Armenia redux

[cedarseed]

I forgot to mention I was in Armenia again last week. It was for a comic festival, but I had a day of exploring with my new friends.

From the Hellenistic site of Garni in Armenia, one can look down into the valley and see the following interesting columnar basalt formations:

Comments

[vettecat]

Amazing! It's nice of you to travel to all these places so we can see them. :-)

[cedarseed]

Hahaha!

[n6vfp]

I'm wondering of the name (symphony of stones) came about because of the character of the basalt. I was at Devils Tower Wyoming and the type of basalt is called phonolite, because when struck, it rings, like a bell.

[cedarseed]

How interesting! I think it may have something to do with the name of the phenomenon; I don't know what it is in Armenian, but in French for instance it's called "basaltic organs" as in the church instrument. So it's possible the Armenian name also means something like this. Nobody mentioned any sound obtained by striking them, so the locals at least are not aware of such a property. I'm not familiar with phonolite, but columnar basalt may be different.