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Seen here are Northern Ireland’s famous ‘Dark Hedges‘, a magnificent avenue of beech trees that were planted over 200 years ago by the Stuart family. According to locals, the road was intended as a compelling landscape feature to impress visitors as they approached the entrance to their home, Gracehill House. Two centuries later, the trees remain a magnificent sight.
Why seismic design is important, a three decade remembrance.
These images are of the formerly two-deck Cypress Structure on the route of Interstate 880, the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, California after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. When we arrived in the SF Bay Area in the early 1960s, the highway was known as State Route 17 and there was some amount of scandal over alleged shortcuts taken in the construction. Not enough rebar, not enough portland cement in the concrete and more. It didn’t help that the pilings were set into bay mud that wasn’t particularly stable. Even with normal traffic, the structure shook and vibrated badly and I hated driving on it.
So with just 15 seconds of shaking, down it came.
[April 2017] Fremont, California
Explore California's Big Sur Coastine, complete with cliffs, a famous bridge, and some happy Sea Lions.
Alpine tundra along Trail Ridge Road at Gore Range Overlook, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
mysticalnightmare
When you have someone good to accompany you, difficult road becomes easier to deal with
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But enjoying your own company is an art
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Biking on BLM managed public lands in remote utah
No, you don’t need to have your eyes checked! This stand of trees can be found on the road to Mount St. Helens, it is in fact a tree farm, composed of Noble Firs. The trees were planted after the previous forest, composing of a mix of old growth Douglas Firs and Hemlocks, were flattened by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. The blurry appearance of the landscape is accredited to the symmetrical growth patterns of the trees. As a result of regimental pruning and trimming practices in place to produce high grade lumber free of knots, the trees are highly uniform creating this eye hurting spectacle! -Jean Photograph courtesy of Matt Read http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2014/02/theres-nothing-wrong-with-your-eyes.html
Rockfalls
Like most scientists, geologists are classifiers. We break all sorts of features into different groups based on their properties; soils, weather patterns, volcanoes, you name it we can classify it.
This image is a particular type of a mass movement called a rockfall. Mass movements start with the basic rule of gravity – when something goes up it is likely to eventually come down. That rule obviously works on Earth, including with rocks that are built into mountains.
Rocks that have been thrust upwards in mountain ranges feel the force of gravity, but the resisting forces of chemical bonds that hold rocks together and the friction between one rock and another balance that force.
When rocks are broken by eroding forces such as cracking due to ice and water flowing over them, they can break away and move. It is this process that determines what we call the resulting mass movement. If everything moves chaotically while the mass slides along the ground, it would be classified as a rock avalanche. If everything moving downward moves as a fast, coherent mass, without much shifting of the rocks and dirt in-between, that would be a slide (landslide, mudslide, etc.). Finally, if a single rock or a handful of rocks break away and bounce, spending most of their time in the air with nothing around them, that would be called a “rockfall”
This is a huge example of a rockfall from near Jalalabad in Afghanistan. The areas in Southeast Asia dominated by mountains are obviously a common site for any type of mass movement, including rockfalls. The combination of high peaks and in some areas high rainfall causes lots of material to become unstable every year, and there tends to be a peak in dangerous falls, slides, and avalanches in the summer and early fall, just as the heavy rains from the monsoon arrive.
-JBB
Original caption:
This was a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ MEGA motorcycle tour of almost 8 weeks. From Lima (Peru) to the ‘End of the World’: Ushuaia (Argentina). Through 4 of the most significant countries in South America: Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. A perfect mix of paved and unpaved roads, cities and rural areas, culture and nature, mountains and plains. Just highlights in all the 4 countries. Too much to mention here.... Don't believe it, watch & enjoy this movie. Closed Captions are avaiable in English, Spanish & Dutc
Bodie Rd | Bodie, CA | September 2018
staring out the windows is for love songs and house flies
