History

[john1066]

Ayres Rock (Australia). How did it get there?

[marval]

I don't know much about it, but this might help.

http://library.thinkquest.org/J002388/ayersroc k.html

[jno]

it's not a stone sitting in the desert. Imagine a long, curved log buried mostly underground but with one end sticking up above the ground. That's what Ayers Rock, aka Uluru, is: just the end of a long rock seam, most of which you can't see.

[bazigi]

it was a bleedin miracle

[VHG]

The earth's surface has changed a huge amount over the billions of years it has been here.

Due to movements of land surfaces and volcanoes and so on the earths surface has been bent and buckled over millions of years.

This has left all sorts of different type rock in the ground, some of it very hard, some of it very soft.

Millions of years ago the earths surface was higher than it is today.

This has gradually been worn away due to the effect of wind and rain, AND the effect of millions of tons of snow during the ice age.

Of course the wind and rain and snow will wear away the SOFT rock quicker than the HARD rock, so the HARD rock still sticks out of the ground where the SOFT rock has gone.

Here, for example, is a valley created by the movement of snow over many years that wore away the soft rock leaving only the hard rock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glacier_park 1.jpg

You can see examples in the UK in the Lake District and Scotland.

So basically most large lumps of rock sticking out the ground are a HARD rock where the soft rock around it has been worn away over the years.

[VHG]

The wiki site says:

"The remarkable feature of Uluru (Ayers Rock) is its homogeneity and lack of jointing and parting at bedding surfaces, leading to the lack of development of scree slopes and soil. These characteristics led to its survival, while the surrounding rocks were eroded"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru