In Nature
Further information: Patterns in natureBasaltic lava flows often display columnar jointing as a result of contraction forces causing cracks as the lava cools. The extensive crack networks that develop often produce hexagonal columns of lava. One example of such an array of columns is the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.
Tessellated pavement a characteristic example of which is found at Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula of Tasmania is a rare sedimentary rock formation where the rock has fractured into rectangular blocks.
Within botany, the term "tessellate" describes a checkered pattern, for example on a flower petal, tree bark, or fruit.
Read more about this topic: Tessellation
Famous quotes containing the word nature:
“When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter ... decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Shakespeare, with an improved education and in a more enlightened age, might easily have attained the purity and correction of Racine; but nothing leads one to suppose that Racine in a barbarous age would have attained the grandeur, force and nature of Shakespeare.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)