Hell, Grand Cayman
Coordinates: 19°22′46″N 81°24′24″W / 19.37935°N 81.40678°W
Hell is a group of short, black, limestone formations located in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. Located in West Bay, it is roughly the size of half a football field. Visitors are not permitted to walk on the limestone formations but viewing platforms are provided.
There are numerous versions of how Hell received its name, but they are generally variations on "a ministration exclaimed, 'This is what Hell must look like.'"
It is also claimed that the name "Hell" is derived from the fact that if a pebble is thrown out into the formation, it echoes among the limestone peaks and valleys and sounds as if the pebble is falling all the way down to "Hell."
Regardless of how it first came to be called Hell, the name stuck and the area has become a tourist attraction, featuring a fire-engine red hell-themed post office from which you can send "postcards from hell", and a gift shop with "Satan" Ivan Farrington passing out souvenirs while greeting people with phrases like "How the hell are you?" and "Where the hell are you from?"
Ironically, some of the stores in the area feature prominent quotations from the Bible on their sides. This is due to the pious and religious nature of Caymanian society.
"Hell is a unique formation which is characterized by jagged, spongy pinnacles of black-covered limestone. This phytokarst formation is produced when attacking filamentous algae interact with the Ironshore Formation limestone present at this location."
"Phytokarst is a distinctive landform resulting from a curious type of biologic erosion. Filamentous algae bore their way into limestone to produce black-coated, jagged pinnacles marked by delicate, lacy dissection that lacks any gravitational orientation. Ordinary rainfall-produced karst and littoral karst are characterized by flat-bottomed pans and vertically oriented flutes, thus differing from phytokarst. Algae attack by dissolving calcite preferentially to dolomite."
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