Image: Tessellated Pavement Sunrise Landscape

Description: Sunrise, “Tessellated Pavement”, Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania, Australia. The „Tesselated Pavement“ is the result of an orthogonal joint pattern in the rock. On the picture it shows the so called “pan formation”, where the rock in the immediate vicinity of the joints is more resistant to erosion than the rock that is more distant to the joints, This is due to alterations of the rock along the joints by hydrothermal (or similar) solutions when the rock was still buried deeply below the surface millions of years ago. When no alterations or alterations that lower the erosional resistivity have taken place in the geological past, the rock along the joints will erode faster than the rock that is more distant to the joints. In that case the so called “loaf formation” of “Tessellated Pavement” will form.
Title: Tessellated Pavement Sunrise Landscape
Credit: Own work
Author: JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com)
Permission: Own work, share alike, attribution required (Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5)
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5
License: CC BY-SA 2.5
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5
Attribution Required?: Yes