#ventifact

Ventifact: A rock that has been abraded, pitted, etched, grooved, or polished by wind-driven sand.

i suppose my marks & lines

make me some kind of stone

so what is this burning wind

& why are what used to be my eyes doing this?

ventus, there is something within

Amazing wind

These wind-erosion features in Egypt's White Desert are some of the most amazing erosional features on Earth.

These pillars are formed by a sequence of water erosion followed by wind erosion. To form these, first the sedimentary layers had to be deposited and lithified by some sort of cement. Those rocks then were uplifted out of the water, making it so that erosion could take hold. There had to be a role for water in creating channels or some other topography that penetrated the top layer, allowing wind to get through, as water is a much more powerful erosive agent. Water started eroding through the layers, breaking through the more resistant upper layers in places. At some point, wind took over. Wind erodes by picking up sand grains and sandblasting anything it runs into. Sand grains move via saltation, they bounce along the ground and usually don’t get more than a meter or so off the ground. Sand erosion therefore eats away at any rocks that are about a meter or less above the ground, leaving the slender pillars that hold up the larger rocks in this part of Egypt’s White Desert.

Other terms for these could include mushrooms, yardangs, or ventifacts.

-JBB

Image credit: https://flic.kr/p/e3ae5g

Polished cobblestone? 

I tried a finer tip for this quote. I started to get comfortable with the difference about the 3rd line down. I don't like the paper I use for this one. The tip picks up fibers and drags when you start an upstroke making a sad blob.

Very sad blob.