Jointed Stone Pillars

Jointed Stone Pillars

Huanan Town in Qujiang District, located 35 kilometers from downtown Quzhou City, is home to 50 million jointed stone pillars hidden within an area of approximately 30 square kilometers. Some are buried deep underground, some are exposed on the surface, some are neatly arranged like giant “lampwick cakes,” some rise into the air like clustered rockets, and others are bizarrely shaped like graceful “dancers.” Even more astonishing is the fact that the flat surfaces formed where the jointed stone pillars break off cleanly are as smooth and three-dimensional as floor tiles laid by a mason—truly a marvel of nature.

According to geologists, the jointed stone pillars in Qujiang formed during the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous period, about 137 million years ago. At that time, eastern China was a vast landmass with coal-bearing terrestrial sediment deposits, along with volcanic eruptions and magmatic activity. During periods of intense crustal movement and active volcanism, streams of molten rock gushed out from fissures in the earth’s crust. As the scorching lava gradually cooled, contracted, and crystallized, under the right conditions, the magma crystals fractured into regular columnar stones. Massive numbers of these pillars were aligned, bundled, and stacked together, forming a spectacular world of stone columns. Between these pillars are only extremely narrow gaps separating them one by one—geologists refer to these cracks as “joints.”

The Qujiang jointed stone pillars are mostly upright, with a small portion tilting and some lying flat. The pillars are typically hexagonal in shape, though pentagonal, octagonal, and other polygonal forms also exist. Their colors are mostly reddish-brown, though some are bluish-gray. The diameter of the pillars generally ranges from 35 to 80 centimeters, with the largest discovered measuring up to 140 centimeters in diameter. Their heights vary, ranging from several dozen centimeters to tens of meters. Based on area calculations, geologists estimate that there are about 50 million jointed stone pillars in the area stretching from Huanan Town to the Wuxi River Reservoir dam. The abundance, dense distribution, excellent preservation, and massive scale of these volcanic rock primary columnar joints are truly rare. Their discovery has eclipsed even England’s “Giant’s Causeway,” making them of great scientific research and tourism value.