Amazingly Balanced Rocks Around the World - 17
The balanced rocks are a geological formation created due to wind/water
erosion or glacial melting. These precariously balanced rocks are wonder of the
nature and to a viewer it looks that these would topple by a gentle human push
or a wind force. However most of these rocks have remained steadfast for past
several thousand years though some were vandalised and pushed over. To some
scientists these rocks are a sign of seismic stableness of the location.
This post is part of the series about these awesome and breathtaking rocks around the world. List giving links to individual rocks can be seen here and a combined big page showing all the rocks can be viewed here.
Balanced Rocks of Hyderabad, India
Nature has gifted Hyderabad with a
magnificent landscape of amazing rock formations. Being at the heart of the Deccan
Plateau in Southern India, the rocks in the region, mostly granite, are about
2,500 million years old and are amongst the oldest and hardest rocks in the
world. Weathering effect of several million years resulted in splitting and rounding of the
stones into amazingly balanced and picturesque rock shapes. Geologist call this
phenomenon - onion peel weathering (or spheroidal weathering).
There are innumerable rock formations of varied shapes in whole of Deccan
Plateau including Hyderabad and surrounding area. In this post I am showcasing
only few of these Amazingly Balanced Rocks.
Rock at the BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus
Image from Google Maps is by Gireesh Kumar
View Location in Google Street View
Rock near the Celebrity Club Shamirpet
Image from Flickr is by { pranav }
View Location in Google Street View
Miscellaneous Other Rocks
Location of these Rocks are presently not known. I request my readers to please help me in identifying locations of above three rocks.
Note: Hyderabad is full of such amazing rocks and presently I have showcased
only a very minuscule sample. I will be grateful if my readers can send me
photographs and locations of other balanced rocks for inclusion in this blog. I
understand that land developers are gradually destroying this amazing natural
landscape and my endeavour is to at least preserve these in pictorial format for
posterity.
In this reference I want to make a special mention of Ms. Frauke Quader a German
born lady now settled in Hyderabad. Dismayed by indiscriminate destruction of
the natural and environmental heritage of the area, she along with a group of
artists, photographers and environmentalists from Hyderabad formed in 1992 a
Non-Governmental Organization - Society to Save Rocks. The society's main aim is
to create awareness amongst the public, landowners, developers and the
government for the protection of this rocky landscape.
Credits: I am thankful to;
- Pranav for sharing his image under creative commons licence and helping me in identifying the location of the Rock near the Celebrity Club Shamirpet
- Ms. Frauke Quader for sending me some of the images from her collection.
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