Royce Howland

Flowing Past the Rank and File

Svartifoss (the “Black Falls”) is one of the many famous waterfalls dotting the landscape of Iceland. Its dark-colored hexagonal basalt columns are cut through by the 20 meter cascade; the rock is blackened further by many years of corrosion, until chunks of the columns break off and expose new surfaces. The broken columns form an inverted pattern of rising ranks, as weather and the elements cause the column ends to drop under their own weight, cut loose quite evenly across natural fracture lines.