Mono Monday # 3 Rock Art

Thanks so much for the lovely response to my car image yesterday. We drove into the spotlight briefly, so it was all very much appreciated. Even Mr. Grumpy would have raised a smile had he known.

MonoMonday # 3: we have a tiny problem in that Blip's search is under maintenance, so I can't search tags right now. Hopefully it won't last for very long, but please let me know in a comment that you are in.

You would be forgiven if you assumed that these circles were man-made. They are, in fact lichen circles on rock. The lichen starts to gown at a central point, and grows outwards in a very symmetrical circle, until it finally dies - presumably because there's no nourishment.

All crustose lichens grow slowly; their growth, about .5 to 5 mm per year measured by the expansion of their circles. Left unchallenged, undisturbed and with a suitably long-lived substrate, it is quite common for a lichen to have a lifespan of several centuries; in fact a certain arctic specimen of a crustose lichen, Rhisocarpon geographicum, was found to be about 9000 years old!

Just goes to show!

I would never ever have noticed these circles had we not gone half way down the hill for the Rower to photograph a lone tree. I was totally devoid of inspiration, but thought I'd take my camera "just in case".

Don't you think that's a very valuable lesson? I've driven up and down that hill for close to a quarter of a century, and I've never noticed lichen circles before.

EDIT Blip still hasn't got Search sorted, so inevitably I'm going to miss some out of this Challenge. If you don't see yourself in the list below over the next day or so, please do let me know. It's early (ish) Tuesday morning here, and I'm just about to update.

JoanneinOz
Hobbs
CyclingGranny
Flying
Beckett
Rower2012
Jipsy
yoshiyahu
WalkingWombat
skater
hpx
Miffy
Trisharooni
Gitama
TeeJay
MrRosewarne
Mario
isbi
mpp26
Cymbeline
Nevermore
BowBelle
Petespics
Dizzychick
Gemax
TywynSue
SoupDragon
Cathaber
SkyeGirl
doli
DonnaWanna
DesertP
Nanzy19
Danksound
Loulou164 (Even though she included a bit of colour, on account of it's her special Blipversary. Head over and congratulate her :))
Ristosan
Tedwin
Freespiral
Apothecary7
ThingsBeautiful
Lisallew
Hillyblips
Fourseasoned
Mollyblobs
Eptas
CreativeLenna
jlmunn
Journeysprocess
Westcoastbob
ArtistAnnie
Moiza
Skip
KarenD37
Madonskis
MerrilHope
Anneli
Yvonne1
ThompsonTwins
Alsacienne
Fourstory
MaybedailyBob
FrankGerryts
KevinV
Earthdreamer