Thursday, May 31, 2007

South African Photos From Norman Muller

by JimP
Norman writes, "I'm attaching two photos that Bo Westling, a researcher from Sweden, sent me of two perched boulders in South Africa that his son-in-law took on a recent trip there. Bo has written a book (in Swedish) about perched and pedestaled boulders in his country, and is an authority on the subject. He pointed out to me that the portion of S. Africa where the photos were taken has not been glaciated."Norman also adds, "That first image of the white perched boulder in a desert environment could be what is called a tor, which is a highly weathered outcrop that looks manipulated. Such forms are found in southern England, and are sometimes located near dolmens. One researcher believes that the dolmen form was inspired by the natural tor formation."

2 comments :

Geophile said...

Doesn't that second one look so much like one of ours?

Anonymous said...

Those of you who have access to the most recent NEARA Journal, should have a look at a fascinating article by a Russian researcher on perched and pedestaled boulders in northwest Russia, Lapland and Sweden. You'll see that the forms we find here in the Northeast are widespread in the northern hemisphere of Europe as well.

Norman