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Moonmilk Stone Landscape

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Dictionary of Geotourism
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This is a landscape consisting of milky white paste or powdered carbonate sediments with a high moisture content, high plasticity and non-fixiform. Moonmilk stone was first discovered in Switzerland in the early fifteenth century. Its mineral composition is complex; it is mainly calcite and aragonite and sometimes hydrous magnesite, calcium-magnesium carbonate, magnesite, trihydrate magnesite and dolomite. There are many causes for its formation, but microorganisms play an important role. There are numerous moonmilk stones in Shihua (Stone Flower) Cave in Beijing, Zhijin Cave in Guizhou Province and Jiutian (Nine Heavens) Cave in Shandong Province (Fig. 22).

Fig. 22
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Moonmilk stone landscape – Shihua Cave, Beijing

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(2020). Moonmilk Stone Landscape. In: Chen, A., Ng, Y., Zhang, E., Tian, M. (eds) Dictionary of Geotourism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2538-0_1605

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