Database: Shapes in the Sandstone
As the Red Sea opened around 30 million years ago, it thrust up sandstone that had lay hidden beneath the surface for hundreds of millions of years. An enormous sandstone plateau spread for hundreds of miles in all directions. But this plateau was not perfect.
Buried underground for so long, it was slightly over-cooked. Cracks and fissures cut through the rock like a loaf of bread sliced by a child. Now exposed, these cracks were the rock’s weak spots. Wind and rain slowly worked their way into the cracks, grain by grain. Over hundreds of thousands of years, these cracks became larger, and wider, until in some places vast areas of sand stand where rock once was.
Erosion is random. It doesn’t follow a pattern or a path. It will break down the rock wherever it hits it first. Nature blindly sculpts the landscape. And this can create some spectacular shapes. Perhaps one of the most well known is Jabal Alfil, also called Elephant Rock because this single rock outcrop, that was once connected to an enormous sandstone plateau, now stands alone, with the uncanny shape of an elephant in the middle of the desert.