The fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, in central Turkey, are tall, cone-shaped rock formations carved from thick deposits of volcanic ash, or tuff, laid down by eruptions of nearby volcanoes including Mount Erciyes and Mount Hasan roughly 9 to 3 million years ago. Many chimneys carry a harder caprock of basalt or other resistant volcanic rock atop a softer tuff column, and differential erosion by wind and water has slowly whittled the softer material away beneath the resistant cap, producing the towers' distinctive mushroom-like silhouettes. The region's tuff is soft enough to be carved by hand, and Cappadocia's inhabitants have hollowed the formations and surrounding cliffs into dwellings, churches and underground cities for millennia, giving the geological formation an unusually direct connection to human settlement.
Facts
Classification
Protected StatusUNESCO World Heritage Site 1 FAQs
Will the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia last forever?
Each chimney eventually loses its cap and collapses.
No. Each chimney is a temporary result of erosion. The harder cap protects the softer tuff beneath it and gives the column its mushroom-like shape, but as erosion continues the cap eventually becomes unstable and falls off, and the chimney collapses. Erosion then begins a new cycle on the exposed rock.
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Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Goreme Historical National Park - Wikipedia
Underground dwellingsQuote, Underground dwellings
It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 under the name Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia.
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