Manpupuner Rock Formations

The Manpupuner Rock Formations stand in the Troitsko-Pechorsky District of Russia's Komi Republic, west of the Ural Mountains between the Ilych and Pechora rivers, made up of seven or so freestanding pillars of sericite-quartzite schist ranging from about 30 to 42 meters tall, one standing apart from the main group at roughly 34 meters. Around 200 million years ago the site was occupied by high mountains; over time, rain, snow, wind, frost and heat wore the surrounding rock away, but the harder quartzite schist resisted erosion far better than the softer rock around it, which was gradually broken down and carried off by water and wind, leaving the pillars standing alone on the plateau. In the Mansi language the formations are called Man-Pupu-Nyer, or Small Idol Mountain, and in Komi they are called Bolvano-Iz, or Idol Stone; local Mansi people once held the pillars sacred and regarded climbing them as forbidden. This entity documents the Manpupuner formations specifically as a geological formation shaped by differential erosion of quartzite schist.