Surely there are some famous scenes from movies in which a statue becomes a living, moving human being. The idea is simply too cinematic to have been overlooked. But for some reason, a classic example of that doesn't come to mind.
When you walk through a desert arroyo (dry wash) you have the rare opportunity to see the normally slow process of erosion work on a human time scale. In that sense the landscape becomes alive for you.
The topography of the Southwest is dominated by differential erosion, but it is too slow to watch "live". In an arroyo you can see how foot-deep water has undercut a bank, probably during a flash flood in the late summer. This can produce an undercut several feet deep. Eventually the overhanging bank above the undercut collapses, producing a rather vertical wall.
Back on the job walking arroyos, near Socorro NM, it was fun to see the best examples of freshly fractured overhangs that I've ever seen.
Now imagine no more flash floods occurring. The normal evolution of the bank of the arroyo would be to become V-shaped, wider at the top than at the bottom.
"But these are just simple shapes," you say, "and they're not pretty enough." But development of the natural world is the issue here, not prettiness. Keep in mind that the microelectronic chips in your digital camera (and elsewhere) are based on processes analogous to what you are seeing in the arroyo:
Then the customer expects the whole miracle for virtually free, except the protective leather case that has the customer's initials on it; and off he goes to a national park, the 4,939,385th visitor for 2011, and looks for a purty picher that is essentially free.
At any rate I will continue to get some enjoyment looking for analogies between erosion in the arroyos, Southwestern topography, and microelectronic chips. It gives me something to think about while I saunter along on the loose gravel, while my dog blasts along like a flash flood turned into flesh, and while I look for an interesting bird or plant or a hateful coyote.
When you walk through a desert arroyo (dry wash) you have the rare opportunity to see the normally slow process of erosion work on a human time scale. In that sense the landscape becomes alive for you.
The topography of the Southwest is dominated by differential erosion, but it is too slow to watch "live". In an arroyo you can see how foot-deep water has undercut a bank, probably during a flash flood in the late summer. This can produce an undercut several feet deep. Eventually the overhanging bank above the undercut collapses, producing a rather vertical wall.
Back on the job walking arroyos, near Socorro NM, it was fun to see the best examples of freshly fractured overhangs that I've ever seen.
Now imagine no more flash floods occurring. The normal evolution of the bank of the arroyo would be to become V-shaped, wider at the top than at the bottom.
"But these are just simple shapes," you say, "and they're not pretty enough." But development of the natural world is the issue here, not prettiness. Keep in mind that the microelectronic chips in your digital camera (and elsewhere) are based on processes analogous to what you are seeing in the arroyo:
- A complex pattern is put on a glass photo-plate. This pattern -- which would make a Google Earth map of the desert Southwest look simple -- will eventually define all the zillions of transistors and connecting lines that are etched into or added onto the silicon wafer.
- Ultraviolet light is shined through the photoplate, and leaves a latent image of the pattern in a thin layer of photo-sensitive polymers that have been spun onto the naked silicon wafer.
- That photographic pattern is developed and etched away in places, but not in other places, according to the desired pattern.
- The silicon wafer/photo-polymer combination is dunked in acid; the unprotected areas of the pattern are etched away preferentially. Thus the pattern has now been transferred to the "topography" of the silicon wafer.
- Pattern after pattern on layer after layer is performed similarly until the microelectronic chip is finished.
Then the customer expects the whole miracle for virtually free, except the protective leather case that has the customer's initials on it; and off he goes to a national park, the 4,939,385th visitor for 2011, and looks for a purty picher that is essentially free.
At any rate I will continue to get some enjoyment looking for analogies between erosion in the arroyos, Southwestern topography, and microelectronic chips. It gives me something to think about while I saunter along on the loose gravel, while my dog blasts along like a flash flood turned into flesh, and while I look for an interesting bird or plant or a hateful coyote.
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