Güzelcehisar Basalt Pillars
he 14.30 ha area where Güzelcehisar Basalt Pillars Natural Monument is located was declared as a Natural Monument on 14.08.2017 due to its natural resource values. The volcanic units surfacing within the Güzelcehisar Basalt Pillars Natural Monument area are mostly basaltic and volcano-sedimentary units. Among these volcanic units, basalts took their present columnar basalt morphological structure with the formation of cracks near the fall due to slow cooling during volcanic activity. These structures have a pentagonal geometry and while they have a regular geometry close to the sea level, their geometry deteriorates at higher elevations due to landslides, tectonism and strength problems. Columnar basalt structures, of which there are many examples in the world and in our country, offer different structural features from each other. The fact that some of the steeply sloping column structures become close to horizontal after a certain height is the strength problem experienced during cooling. When Sinop Boyabat basalts are examined, they have similar features to Güzelcehisar basalts, but due to the fact that they are very fractured, they have a lot of block structures that break off and fall down. In Güzelcehisar column basalts, on the other hand, there are block structures that break and separate at the upper elevations due to the deterioration of the geometry forms in the locations where the basalts are close to the surface.
