“We should respect nature”
As I walked toward the end of the wooden walkway in the vast Jiuzhaigou World Heritage Site in northern Sichuan Province (China), I saw a bilingual Chinese-English signboard introducing an artifact with a rather strange name: “8.8 石”, “8.8 Rock”, meaning the rock of August 8. The rock lay tilted about 15 meters away, close to the edge of a stream in the dry season.
The 109-word English caption briefly describes the “background” of the rock. Measuring 9.2 meters high, 163 cubic meters in volume, and weighing 522 tons, the rock was formed in a marine environment 320 million years ago, and is a type of limestone. The rock fell from a height of 2,654 meters into the valley after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurred on the evening of August 8, 2017.
“The earthquake caused the rock to break off the mountain and fall down, destroying vegetation and digging a large trench along its path,” the note printed on the introduction board reads.
“8.8 Rock” is a witness to the 2017 natural disaster that killed 24 people, injured hundreds of people, and severely damaged the scenic area.
Several houses in Jiuzhaigou County had their walls collapsed, and the Sichuan Daily report added: “There were rocks falling on the road leading from the county to the scenic area.” Among the rocks that fell that day was a large rock dubbed “8.8 Rock,” which fell silently inside Jiuzhaigou.
Not forgetting the natural disaster in the past, it is interesting that the story of the falling rock, the scratches left on the mountainside, and the presence of that rock by the stream has now become a check-in point. And even more surprising is that the rock also carries a message.
I read this last sentence on the introduction board: “The 8.8 stone carving suggests that we should revere nature.”
Stone culture
One day in late September 5 years ago, workers operating excavators in a quarry in the mountains of Tuy Hoa City (Phu Yen) discovered a strange rock formation underneath. And then, the quarry was given a new name, “Ganh Da Dia 2”, because its shape had many similarities with the stone plate at the national scenic spot Ganh Da Dia near the sea in the north of Tuy An district.
The stone pavement woke up by chance. Before the excavator dug deep into the ground, these strange stones had been caught by a photographer in Phu Yen during a photo hunt nearly 15 years ago, but it was just a very small patch exposed and did not attract much attention.
Right in the area of Da Dia Reef on the edge of Tuy An beach, there is still a hidden rock formation waiting to be discovered. Not far from the path down to Da Dia Reef, bushes and the surface layer of soil have “hidden” such a beautiful rock formation, over 500m2 wide, until August 2018 when it was discovered by scientists and cultural officials of Phu Yen.
I remember Ganh Da Dia in Phu Yen, especially "Ganh Da Dia 2" because the Da Dia mountain range was just discovered in the highlands of Phuoc Son (Quang Nam), because I noticed some interesting similarities.
In addition to the shape of the stone pillars, the original name, and being on the same mountain… the Phuoc Son cliff and the Phu Yen “Ganh Da Dia 2” are also similar in the way they appeared: they were accidentally discovered by workers.
Phuoc Son cliff is located near the location of the Nuoc Che hydroelectric turbine, only a little exposed but also hidden by trees. It was not until workers dug a water channel from the main dam to the turbine that the strange cliff was revealed with interesting shapes such as columns, quadrilaterals, hexagons, squares, circles, stretching nearly 1km.
Just like the story at “Ganh Da Dia 2” 5 years ago, now the Phuoc Son district government has stepped in to survey, demarcate the protected area, and propose a plan. Tourism ideas are also gradually emerging.
Because there is no better opportunity than in the highlands of Quang Nam, strange stone pillars appear, maybe basalt, maybe those stones are hiding millions of years of history formed from volcanic lava flows, maybe opening up a new perspective on geology, maybe creating a new destination...
But rocks are not just about geology and travel. They are also about culture.
I still remember the writer-musician Vu Duc Sao Bien, when passing through the Tien Phuoc countryside and seeing the stone alleys, stone fences, stone steps, stone tombs, stone traps, and even the mysterious rocks in Lo Thung..., he was excited to discuss "a form of folk culture over 500 years old". And he called it stone-culture.
Tien Phuoc stone has been mentioned in folk songs, “having the fate to marry a source husband/ sitting on the stone alley, there is both sadness and joy”, and in the poetry of Huynh Thuc Khang when he visited Lo Thung stone bay. Phu Yen stone plate has also had time to “interact” with the folk about the origin of the stone beach, to have a story to tell tourists about the legend of the treasure that turned into stone, or the golden cups and jade plates that fairies descended to earth to hold a party and then forgot…
*
* *
Fallen limestone in Sichuan reminds people to respect nature. Stone plates in Phu Yen reveal a lava field and geological park. In Quang Nam, rocks floating by streams and split stones along Tien Phuoc village roads evoke a cultural region.
Will the cliffs in the Phuoc Son highlands soon create a resonance between geology and community activities, so that together with the tourism industry, they can extend the life of this natural masterpiece?
Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/da-thuc-3141151.html
Comment (0)