Columbia River Basalt Shards
Huge flows of black basalt covered much of Eastern Oregon and Washington sixteen million years ago. Many of these flows have prismatic cooling joints, causing them to naturally break into shards with sharp edges, smooth planes and elegant curves. The faces of joints are slowly painted with iron oxide and clay as groundwater flows quietly through the rock for hundreds of thousands of years. I like to contrast these ancient natural surfaces with highly polished or honed faces that reveal the heart of the rock.
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