QUITO, Ecuador — The famous Darwin’s Arch in the Galapagos Islands has actually lost its top, and authorities are blaming natural disintegration of the stone.
Ecuador’s Environment Ministry reported the collapse on its Facebook page on Monday.
The rock structure — 141 feet high, 230 feet long and 75 feet broad — is less than 1 kilometer (about half a mile) from Darwin Island, and it’s a popular area for scuba divers. It’s not available by land.
“Obviously all the people from the Galapagos felt nostalgic because it’s something we’re familiar with since childhood, and to know that it has changed was a bit of a shock,” stated Washington Tapia, director of preservation at Galapagos Conservancy. “However, from a scientific point of view, it’s part of the natural process. The fall is surely due to exogenous processes such as weathering and erosion, which are things that normally happen on our planet.”
The special plants and animals on remote islands, some 600 miles off the coast of mainland Ecuador are famous in part for motivating Charles Darwin’s ideas on advancement.
