If rocks could talk

Rocks have stories.

Those beautiful minerals in igneous rocks tell stories of hot, liquid magma from deep under our feet, and how they came to the surface. The grains, the structures, and the fossils in sedimentary rocks tell us of past environments, long lost worlds. The deformed, elongated metamorphic rocks vividly share the stories of the powerful movements of our active planet. And even the landscape today, with awe-inspiring outcrops, tell the never-ending story of wind and rain breaking down rock and creating new rock.

If rocks could talk, they would tell a myriad of stories. Stories from a billion years ago. Stories from the fiery depths of the Earth. Stories of oceans that were once huge and full of enigmatic life, but have long since disappeared. They would tell us so many stories. Incredible, almost unbelievable, stories.

AlUla, in north west Saudi Arabia, is a place where the rocks dominate every aspect of life. They surround you in the most majestical, mesmerizing way. I’ve been in AlUla for over 2 years, and I am still transfixed by the landscape every morning on my drive into work: the shapes, the colours, and of course, those stories.

As I drive north through AlUla, towards AlGharameel Nature Reserve, the landscape changes. I’m still driving through beautiful sandstones, but the colours change from the iconic dark red mesas we see at the heritage site of Dadan, to soft, brown, honey-colour outcrops we see at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra, and then to more flat rock expanse with the iconic pillars of AlGharameel.

Driving south, past AlUla International Airport, the rocks change again, if a little more dramatically. Those large red ridges, (the mesas) slowly disappear, to be replaced by grey and blue mountains. Sands with orange and blue hues brush up against the bottom of these mountains, like a watercolour painting.

The landscape changes.

It speaks to you.

And it’s beautiful.

Last year, the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) developed a campaign called I Care. This highly successful initiative focused on raising the awareness of the rich and internationally important cultural heritage, and the ongoing conservation work to protect these sites for Saudi Arabia, and for the the world. I Care worked closely with the local community highlighting how the more people know about something, the more they want to protect it.

This year, there was a new campaign, and one that I was very happy to be involved in: If Rocks Could Talk. Following the similar messages of I Care, it's bringing out the many stories of the beauty in the rocks in AlUla, answering some of the many questions that people have when they see the landscape, and getting people to look at the landscape in a new way.

A key part of this campaign is increasing the understanding of the landscape, to empower both locals and tourists to want to protect this unique geological landscape. And by sparking curiosity about AlUla’s geology, the campaign also aims to inspire the next generation to explore the field of Earth sciences, fostering interest in geology as a career path.

Short videos, including CGI animation showing the formation AlUla and a little cameo by yours truly, provide a little detail of how these rocks formed. Infographics give quick, key facts to some basic geology principles, increasing the overall understanding of the general story. It’s science communication done nicely: not overwhelming, not full of jargon, not dry, and to quote Goldilocks, ‘it’s just right’.

The team have also created something quite cool, using certain rocks and integrating CGI. But first, lets see why.

A strange human quirk is how we see things in nature: shapes, animals, faces. I’m a bit of a stickler for seeing hearts everywhere I hike (a wonderful phenomenon I developed just four years ago for reasons that are interwoven with previous blog posts ??).

Seeing faces and animals in nature is a very common thing, and almost everybody does it. It’s likely a very ancient wiring within our brains, as our ancestors lived and used the landscape around them. Familiar shapes in rocks would have helped them know where they are, or even been specific meeting points. And it’s quite interesting, as the more we focus, the more we see.

All of these ‘animals’ or ‘faces’ in the rocks are, of course, formed naturally. Wind and rain slowly breaking down the rocks to the shapes we see today. But they do get people to start to ask questions.

If Rocks Could Talk uses this Pareidolia (seeing animals and faces in things) in a smart, engaging way. A photo of an unusual rock outcrop is posted on social media asking followers what they see. The team at RCU found the most popular answer and developed a CGI recreation of the animal. And they look pretty cool. From a frog to a gorilla, the rocks really do have fascinating shapes.

But it’s not just all glossy, cool looking animations. There’s a reason for everything.

The campaign is raising awareness and providing a new respect of this beautiful landscape.The rocks go back almost a billion years in AlUla, and that's a large fragment of the history of our planet. These little things from CGI animated animals from rocks to short infographics, help people to learn more about the very rocks themselves.

A quote by Senegalese forestry engineer, Baba Dioum, is possibly the strongest quote in protecting biodiversity and geodiversity:

“In the end, we will conserve only what we love;

we will love only what we understand,

and we will understand only what we are taught.”

Let’s let the rocks talk, and help teach more people about the beauty of our planet. The more we learn, the more we discover. And the more we discover the wonders of our planet, the more we develop a natural love to protect it.

There’s more to it too. It’s not just highlighting the spectacular landscape, or the amazing stories. It links to the broader conservation mission of the Royal Commission for AlUla. There are five protected areas (nature reserves) in AlUla. Each distinct because of the different geology. Each it’s own flora and fauna because of the different geology.

Protecting the landscape doesn’t just protect the rocks. It protects the habitats the rocks create, which protects the plants, which protects the animals.

If rocks could talk, they would tell us stories of four and a half billion years of our planets history. How those stories are connected to life on Earth, both past and present. They would let you know that on this beautiful planet we live on, everything is interlinked. Even us.