Famous Limestone Mountain Ranges of Indochina

Have you ever seen Goldfinger, the classic 007 thriller that

, after one of the biggest car and boat chases in Hollywood history, ends up among the mysterious and beautiful islands of the Andaman Sea, where Dr. No has his evil headquarters?

Limestone is known for forming curious and beautiful formations around the world: usually caves, but occasionally cliffs and mountains as well. One of the properties of limestone is that (geologically speaking anyway) it erodes quickly in water. While water erosion may take tens of thousands or even millions of years to produce some other rock formations such as the Grand Canyon, limestone formations will change even within hundreds of years, depending on their size.

The largest swath of limestone mountains and cliffs extends from Southeast China (you can see them in prints and brush paintings as nearly vertical hills), and runs through Vietnam, Laos, Central Thailand, Southern Thailand, and finally through the Andaman Sea down into Sumatra.

Though all of these formations are impressive, it is the island formations that are the oddest: not only are their bases eroding in the sea, giving some an inverted island effect, they are also being bombarded by wet sea breezes and storms. Some of the islands, like Chicken Island for example, are very odd indeed, while other formations such as cliff caves that are part of bigger islands will contain secret lagoons and other such exotic features.

Islands in the Andaman sea, and all limestone mountains in fact, are doomed to one day crash back down to land. In the sea, the process is quicker and many cliff faces on the islands oddly lean toward the sea. Some of these have large faces painted on them, watching over the safety of the fishermen.

Famous Limestone Mountain Ranges of Indochina

By: Dinah Jackson

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