Not the most dramatic, or ‘best’ volcanic landscape from my recent trip, but one that I like for education. That stuff in the foreground. Where has it come from? How has it got there?
There is the small fine material and then half buried much bigger blocks. Going into the distance there is an obvious volcano shape – or rather what is left of it. Look at what remains of its two sides. Now use your eyes to trace up the remaining steep slopes to imagine what the volcano must have once looked like. It would have gone up right out of the top of the picture!
So, what happened? How did those big blocks of rock end up right at our feet, and how did all that smaller sediment get there?
A still images creates questions. It encourages enquiry, creates an hypothesis, quite often a couple of possible alternate hypotheses. What happened? Why? When? Where is this? What would it be like to be there walking into the picture. Why does there seem to be no life, not a scrap of greenery?