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Mystery #3Tier 2rock / layers

Why are tall cliffs often made of neat stripy layers?

Look at a tall sea cliff or a canyon wall and you often see neat horizontal stripes, band after band, as if someone had stacked coloured rugs all the way up. Rock looks solid and permanent, so why would it come in tidy layers at all? What made the stripes?

A cliff face made of neat horizontal bands of pale rock separated by darker stripes of volcanic ash
Photo: Stephan Hense · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

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