Lena Pillars
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How it came to be
The Lena Pillars are rock columns on the right bank of the Lena River, about 180 km from Yakutsk, capital of the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia. They are built of layers of limestone, marlstone, dolomite and slate laid down in Cambrian seas, early to middle Cambrian in age.
Winter temperatures fall to about -60 °C, and the yearly range approaches 100 °C. UNESCO explains that, under these extremes, water seeping into joints in the rock froze and thawed again and again, widening gullies and isolating the pillars, with the river also playing its part. The rocks hold an unbroken fossil record from the first appearance of animals with skeletons in the Cambrian to their first mass extinction, including some of the earliest and largest fossil animal reefs.
The government of the Sakha Republic created the nature park in 1995. Evenki people still use parts of the land for haymaking and hunting. The park was inscribed in 2012.
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