"Humans move 1000 times more earth than annual sediment loads of world's rivers"

GSA Bulletin article - summarized by Discovery program

Brandon McElroy of the University of Texas in Austin and Bruce Wilkinson from Syracuse University have compared the geologic record of past erosion rates on Earth with the amount of surficial material moved by man in farms. Humans rapidly are increasing the rate at which they shape the earth.

Landslide

The Christmas Tree Racket

Well, the New York Times has a story in their technology section today about selling Christmas trees online.

"The Perfect Tree Awaits in the Field, or in the Computer"

So maybe selling small trees online is entirely possible. I'm still trying to figure out how best to streamline the process for my parents. They have perfectly shaped small trees, the so-called tabletop Christmas trees that they want to sell online versus having to sell retail - all sizes. The problem is marketing and getting the website out in front of people - and looking professional enough and reliable enough to make purchasing a tree be a decent option. Apparently there is now an industry setup up to have bloggers advertise on their sites (you pay them to write about your product). Doesn't seem right - I feel strange enough talking about the tree thing on this forum that I started to talk about geomorphology but then again I've been too busy doing rather than talking. Will have another year to work on the website and the tree marketing.

"Don't make your tree look like bonsai, make your bonsai look like tree"... John Naka

I want to put more in on the site about the place the trees are grown, how they are unique, and why a tree grown in the wilds of Oregon using stump culture is different. But really the work comes into how to raise the awareness of the website (www.christmastrees4smallspaces.com). This isn't what I do, I work on geologic problems and study the earth, but I think I managed to pull off a decent e-commerce site without sacrificing the spirit of my dad's artform - his trees.

Tracks on the earth

How does a storm mark the ground and can you detect the traces years later? So often we look down (earthquakes, landslides) or upstream (floods, stream erosion) for the causes of landscape development but large storms have the ability to sculpt the surface as well, often rapidly. Hurricane waves in the Gulf of Mexico push down on the seafloor, causing massive shifts in the mud floor while sand dunes can be sweep many miles inland within hours. Tornados apparently produce enough suction to mark sandy soil...









Tornado scouring marks on ground, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, 6/27/1955
ARC 283877/78, NARA

Central Valley

Working in the California Central Valley so the larger view is appreciated. NASA photograph ESS008-E-5095

Holding back the waters

Flood along unidentified stretch of lower Mississippi River, 1927

ARC Identifier: 285972 National Archives (NARA)

Rivers and streams

...but we must remember that the river cut its way through a region that was slowly rising above the level of the sea, and the rain washed out the valleys, and left rocks and cliffs standing, and the river never turned aside from its original course to seek an easier way, for the process of uplift was not greater than that of corrasion.

Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and its tributaries.: Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872, under the direction of the secretary of the Smithsonian institution.

Excellent opinion article on the impacts of recent rainfall on the Seattle area.

Water has sculpted the Puget Sound landscape for more than 13,000 years. Inevitably, it will continue to play a pivotal role in our environment. The geological processes that created our landforms have rendered it particularly susceptible to wet-season soil movements.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/294290_landslides01.html

Thinking about Christmas trees reminded me of how fast things seemingly permanent can change overnight. Growing up on a tree farm, although the trees were not really a farm as typically defined, so much depended on the surrounding forest of which the trees were part. One year a forest fire burned a portion of the property wiping out large trees and exposing the underlying terrain on which new trees were grown.

Interesting to me was seeing hillslope features that I didn't know were there-something that carries over to present day mapping after fires clear the land and prime the slopes for landslides. A fungus needle disease almost wiped out the new growth one year, of the forest and the farmed trees. Was it related to the earlier drought years? Probably.

And, as I became interested in the landscape, the old wood plank roads from the logging days and how the streams converged into forks feeding the nearby river, I became fascinated with how change can happen so quickly and also so slowly. I've been fortunate enough to see almost instant changes with hillslopes coming down, putting my hands on moving slide planes. I've seen floods carve out new river beds and carry away trees towards the sea. I've been able to walk along fresh fault scarps and see things that are gone within days after large earthquakes. One of my favorite images in my mind's eye, and captured somewhat in the photograph here, are the offset vehicle tracks on the Twenty-nine Palms training area after the Hector Mine earthquake. Without the tank and other tracks from an earlier exercise, the surface rupture would still have been expressed but somehow the impermanence of the tracks and how they appeared at first to cross the pop-up structure of the restraining bends along the fault before one realized that they too are offset...that somehow hit home.