Happy PFF! The Mysterious Hanging Boulder

Thank you to our hostess Beth at The Best Hearts are Crunchy for hosting Postcard Friendship Friday. Click on the link to see who else is playing!

On the front: " The mysterious hanging boulder mystifies all who pass under.  Polar Caves, N.H."

On the back:  "Polar Caves, N.H., America's greatest Boulder Caverns.  A maze of caves and spectacular rock formations.  All caverns colorfully lighted.  Different from and [sic] caverns you may have seen.  Nothing like it on the American continent."

I love older tourist postcards like this.  Whether it's a giant dinosaur or jackalope, a big ball of string, or an odd piece of geology, I find it so funny.  Terribly funny, in all senses of the words.  Ken Brown has a good time making fun of these postcards.

Polar caves in Rumney NH is still there and still an active tourist location.  Its website is, of course, http://www.polarcaves.com/.  I browsed the photo album, and yes, the mysterious hanging boulder is still there.


viridian

PFF: New Hampshire Geology

Staying in the east, following Massachusetts geology (see older post). Just to the north of Massachusetts, New Hampshire is known as the Granite State, and with good reason. Much of the northern portion of the state is underlain by igneous rocks, especially granite. To the south, the blue, purple and green hues indicate various metamorphic rocks, but look a those big blobs of yellow and pink. Those are the igneous rocks. Magma pooled underground long ago and slowly solidified, forming large crystals of different minerals. It could look like this:

New Hampshire's emblem is the Old Man of the Mountain. Formed out of a series of rock ledges, projecting out over a valley, viewed from a certain angle it looked like a craggy face. Until May 2003, that is. The rock ledges had been weakened by erosion and part of the face broke off. This New Hampshire website has more information and photos.

Happy PFF and Happy Geology!

See Marie's website for more postcards!