Althouse: "He was in search of rocks whose shape and placement gave him a sense of existential comfort instead of dread."

November 30, 2022

"He was in search of rocks whose shape and placement gave him a sense of existential comfort instead of dread."

"'That was the one that started me thinking about this,' he said, arriving at a bobsled-size boulder perched near the edge of a shallow cliff. 'That must say something important about the amount of shaking that occurred since it was put up there. If there was a lot of shaking, it would have fallen.' A hiking companion couldn’t resist a futile push. The boulder was deposited there, of course, by a glacier. 'Everything here reeks of the Ice Age,' Menke said. The last of the glaciers melted in these parts around fifteen thousand years ago. Auspicious."

From "Predicting the Earthquake That Could Wreck New York/A geologist heads to the hills to study precariously perched boulders, which could provide clues to the frequency of the rare major quakes that shake the region" (The New Yorker).

11 comments:

mezzrow said...: When your eyes are fixed on the horizon, is it possible to trip over something at your feet?

Is the focus on events thousands of years in the past or the future just an effort at gaslighting us out of a focus on what is obvious and present? Future earthquakes in unlikely regions. The eventual rise of the seas. Effective altruism to prepare for the long now.

Meanwhile the truckers are preparing to go on strike. Recall what happened in Canada when the truckers got all het up? The long now fades when faced with empty shelves and no gas at the pump. No Lance crackers at the Circle K. No formula for that baby that's crying.; 11/30/22, 5:56 AM
Eleanor said...: If humans had not discovered a practical use for fire, maybe New York would still be covered by glaciers. In the interest of stopping more climate change, maybe we should only eat raw foods and move back into caves. While we're at it, is anyone working on a plan to stop plate tectonics?; 11/30/22, 6:16 AM
Kevin said...: A square rock in the shape of a round rock.; 11/30/22, 6:40 AM
rehajm said...: Since when did we adopt the Winter Olympics equipment scale to measure boulder sizes...and is that a two-man or four-man bobsled?; 11/30/22, 7:18 AM
Howard said...: Interesting theory, color me septical. Just off the top, dating large landslides probably a better angle. Probably a pin in a haystack. It's called a passive margin for a reason.; 11/30/22, 7:28 AM
Gilbert Pinfold said...: John McPhee, please pick up at the nearest courtesy phone…; 11/30/22, 7:29 AM
mikee said...: Landslides and boulders shaken loose from great heights and surveys of suspiciously located stones. Not just thinking outside the box, but daring to look under rocks without fear of what might be found. This is science at its nearly abstract best. And at the same time, science requiring climbing to the top of a mountain. Good stuff. It might even work.; 11/30/22, 7:51 AM
Joe Smith said...: Fifteen thousand years ago, when herds of Escalades roamed the earth...; 11/30/22, 9:12 AM
Michael said...: I have been in several earthquakes in my life. The first was in Memphis which sits on the New Madrid Fault, a fault as treacherous as the San Andres. We were in a restaurant when the sound of a subway twined with the shaking of glasses and the swaying of light fixtures. No one needed to guess what it was. 150 years earlier the fault produced a quake so large it send the Mississippi on a reverse course, left boats dry on the river floor, created the vast Reelfoot Lake. The second was the Loma Linda Quake in which I was in my office high above the bay mud when the building made an unforgettable groan and began to sway. The building was built to quake standards but as the ceiling tiles fell and the file cabinets toppled my feet overcalpme the engineering and I bolted from the office and scrambled down the eleven stories. On the ground I could see the building swaying. Driving home I let cars get through overpasses before I gunned it through. Unlike floods, tornadoes, hurricanes earthquakes give no warning.; 11/30/22, 11:55 AM
Josephbleau said...: Too many x's not enough y. This article did not help this guy's career.

"using a carpenter’s level and an inclinometer, for which he’d paid eight dollars at Lowe’s. Most of the stuff I do is pretty low tech." Faculty at an Earth Science Institute at Columbia can't find a Brunton compass in the closet.

When the Columbia Mining Engineering Dept. (only one in the ivys). became the Earth and Enviro Eng. Dept. there was a break with reality. They should have known that only Lawyers are allowed to make money off the environment.; 11/30/22, 6:19 PM
Josephbleau said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/30/22, 6:25 PM