The water in these pools is extremely acidic and nutrient-poor — conditions that have shaped the evolution of the organisms that live in and around them.

The rock surface itself is carved and sculpted by the ongoing work of weathering — hollowed into basins and channels, fractured into fields of angular blocks, sometimes rising into the peculiar tower and needle formations that give the summit its quality of an alien city.

These formations — locally called “mushroom rocks” or by various other descriptive names — are the product of differential weathering, in which some rock is harder or more resistant to chemical attack than the surrounding material, and therefore stands while everything around it is worn away.

The Quartzite And What It Means