Location Taken: Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland
Time Taken: July 2012
There’s an odd bit of rock along the western coast of Newfoundland. Amongst all the green tree-covered hills, a bit of bare red rock pokes out between the peaks. It’s not bare from altitude or weather, but from the type of rock it’s made of.
It’s actually a hunk of the Earth’s mantle thrust out to the surface. It’s full of peridotite, which is common in the mantle, but rarely makes it all the way to the surface. And peridotite is full of nickel, far too much of it for most plants to handle. So the rock stays bare.
It’s also a harder rock, still possessing the square edges that formed when this chunk cracked apart and was shoved to the surface from its deep roots. This creates even more of a contrast with the eroded hills, worn down by rain and the work of tree roots. And the area was scoured with glaciers during the last ice age, forming the fjord I was standing in when I took this photo as well as the one on the other side of the block of mantle. But there are no fjords criss-crossing the hard red rock.
Snow does fall on it, and there are some notches where the snow lasts into the summer, feeding waterfalls, but it’s not etched by ice and rain as easily. It stands strong against the harsh conditions.
