Mount Chambers Chasm
The upper part of Mount Chambers is composed of a limestone that is resistant to erosion. The resistance of the limestone and the greater erodibility of the underlying rock has resulted in the upper part of the mesa being mostly surrounded by precipitous walls.
The chasm extends about 50 metres across the width of the Mt Chambers mesa near its eastern end. The top of the chasm is about three metres wide at the south-eastern end and two metres at the north-western end.
It seems that the eastern end of the mountain has somehow moved away from the remainder. The top of the chasm is apparently wider than the bottom, indicating some hinging of the end of the mountain.
The bottom of the chasm is covered with rubble and soil that has fallen from above. Some boulders have fallen only a part of the way down and have bridged between the two walls.
The depth of the chasm, from the top to the rubble on the bottom, is around ten to fifteen metres.
It is possible, with great care, but without any special climbing gear, to climb down over some of the bridging boulders to the base of the chasm. There is a section near the centre of the chasm where a V shaped set of fractures comes off the chasm. The bridging boulders in this area seem to provide the only path from top to bottom.
Read more about this topic: Mount Chambers Gorge
Famous quotes containing the words mount, chambers and/or chasm:
“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world.... I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.””
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)
“The price on the wanted
poster was a-going down, outlaw alias copped my stance
and moody greenhorns were making me dance; while my mouth’s
shooting iron got its chambers jammed.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)