tor
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Granite is a hard, igneous rock that produces a landscape of high ground, and wet, waterlogged areas. Outcrops of granite like this one can be seen throughout Dartmoor, in southwest England, and particularly on hilltops, where tors have been formed.
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Granite is a hard, igneous rock. However, it is eroded by freeze-thaw weathering and by hydrolysis (a form of chemical erosion). The granite is broken down most effectively where there are more joints or cracks in the rock, and it is most resistant where there are fewer joints. The unweathered rock forms a tor, an upstanding, isolated mass of rock, like this one on Dartmoor.
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Barns of Bynack, Cairngorm Mountains, Scotland. The barns are granite tors protruding from the upper slopes of Bynack More (1,090 m/3,576 ft), a mountain to the east of Cairn Gorm itself.
| Isolated mass of rock, often granite, left upstanding on a hilltop after the surrounding rock has been broken down. Weathering takes place along the joints in the rock, reducing the outcrop into a mass of rounded blocks. |
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