Marjorie and I had the opportunity to see a whale again (see Whale Tales for our previous whaling experience) the other day. We weren’t on a boat. In fact, we, weren’t near any water; the closest salt water was the Sea of Cortez, 200 miles west. We were amidst the stark landforms and plants of the Sonoran Desert, and the closest fresh water was our water bottle, which we relied on to combat the stifling heat. (As they say in the desert, it’s a dry heat, but 95 degrees is still way hot and means that you better have some water, or you too will be dry very soon.)
Our location was a few miles south of the area where bugs had splattered our windshield a couple days earlier, but this time we were out of the car on a short hike. The trail wound through cacti and agave, crossing sandy, sundried grass meadows, under sycamores, and over lovely granite knolls. At its end, we reached a rock formation known as Whale Rock. As you can see below, it looks rather cetacean with a broad, domed “forehead,” big “mouth,” and long “body” that tapers to a raised “tail.” Unlike the species we had encountered in the Sea of Cortez, which were baleen whales, this one had the shape of a toothed whale, in particular a sperm whale, the species best known for their propensity to stave in ships à la the great and powerful Moby Dick.
Our whale in the desert is not the lone cetaceanesque rock to have beached themselves across the planet; there are many big, rounded rocks or monoliths that give the impression of a whale. Interestingly, Herman Melville addresses this issue of rock leviathans. “In the bony, ribby regions of the earth…[and] in mountainous countries…here and there from some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of whales defined along undulating ridges….but if you wish to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, else so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your precise, previous stand-point would require laborious re-discovery.” (Moby Dick, Chapter 57)
Unlike Melville’s petribeasts, the desert bound Whale Rock didn’t require any challenges to find, it was a pretty obvious shape. Nor would several other Whale Rocks I have read about, such as one in Joshua Tree NP, which looks to be breaching. Another in Wilsons Promontory NP, in Australia, appears to be launching out of the hillside with a broad smile of joy.
What unites all three lithiwhales is granite. (If you want to get technical, two are actually quartz monzonite, a rock very similar (chemically and lithification-wise), and typically, hard to distinguish from granite.) Each stony Leviathan formed from magma, is rich in the mineral’s quartz, feldspar, and mica, and is well-jointed (imagine a balloon covered in shaving cream, which riffs into channels as you blow up the balloon). What makes granite special (Goethe referred to the “dignity of this rock” and the inspiration generated by granite’s immense masses) is how the grainy rock—hence granite—tends to weather and erode into rounded shapes.
As water seeps into the jointed and cracked granite, it works its magic, weakening the rock, often in a layered manner, like an onion. The granite in its diminished state of existence tends to break down further and erodes along edges and corners, which produces curvaceous landforms. Depending upon the size, the rounded rock knobs can be called bornhardts (after German geologist Wilhelm Bornhardt); boulders; woolsacks (a lovely British term that references wool bales); or whalebacks (aka elephant rocks and sheep rocks).
Another term, which Puget Sounders might know, is drumlins, the teardrop-shaped hills of Seattle and its surroundings (though they are not made of granite but have the same shape) formed by glaciers and which comprise much of the Puget lowland. Some geologists have suggested that whaleback is a more appropriate term than drumlin, so perhaps we should think of those who live here as whale riders.
Sadly, we haven’t a clue about the person who coined the name for Arizona’s Whale Rock. What were they thinking? Was it on a blazingly hot day like the one we were experiencing, a day when you might wish that water was nearby and when you saw this outcrop, your mind would create an image of an animal that exemplified water, and in doing so, might slake your thirst, at least a tiny bit? Or perhaps, like many of us have probably experienced, either in looking at rocks or clouds, the namer simply saw a suggestive shape.
In fact, there’s a term for this: pareidolia, or the perception of recognizable patterns or images. Some scientists have written that pareidolia is “a key perceptual mechanism of idea generation—one of the central stages of the creative process.”1 To imagine familiar shapes seems one of the more splendid ways to satisfy our creativity, as well as fun, occasionally amusing, and a great way to pass the time.
Finding shapes we know in our surroundings is also about making connections. I think that most of us seek a way to understand what we see. Geology is darned complicated—with its great depth of time and challenging terminology—so converting what we see to something we know helps us process the world around us.
Looking back at the photos I took of Whale Rock, the granite appears less like a whale than I remember. I think this illustrates a notable aspect of names in the game of shapes. Once a name has been placed on a feature, such as a rock, it often predisposes the viewer to see that shape and makes it hard to unsee the feature. I know that when I got out to the Whale Rock in the desert, I immediately saw the lithic cetacean; I had been looking forward to doing so since I read about it at the Visitor Center, and I certainly didn’t want to be the doofus who couldn’t see the whale. But sure enough, there it was a felicitous synthesis of geology, naming, and my creative brain.
April 22, 2026 – Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal – 7pm – Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park – My co-author Jennifer Ott and I will be discussing the new edition of our book about the history of the Ship Canal and Locks. Here’s some info.
April 23, 2026 – History Comes Alive at Harbor Island – 6:30 pm – Harbor Island – I will be participating in a multidisciplinary event of incredible art, sound design, live performances, and projections. Come celebrate the island’s journey, from time immemorial to the talent working there today. Here’s some info.
April 25, 2026 – The Story of Birds – 7:30pm – Town Hall – I will be interviewing paleontologist Steve Brusatte about his new book, which explores the deep history of birds and dinosaurs. Should be fun and educational. Here’s some info.
April 27, 2026 – Secret’s of Seattle Geology – 7pm – Science on Tap, at Third Place Books, Ravenna, Cafe Arta – I will be sharing stories of Seattle geology and how it influences and has influenced Seattle and her citizens. Here’s some info.
“Divergent Perception: Framing Creative Cognition Through the Lens of Sensory Flexibility,” Journal of Cognitive Behavior 59, v. 3, e1525
