Top of the Herdsman, an offshore rock near Staffa.
Tags: staffa scotland geology columns columnar joints physics cracks fracture pattern formation cave hebrides basalt column columnar
© All Rights Reserved
Suture pattern on the exterior of a polished ammonite. This is actually on the inside of the original shell, and marks where the septum of the animal was withdrawn when it moved to a larger segment. The withdrawal causes a contact line instability which forms a dendritic pattern.
Tags: ammonite fossil suture pattern formation patternformation contact line instability dendritic fractal
© All Rights Reserved
The logarithmic spiral of the chambered Nautilus shell.
Famously appears on the cover of "On Growth and Form" by D'Arcy Thompson.
Tags: shell nautilus spiral
© All Rights Reserved
An experiment on how the pattern of segregation of different sized sand in a rotating tube depends on the diameter of the tube.
See
www.physics.utoronto.ca/nonlinear/abstracts/CKM04abstract...
Tags: sand physics patternformation nonlinear instability formation experiment emergence
© All Rights Reserved
Tags: icicle ice ripple pattern formation patternformation freezing physics