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Palccoyo Rainbow Mountain

Palccoyo Rainbow Mountain 20221125

 

The coloration of Palcoyo Mountain Peru responds to a vast amount of minerals on that particular mountain range. Minerals such as iron or sulfur among many others dye the rolling hillsides. The red coloring is due to an iron oxide coating and cementation, also known as hematite, between the sandstone grains. This same process takes place when a construction nail is exposed to the rain for a while and forms a red layer of rust around the outside.

However, there is a set of colors besides only red, the metallic yellow for example, which contains sulfur and iron sulfide. Meanwhile, green tones come from chlorite or iron silicate clays and whitish tones has to do with quarzite sandstone. Know the sandstones suffered alteration due to the weather conditions for millennia, and it still does suffer at the present day.

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Uploaded on January 7, 2023
Taken on November 25, 2022