I thought that I do not have anything significant to add to Accretionary Wedge #41. My home country is very quiet geologically. Being far from the plate boundaries we rarely have anything dynamic happening here. I have experienced one earthquake but there is really not much to talk about. But then one event crossed my mind that happened several months ago while I was hiking in the Spanish Pyrenees. I have already shared a photo of a beautiful synclinal mountain I took the same day.
We were descending from a mountain pass while I heard a scared voice screaming my name maybe 20 meters up from where I was. I had no time to do anything. I just started to turn my head and the next moment got hit by a sizable cobble (maybe 15 cm in diameter). I was lucky to maintain my footing because otherwise everything could have ended very badly. It was not an edge of a cliff but more like a really steep slope down from where I was standing. Hence falling there doesn’t mean a certain death but the situation was still bad enough.
The cobble hit my ankle which was aching somewhat later but fortunately it caused no serious injury. Probably because my legs were protected by heavy hiking boots that softened the impact.
So with lots of exaggerations I could say that I am a survivor of a rock avalanche but let’s try to be reasonably modest. It was just one rock and the whole event is not worth much mentioning but if I really need to find some geological event that have most closely affected me, then I probably have to choose this one.
I never saw that rock again. It continued its jumping and rolling journey down the slope but I know it was conglomerate because the whole mountain is made of this rock type. Here are some pictures of this beauty.
I wish you all a happy new year with lots of interesting but preferably not too dangerous geology.
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