I like this article. Geoscience isn’t well understood by most people, so I usually get reminded of the Gell-Mann Effect whenever I read a news article about it. But, this one correctly frames landslides as having created these feature in the first place, and that they were always going to fall at some point, rather than treating them as eternal features.
The features we see around us that seem so constant, like mountains, rivers, shorelines, lakes and seas, are all in a state of flux. Geological processes under some of our most populous cities are moving them by measurable amounts every year, and the numbers aren’t microscopic (up and down too, not just the sideways movement many people have heard about). Where once there were sea beds, there are now jagged mountains, and there will sometime be fields and then seas again.
The ocean is rising by 0.45 cm per year.
This is one reason Indonesia is building a new capital city on Borneo.
We always see death as something perpetually in the future. But death can strike at any moment, like the proverbial thief in the night. Not only that, when it does come, it will not be in the future. It will be lived and experienced in the now, just like this very moment.
It's like we're on a speeding train with no view of what's in front of us. At any moment, that train might slam into an impenetrable wall or hurtle off a cliff or sink into the depths of the ocean.
It didn't question why this hasn't happened elsewhere in the world.
Further investigation showed that the land Seattle sits on has sunk 6 inches. (This may be due to the weight of the city buildings, or plate tectonics.)
There clearly is considerable difficulty in finding a reliable "zero reference point" from which to measure from.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station....
There are also regional variations caused by the change in gravity causes by the mass redistribution and ocean currents, so it’s not the same everywhere.
I don't see what's funny about 4 inches just in the last three decades. 8 inches over the last hundred plus years at seattle
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station....
seems very much in line then (given the lower rates before 1992). "Further investigation" was perhaps motivated by the search for something besides truth?
China's sinking land problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu_Y4hJmqGE
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
Fun tidbit: The formation mentioned, the Five Towers, is right across the valley from where most of the movie "Cliffhanger" was filmed (the Tofane Group around Cortina d'Ampezzo).
They look like a movie set. In fact, they look like a movie set that you'd go, "Man, mountains don't look like that."
I'm glad they got good pictures for this article. The Dolomites are often clouded in.
My wife and I hiked the Dolomites starting from Cortina d'Ampezzo a few years back. Our second day was from Rifugio Tofana, round the southern ridge of Tofana di Rozes towards Rifugio Lagazuoi. Despite following what looked like a major route on the map, the trail was scraggly and at one point totally petered out for a couple of meters. I reckoned this was due to rockfall at the end of winter, which the article validates. It was just about okay for a person to scramble across unencumbered, but we had 15-20kg rucksacks and the drop looked fatal. We had to make a call between taking a big detour (probably several hours longer) or finding a way across. Eventually we got across but it was hair-raising and risky.
We warned the staff at Lagazuoi about the broken trail, but they were totally unbothered. We were hoping that some kind of warning could be broadcast to local authorities, but either they misunderstood what we were saying or they just didn't care! Then a few weeks after getting back to the UK I read that some British climbers had died on a "via ferrata" in a different area of the Dolomites. I had a mixture of gratefulness that I'd gotten back alive plus sadness at the lack of safeguarding.
I've done three alpine hikes: the Tour du Mont Blanc, the Haute Route, and the Dolomites. The Dolomites were my favorite, for both the scenery (though all are spectacular) and for the quality of the mountain inns where we stayed each night. We spent one night at Rifugio Cinque Torri, which is not far from those rock towers in the story.
I took a lot of photos while hiking and while carrying the camera equipment was a bother, I am so glad I did as I can re-visit the trip, photo by photo.
All three hikes are highly recommended.
Rockfall is no joke. Even well established parks like Yosemite have seen a number of deaths from it.
None of us realized it would reach terminal velocity very quickly.
There is a Veritasium video about that.
# How Dangerous is a Penny Dropped From a Skyscraper?
On the other hand the Via Ferrata Monte Cristallo climb nearby is not recommended for families. This is the famous ladder in the movie Cliffhanger with Sylvester Stallone. Was always dangerous.
Immediately made me think of the 12 Apostles. (there were only 9 stacks at the time it was renamed)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Apostles_(Victoria)
It's down to 7 now, but it's expected new stacks will emerge as the coast is eroded. This is not some geological age timeframe. My father was a civil engineer on parts of the Great Ocean Road years ago, even moving one section of the road twice in his career as erosion exceeded their initial predictions.
>Around 300,000-400,000 cubic metres of rock came down.
Just the right time to secure the budget money in the name of the upcoming Olympics.
fatihpense•5mo ago
Geological mysteries, pleasant scenery, and calm explanation. Great for listening in the evening.
mwsfc•5mo ago
anitil•5mo ago