National park
Symphony of Stones
Sheer canyon wall of tightly packed hexagonal basalt columns, carved by a river through ancient lava.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to the Symphony of Stones outside Yerevan opens with a disagreement among geologists over how old these hexagonal basalt columns really are, from an old forty-million-year guess to a much more recent argon-dating result. It traces the lava sheet that once buried this valley and the way cooling rock relieves stress by cracking into columns. You'll also hear how the Azat River spent tens of thousands of years cutting down through that same lava to expose them.
This audio guide was created using AI.