Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Totem Pole, Tasmania


Last night, we went to see the final night of the Banff Mountain Film Festival's world tour, held at National Geographic's headquarters in downtown DC. If you're not familiar with it, the BMFF is an annual event showcasing films about nature and extreme sports. Last night we watched films about rock climbers, kayakers, skiers, and snow-kiters. Oh, and a badger (see video online).

This year's festival was advertised using the image at right, of a climber doing a route on what's called the Totem Pole, located in coastal southern Tasmania, Australia. I'd never seen an image of this thing before, but it's pretty impressive. Does anyone know anything else about it? Via Google, I've seen it described as both a "dolerite column" and a sea stack. I'd like to know more. And I'd like to see it. And I don't want to climb it. Yikes.

If you don't know anything about the Totem Pole, then maybe you'd best check out the film "Badgered" -- this was a quaint little animation that closed out last night's ensemble of films. Enjoy!

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posted by Callan Bentley at 10:10 AM

2 Comments:

Blogger Chuck said...

Look up columnar jointing. Then find a nice columnar jointed dolerite (the local word for diabase, or shallow intrusive basalt), and knock all the columns but one into the ocean.

February 10, 2008 6:12 PM  
Blogger Callan Bentley said...

Yep, I'm familiar with columnar jointing (check out the Giant's Causeway photos I posted in early January). I guess this one just looks weird to me due to the squarish profile (as opposed to a more typical hexagonal profile). And it's so massive -- it's a big, big column. Do you know whether it's part of a sill?

February 11, 2008 7:17 AM  

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