The pillars
Sixty million years ago there were tropical seas in today Hunan region. Sometimes they were deep, leaving soft limestones, sometimes shallow, leaving hard beach-sandstone. Then the land rose under tectonic pressure, and the weathering of limestones and sandstones proceeded to form karst. The limestones dissolved over millions of years into fissures, sinkholes and immense caves. The sandstones cracked into knife-edged pillars, some of them 300 meters high.
Whatever the story, seems like geology is less appealing than sci-fi movies. The park, in fact, was little known until James Cameron decided to create a fictitious world populated by suspended rocks in his movie Avatar. The park managers noticed the similarity between Zhangjiajie pillars and Pandora ones. Since then, references to the movie are everywhere and tourists (mostly Chinese) are flocking here in their millions.
And that may have worked also on me. While sitting on the top of the valley, I'm still debating if I am exploring a mysterious planet or admiring and old Chinese painting.
The pillars
Sixty million years ago there were tropical seas in today Hunan region. Sometimes they were deep, leaving soft limestones, sometimes shallow, leaving hard beach-sandstone. Then the land rose under tectonic pressure, and the weathering of limestones and sandstones proceeded to form karst. The limestones dissolved over millions of years into fissures, sinkholes and immense caves. The sandstones cracked into knife-edged pillars, some of them 300 meters high.
Whatever the story, seems like geology is less appealing than sci-fi movies. The park, in fact, was little known until James Cameron decided to create a fictitious world populated by suspended rocks in his movie Avatar. The park managers noticed the similarity between Zhangjiajie pillars and Pandora ones. Since then, references to the movie are everywhere and tourists (mostly Chinese) are flocking here in their millions.
And that may have worked also on me. While sitting on the top of the valley, I'm still debating if I am exploring a mysterious planet or admiring and old Chinese painting.