Geomorphological landscape of giant Saturn ring in Qinghai

Geomorphological landscape of giant Saturn ring in Qinghai

Photographers photographed the "Saturn Ring" landscape in Mangya City, Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. In the picture, the ring on the landform is very similar to Saturn's ring, and there are several "Saturn's rings" arranged in turn.

"Saturn Ring" is located in the Great Ring Road of National Highway 3 15 in Gan Xin, and it is the connecting link between Dongtai Jinaier Lake, Shuiyadan Lake, Xitai Jinaier Lake and Mangya Aiken Spring (Eye of the Earth). The landscape of "Saturn Ring" is also called "Mangya Strange Circle" by folk explorers. This is a special folded Ya Dan landform with unique scientific research value.

Zhang Xiaoyong, deputy director and senior engineer of the Institute of Regional Geology and Mineral Resources Investigation of Qinghai Geological Survey Institute, said that after on-the-spot investigation by technicians of Geological Survey Institute and staff of Mangya Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports and Tourism, it was preliminarily considered that the main reasons were geological structure and wind erosion. The Neogene river and lake sedimentary strata, which were originally buried deep underground, were influenced by regional tectonic movement to form a series of short-axis fold structures, which made the originally horizontally distributed strata bend. After these curved rock formations emerged from the surface, they were subjected to differential weathering and denudation through long-term strong wind erosion, thus forming a huge annular strange landscape that we see on a macro scale today.