Miniature Chapada Diamantina

(a photo essay)

(this is purely for amusement, lets take the day off from more important stuff.)

Wikipedia says this about this region where I live

“Chapada Diamantina is an erosional landform in the state of Bahia, Brazil.”

and they offer this photo from the park in the center of the region

It was the astounding, unique geology here that brought me, curious, to Brazil in the first place ten years ago.

I learned, as a quick study, that the rocks on top are very hard but the layers underneath are much softer, hence the dramatic erosional patterns.

This morning I was looking around at our gardens …. this region is known to be semi-arid with a rainy season in the winter. For the past several years the rain has been long and intense, coming down in buckets and lasting for many weeks. Today we are beginning to dry out.

So here are photos from my yard and gardens, showing just what happens when you have rocks on top and soft sand and clay underneath….. it just looked like a microcosm of the big features all around us….

well, I thought it was interesting, anyway …..