Explore Nature

Gandate-kyo - Explore Nature - Hida-Osaka Falls - Hida-Osaka's 200 Waterfalls - Gero city, Gifu prefecture, Japan

  • Explore Nature
  • Mt.Ontake
  • Gandate-kyo
  • Waterfalls
  • Plants
  • Animals
  • Gandate Picnic in Osaka Kakumei-trail Tour
  • Guided tours of the hida-osaka falls
Gandate-kyo ( Gandate Canyon )
Gandate

The Gandate kyo has a section of the longest lava flow in Japan, made by the eruption of Mt.Ontake 54,000 years ago. You can find it just in front of the parking lot of the park.
Similar lava walls extend upstream along the river for 17km ( 11miles ) .
Amadoriiwa, a huge rock which can be visited in the Neonotaki tour, shows another section of this longest lava with double height of 150m ( 500 feet ). Another smaller lava flow can be seen downstream. It was once connected to Gandate, but divided 300m ( 330 yards ) away by Sawaradani creek.
If you look down the lava flow from The Ontake Panorama Line, a green flat-topped belt goes on and on. Hajime Furuta, Governor of Gife Prefecture nicknamed it “The Green Grand Canyon”.

Nature creates an objet d’art, Gandate Gandate

The rough surface of Gandate was created in another stage of Ontake’s volcanic activities with Marishiten lava, which ran down Hyoedani Gorge. Afterwards Sawaradani creek gradually encroached softer parts gradually during several tens of thousands of years. One of the remaining parts is the current Gandate.
Andesites formed pillar-shaped joints when they were cooled down, so they are called Columnar Joints. This huge rock Gandate, 72m ( 236 feet ) high 120m ( 394 feet) wide, is quite amazing.
The time of the eruption was identified as approximately 54,000 years ago. Nagoya University applied carbon measurement on a charcoal chip, taken during the drilling for a hydraulic power station, and clarified the time when Gandate was created.

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Marishiten : Sanskrit God living in heaven

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