Stone Mountain is a 700-foot (213-m) high dome shaped granite hill near Atlanta, Georgia.
It is thought to be the largest mass of exposed granite in the world, measuring about 2 miles (3.2 km) long and 1 mile (1.6 km) wide.
The monadnock was formed 300 million years ago when hot liquid rock, called magma, approached the Earth’s surface and later hardened.
Eventually the land on top of the rock eroded or washed away and left the top of the rock exposed.
Granite was quarried at Stone Mountain until 1978.
Today Stone Mountain is a state park, and visitors come to see the world’s largest bas-relief carving on one side, a memorial to the South’s Civil War heroes, including Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.
Even though Stone Mountain reminds some people of Ayers Rock in Australia, these two rock outcroppings differ in several ways.
Ayers Rock is made up of sandstone and is much larger, it rises more than 1,100 feet (335 m) high and is about 11 miles (18 km) long and 1 mile (1.6 km) wide.
