Appreciating the Strange Stones of the Three Gorges

Author: Chief Editor: Xu Shiwei et al
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-03-01
Features: Excerpt:
“China”“Wonderful Stone”“China”“Wonderful Stone”
Heaven and earth are born, Han seal script and Tang cursive script sages are amazed.
Famous masters value a single character at a thousand gold, but how can you compare to cities of value?
[Geological Explanation] This is a composite stone made of four small pebbles. The stone bodies are all gray to dark gray marine sedimentary limestone, formed by mud and fine-grained crystalline limestone. When they were still attached to the parent rock layer, they suffered stress and developed tensile fissures, which were later filled with white calcite veins. Since the pebbles detached from the parent rock, they have undergone long-term transportation and abrasion, becoming pebbles. The key is that the preserved calcite veins in the stone bodies form the four characters “China”“Wonderful Stone” as seen today. Truly, the stone is extraordinary, and the characters are extraordinary, leaving one in awe!
“China”“People”
A dignified Chinese, renowned with beautiful fame.
Heaven left a treasure of calligraphy, floating with the sun and moon together.
[Geological Explanation] The two stones “China” are mixed gneiss, with the base (black) being lower Paleozoic to upper Archean amphibolite, formed 2.8 to 3 billion years ago, one of the oldest rocks in the Earth’s crust, with the main minerals being ordinary amphibolite and plagioclase. Between 1.85 to 2 billion years ago, the rock underwent regional migmatization, with felsic fluids entering its weak areas, forming the majestic “China” characters (grid-like structure). The stone “People” is a fine-grained amphibolite containing granitic xenoliths, formed 180 million years ago, with the main rock-forming minerals being plagioclase and amphibolite. Later, after alteration, the fine-grained amphibolite exhibited mild red feldsparization, while the xenoliths (composing the strokes of “People”) underwent sericitization, with the red-yellow color difference making the character “People” stand out.