Weathering And Erosion Quotes

The beach reminds us of space. Fine sand grains, all more or less uniform in size, have been produced from the larger rocks through ages of jostling and rubbing, abrasion and erosion, again driven through waves and weather by distinct moon and Sun. The beach also reminds us of time. The world is much older than human species.

Imagine you are a member of a tour visiting Greece. The group goes to the Parthenon. It is a bore. Few people even bother to look — it looked better in the brochure. So people take half a look, mostly take pictures, remark on serious erosion by acid rain. You are puzzled. Why should one of the glories and fonts of Western civilization, viewed under pleasant conditions — good weather, good hotel room, good food, good guide — be a bore? Now imagine under what set of circumstances a viewing of the Parthenon would not be a bore. For example, you are a NATO colonel defending Greece against a Soviet assault. You are in a bunker in downtown Athens, binoculars propped up on sandbags. It is dawn. A medium-range missile attack is under way. Half a million Greeks are dead. Two missiles bracket the Parthenon. The next will surely be a hit. Between columns of smoke, a ray of golden light catches the portico. Are you bored? Can you see the Parthenon? Explain.

Weather is cyclical. It’s falling and then rising. It’s movement. Swaying, drifting, and swirling. It’s power. Gravity, evaporation, and erosion. It’s a potpourri of human emotion. Happiness, sadness, elation, and disappointment.

The arches themselves, strange, impressive, grotesque, form but a small and inessential part of the general beauty of this country. When we think of rock we usually think of stones, broken rock, buried under soil and plant life, but here all is exposed and naked, dominated by the monolithic formations of sandstone which stand above the surface of the ground and extend for miles, sometimes level, sometimes tilted or warped by pressures from below, carved by erosion and weathering into an intricate maze of glens, grottoes, fissures, passageways, and deep narrow canyons.

Cobblestone pavements were an upgrade from dirt roads in ancient times. They were functional and lasted for ages. Cobblestone is derived from the word “cob” which means round and lumpy and refers to riverside cobbles that were first used to pave roads. The modern version of cobbles is available in natural stone materials, mainly in a small square format with standard thicknesses. The first cobblestones were taken from streambeds, not quarried and shaped like the ones we see today. The name “cobblestone” now refers to any natural stone paver, particularly the square shaped Belgian blocks. These are more uniform in size and shape and are simpler to install. The durability of a granite cobblestone paved surface is superior to that of nearly any other material, and the distinctive “old world” appeal it provides may add a lot of beauty and value to the home. Why Cobblestone Paving? Because cobblestones were easy to source, affordable, and easy to install, they gained popularity in Europe. These rounded stones were sourced from riverbeds and were very useful for roads. They were great for traction and decreasing muck and sludge on the roads because they were created by years of erosion through swift-moving rivers. Cobblestones are a popular option in the community of builders, architects, designers, and even with homeowners who prefer doing a DIY project. Cobblestones are durable First, they are sturdy, long-lasting stones that can withstand the test of time, as shown by the cobblestone streets throughout Europe. They are prone to extreme weathering processes, environmental changes, or high traffic. They are a naturally sturdy and robust building material that withstands wear and strain without chipping, scratching, or staining. Cobblestone suits a variety of project spaces Cobblestones are versatile and come in various colour options, which makes them suitable for an array of project requirements such as driveway, pathway, and other high traffic areas. Cobblestones enhance the look of your home and even raise its curb appeal. This will not only make your home more appealing and pleasurable, but it will also help it stand out from the rest of the houses in the neighbourhood, which adds to its overall value and makes it easier to sell. Cobblestones are easy to install Cobblestones are easy to install since they are generally supplied in mesh form. A set of cobblestones pasted on a silicone mesh. This mesh is easy to install and covers a larger surface area, saving men hours of installation time.  Cobblestones require low maintenance These cobblestone pavers are not only tough, but they are also quite simple to maintain. A quick wash every so often will keep them looking just as stunning as the day they were set. As additional maintenance, you may only need to reseal these pavers every now and then to keep them in good condition. For ages, these granite stones will retain their stunning appearance and colour with little work on your part.

As students, we have already studied the four spheres and some of their basic interactions, and we have already reviewed the basics of erosion, deposition, and weathering. Since fifth grade, we have been told that photosynthesis converts solar energy to chemical energy, and since sixth grade, we have been told about Pangaea and Plate Tectonics. It is all just a loop. We are just learning the same things over and over again. I have always been left to ask myself, “Can’t I just find an activity that does not provide me with knowledge that is RUDIMENTARY AND SUPERFICIAL?

Now she held on to it because she had no choice. It had been Micah’s punishment for her rebellion: to trap her within this body. Forever. No more changing, no more trading up for something newer and sleeker. For two hundred years, Vik had been contained, forced to weather the slow erosion of the body, now plainly visible: the thin lines starting to carve themselves around her eyes, the crease now etched in her forehead above the tattoo’s twining band of thorns.

I was particularly impressed by the varying degrees of weathering and erosion seen on the different moai, which could be telltale signs of major discrepancies in their ages. The levels of sedimentation around certain moai also impressed me. Some moai have been buried in up to an estimated six meters of sediment, or more, such that even though they are standing erect, only their chins and heads are above the current ground level. Such high levels of sedimentation could occur quickly, for instance if there were catastrophic landslides, mudflows, or possibly tsunamis washing over the island, but I could not find any such evidence (and landslides or tsunamis would tend to shift and knock over the tall statues). Rather, to my eye, the sedimentation around certain moai suggests a much more extreme antiquity than most conventional archaeologists and historians believe to be the case--or believe to be possible.

The earth is a dynamic place [...] with multiple different processes of deposition and erosion under way at all times. You can make guesses based on style and weathering, but fragments of worked stone that have been in the open for an unknown period can't be dated by their archaeological context, because there is none. Carbon-dating organic materials in the sediment in which they were found won't work, either, because they were never entombed and preserved in sediment. And in fact no other objective and widely accepted method of dating can tell us how old they are. For these reasons archaeologists have to discount artifacts found on the surface when coming to any conclusions about the age of a site, even though the artifacts themselves may obviously be ancient.

It’s a lucrative business. Eastman is a compact, middle-aged guy with a weather-beaten face adorned with a scrap of white beard and mustache. He tops it all off with a cowboy-hat-shaped hard hat. Eastman’s father was in the construction business, and Eastman and his three brothers grew up greasing the trucks. By his own account, Eastman barely graduated from high school. But he took a bunch of night courses to learn things like project estimating, and started his own contracting business in 1994. His company did all kinds of contracting work, including a little beach renourishment, until the real estate market crash in 2006. Eastman realized that he would do better to rely on the steady forces of erosion and the government funding earmarked to fight it than to tie his fortunes to the vicissitudes of the real estate market. “When the market dried up, we reinvented ourselves,” he says. Today Eastman Aggregate Enterprises does nothing but beach nourishment, all over Florida and in neighboring states. Eastman has five of his own trucks and forty-plus people working for him. His company hauls in about $15 million per year.

Agriculture, too, will have to see a revival in planning if we are to address the triple crisis of soil erosion, extreme weather, and dependence on fossil fuel inputs. Wes Jackson, the visionary founder of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, has been calling for “a fifty-year farm bill.” That’s the length of time he and his collaborators Wendell Berry and Fred Kirschenmann estimate it will take to conduct the research and develop the infrastructure to replace many soil-depleting annual grain crops (grown in monocultures) with perennial crops (grown in polycultures). Because perennials don’t need to be replanted every year, their long roots do a much better job of storing scarce water, holding soil in place and sequestering carbon. Polycultures are also less vulnerable to pests and to being wiped out by the extreme weather that is already locked in. Another bonus: this type of farming is much more labor intensive than industrial agriculture, which means that farming can once again be a substantial source of employment in long neglected rural communities.

There can be no perfection or rising above all that is natural, only endless cycles of accumulation and erosion, disappearances and emergences played out on every conceivable scale. It is not our job to transcend our troubles and vulnerabilities, but to let the waters run through and over, and do their work. When something falls apart, another thing opens. We cannot know what will be better or worse, only that it will be different.