00 / Institute

We read rock the way others read weather.

IGMA is an independent institute where geomorphologists, engineers and artists study how stone designs itself. We begin on the Sydney coast, with tafoni: honeycombs carved by salt over thousands of years.

01 / Principles

How the institute works

01

Measure slowly

Every site is revisited each season. Change is the dataset.

02

Section, don't sample

We cut digitally, never physically. The rock stays where it is.

03

Heat as language

Thermal colour encodes depth, age and stress, not decoration.

04

Open instruments

Scans, shaders and tools are published for other researchers.

Deep time
Present

02 / Chronology

A quarter of a million years in one cliff

−250,000

Deposition

Sand settles in a braided river delta. The grains that will become the cliff are laid down.

−120,000

Uplift

The sandstone rises and cracks. Joints open that will steer every cavity to come.

−18,000

Lowstand

The sea retreats 120 m. Wind scours the exposed face; the first pits appear.

−6,000

Salt returns

Sea level stabilises. Spray-borne salt crystallises in the pores and haloclasty begins.

Present

Honeycomb

Cavities nest in cavities. IGMA records the surface before the next storm redraws it.

03 / Departments