Kolkata: An off-beat photography contest called 'Geogony', celebrating the "madness of earth" took viewers off-the-beaten track through jagged rock formations, fractures, fissures and all kinds of structures that accord geological features a distinctive personality.

Organised by Jadavpur University's Department of Geological Sciences, the day-long maiden event on Monday saw lectures, quiz contests and a photography competition as well.

Termed "Photographie", the contest received more than 30 entries from students all across the country.

"Geogony, as the name indicates, gives us an abstract idea of the formation of the earth. Through this event we try to introduce the idea that there's a method in everything we term as madness about the earth," a member of the organising team told IANS.

From shales along river beds, needle-like shapes on metamorphic rocks, ridges and grooves, a bendy quartzite, pillow-shaped lava structures with vesicles, horse-headed rock formation caused by wind erosion to a hermit crab inside a gastropod shell, the pictures capture geology in all its joy, the organizers said. (IANS)