Lewis Andrews/ The Palette of Place

Granitic Playground visually documents the rock features on St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, UK. Below much of the southwest peninsula of England lies a Granite intrusion known as the Cornubian batholith. Estimated to be a few kilometres deep, the batholith was a magmatic event of significant proportion, which coincided with the mountain-building event known as the Variscan Orogeny. During this event, collisions between ancient continents led to uplift and formed the Variscan Mountains, which stretch from the Isles of Scilly to the Iberian Mountains in Spain. The Coarse-grained granite on the Isles of Scilly is known as Scillonian Granite and can be seen in outcrops across the landscape. The rocks seen today across the landscape originated deep below the Earth and, over millions of years, made their way across and up to the surface, where they have been subjected to erosion via wind, the sea and temperature changes. The remains of millions of years of erosion and tectonic movements can be seen on St Agnes. Strange rock formations of all shapes and sizes, caused by erosion eating away at weaker parts of the rocks, create a landscape which could be compared to a natural playground of the elements.