Lava Stone Sea

Lava Stone Sea

Formed approximately 30,000 to 10,000 years ago during the Late Pleistocene by lava flows from the Uterus Mountain volcano, it is the largest recent extinct volcanic basalt landform in Asia. In the late stages of volcanic activity, the lava had high viscosity and flowed slowly. The lava overflowed from the volcanic cone into the Chai River channel, where the front cooled and fragmented into large blocks. The continuously overflowing lava flows scattered the rock fragments, eventually forming a distribution of blocky basalt covering about 50,000 square meters. The currently exposed rock blocks largely retain their original appearance, most with diameters of about 1–2 meters, irregular in shape, mostly devoid of vegetation, with only moss growth, thus creating the spectacular "Lava Stone Sea."