, enjoying the beautiful scenery, I stumbled across a few of this strangely shaped, razor sharp rocks:
The place in question is located about 2,800 meters above sea level (9,200 feet). Here's a google earth link to the place.
What they all have in common is the deep grooves and cuts on their faces. But some of them had semi-sharp features, and yet others were far smoother and rounder. Their average size was about 1 x 1.5 x 2 meters.
Also, most of them were bundled in groups. There were also about five or six groups laying around that had sunk in the ground, into dangerous-looking sinkholes.
This is my theory: These rocks are remnants of the last ice age. Some of them show the fossils of shells belonging to clams, oysters and mussels. They are sharp because they were carved by a glacier while it melted and retreated from the valley. Ice is harder than rock, as the ice shifted, it broke and scratched the rocks into their current shape. Creeks through which the water flowed were formed as the ice melted, and that explains the erosion and roundness of all the other rocks. As all of the ice finally melted, pools of water were left behind, forming ponds into which some of the rocks slid and ended up as the sinkholes that can be seen today.
I'd like to hear other people's opinion on this issue. I find geology a fascinating subject, but know too little about it.
The place in question is located about 2,800 meters above sea level (9,200 feet). Here's a google earth link to the place.
What they all have in common is the deep grooves and cuts on their faces. But some of them had semi-sharp features, and yet others were far smoother and rounder. Their average size was about 1 x 1.5 x 2 meters.
Also, most of them were bundled in groups. There were also about five or six groups laying around that had sunk in the ground, into dangerous-looking sinkholes.
This is my theory: These rocks are remnants of the last ice age. Some of them show the fossils of shells belonging to clams, oysters and mussels. They are sharp because they were carved by a glacier while it melted and retreated from the valley. Ice is harder than rock, as the ice shifted, it broke and scratched the rocks into their current shape. Creeks through which the water flowed were formed as the ice melted, and that explains the erosion and roundness of all the other rocks. As all of the ice finally melted, pools of water were left behind, forming ponds into which some of the rocks slid and ended up as the sinkholes that can be seen today.
I'd like to hear other people's opinion on this issue. I find geology a fascinating subject, but know too little about it.