Curious1
|
The world’s largest rock resides in Western Australia, but it may not be the Australian rock you are thinking of. Uluru is the most popular rock destination in Australia, and because of this, it is mistakenly thought to be the world’s largest. Uluru, however, is only the second largest. The largest rock in the world is Mt Augustus. Mt Augustus is over twice the size of Uluru. Mt Augustus is officially labeled as the World’s Largest Monolith. It also claims the more specific title of World’s Largest Monocline. A monolith is defined as a pillar of rock or solid stone resting atop another material. A monocline is a type of monolith where all the layers have a slope in only one direction.
Mt Augustus is located about 850 km away from Perth, to the south, and the monolith resides in a national park of the same name. The top of the rock is measured at 1105 m, or 3,625 ft, above sea level. It is 858 m, or 2,814 ft, above the surrounding ground. The central ridge of the monocline is 8 km, nearly 5 miles, long. Although the native aborigines knew about the rock for centuries and named it Burringurrah, it was not until 1858 when it was first scaled by a European. The 107 day trek by Francis Gregory culminated in the climb on June 3, whereupon he named the giant rock for his brother, Sir Augustus Charles Gregory.
The monocline was formed by an unknown geologic disturbance 1 billion years ago when a large chunk of sandstone was raised up out of a seabed with a granite bottom some 650 million years older than the sandstone. The area around Mt Augustus is harsh and inhospitable desert. It is a difficult place to reach, but those that do make the journey are happy they did so because the giant rock is such a spectacular sight.
 Posted 5167 day ago
|