Taiwan is being built by a continental collision, and Taroko Gorge is the proof: the Liwu river has cut a canyon nearly a kilometre deep straight through solid marble, walls of it polished by the water, rising faster than erosion can wear them down. The marble is quarried at Hualien and the same metamorphic belt produces Taiwan’s nephrite. PUBLIC national park (rockfall and typhoon closures are real, check before you go).
Marble, serpentine, Taiwan jade
See it on the map
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
