We seem especially drawn to natural wonders that appear to defy gravity, such as the now-fallen Old Man of the Mountain, the symbol of New Hampshire since 1945, and the now-fallen Punta Ventana, the sea arch that broke during Puerto Rico’s earthquakes in January, 2020.
The Old Man of the Mountain was a face naturally carved in granite.* It was a “face” as we see “faces” in cumulus clouds, visible to vivid imaginations and seen only from certain perspectives. From about 2,500 feet below the Old Man along America’s two-lane “interstate” that runs through Franconia Notch, visitors could look up to see a Mt. Rushmore-like head projecting out from the top of a cliff. But even from far below, one could see cracks. It collapsed in this century, yielding to gravity and ice wedging, coupled with exfoliation. And unlike vain middle-aged humans who seek cosmetic surgery, the Old Man’s broken face cannot be restored by the mother of all face lifts; it will not appear in an episode of Botched.
Little imagination was needed to see the sea arch called Punta Ventana in Puerto Rico. It fell, having been shaken to its destruction by earthquakes in January, 2020. Of course, like the Old Man, either gravity or seismic activity was bound to fall in the natural tendency of things that are up to become things that are down.
The processes that formed and destroyed both landmarks were natural processes operating as they have always operated to change Earth’s surface. With respect to the Old Man, its granite was subject to exfoliation, an onionskin-peeling process that lifts off external layers once held in place by interlocking crystals and the pressure of overlying rock. Uplifted and exposed to weathering and lower pressure at Earth’s surface, the rock of Cannon Mountain exfoliates. But it was also eroded by an alpine glacier that plucked boulders and carried them away. In doing so, the massive river of ice left by chance the face, the Old Man precariously cantilevered over the glacial valley into which it eventually tumbled.
Those who would mourn the loss of the face on the mountain should realize that it was at best temporary, probably not more than ten thousand years old, a long time for us individually, but a short span for Nature. The same can be said for those who mourn the loss of Punta Ventana. It wasn’t a matter, as we say, of whether or not the arch would fall, but rather simply when it would fall. No doubt over Earth’s multi-billion-year history, many such arches formed and fell.
That we just happen to be alive when a “wonder” succumbs to natural processes is a matter of chance. Unfortunately, none of us lives long enough to see the formation of new natural wonders that take thousands of years to develop. Sea arches, for example, form as wave refraction sends wave energy into the sides of headlands. You could spend your lifetime watching waves attack a headland (land that juts out into the sea) without seeing a sea stack form, even though one might be in the process of forming. Similarly, you could wait for the next glacial advance or go to Greenland or Antarctica to see rocks being plucked to form features similar to the Old Man, but the plucking of rock by a glacier occurs under the mass of glacial ice or along its sides. Again, you won’t see in a lifetime such processes complete their work.
Whereas it is true that some processes like seismic and volcanic activity, floods, and landslides produce features in the short run, most don’t. The Mississippi Delta has taken 7,000 or 8,000 years to form substantially enough for New Orleans to have the land on which it rests. Farther down the river the buildup was even more recent; there are towns on the Balize Lobe of the delta that could not have existed when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. So, even if delta development is relatively fast in terms of “geologic time,” no one living today could have watched the entire development of the delta.
There are those who would postulate some significance to the natural destruction of natural features, as though Nature, the Fates, Evil Forces, or even God gave some sign to be interpreted in human terms. But no, there’s no significance other than the loss of a tourist attraction or a feature that lends itself to Earth studies. Rocks form, they become features, they change in the rock cycle, and they become the stuff of new rocks. Look around the planet, and you will see such features in various stages of formation or decay. There’s no moral lesson, no message from the gods in any of the processes. Relish the landmarks you see because no other critters, many of them denizens of those very features, have the ability to assign significance or look on in wonder.
Change is the nature of Nature. You are lucky to see a change—if it doesn’t involve injury or death, as the family of the sole victim of the recent Puerto Rican earthquakes can attest. You got to see Nature in action in the fall of the Old Man and Punta Ventana; you got to see the consequences of natural processes at work. Otherwise, the slow development or decay of features goes unnoticed in a process known as uniformitarianism, Sir James Hutton’s and Charles Lyell’s hypothesis about how ancient Earth processes parallel those of modern Earth. What rivers used to do, for example, is what rivers do now. Most such processes occur slowly; some like the eruption of a volcano, a landslide, or an earthquake can occur in a blink.
To any earth scientist, the tumbling destruction of the Old Man and Punta Ventana was always possible. Their destruction reveals Nature’s indifference. But look at what I just wrote. I’ve personified Nature. Am I writing an allegory?
Maybe indifference isn’t the correct word because it implies a choice between caring and not caring. Natural processes and features make no choices. They just are. Does that mean we should resign ourselves to suffering from processes like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions? No. What it means is that we need to understand those processes and features if we are to anticipate some of their consequences. We cannot, of course, anticipate all such rapid changes, but we can avoid building on active volcanoes or fault zones, can move back from the river’s edge or sea cliff, or refrain from building below unstable slopes.
“Nature,” if such an entity exists, doesn’t choose. We do.
*https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=pics+of+the+Old+AMan+of+the+Mountain&fr=yhs-pty-pty_maps&hspart=pty&hsimp=yhs-pty_maps&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F5%2F53%2FOld_Man_of_the_Mountain_4-26-03.jpg#id=0&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F1DgHK_3gQwk%2Fhqdefault.jpg&action=click
** https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Punta+ventana+pics&fr=yhs-pty-pty_maps&hspart=pty&hsimp=yhs-pty_maps&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FBFXjzSai3oA%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg#id=0&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FBFXjzSai3oA%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&action=click
And
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/01/06/puerto-rico-earthquakes-destroy-tourist-spot-punta-ventana/2826863001/
The Old Man of the Mountain was a face naturally carved in granite.* It was a “face” as we see “faces” in cumulus clouds, visible to vivid imaginations and seen only from certain perspectives. From about 2,500 feet below the Old Man along America’s two-lane “interstate” that runs through Franconia Notch, visitors could look up to see a Mt. Rushmore-like head projecting out from the top of a cliff. But even from far below, one could see cracks. It collapsed in this century, yielding to gravity and ice wedging, coupled with exfoliation. And unlike vain middle-aged humans who seek cosmetic surgery, the Old Man’s broken face cannot be restored by the mother of all face lifts; it will not appear in an episode of Botched.
Little imagination was needed to see the sea arch called Punta Ventana in Puerto Rico. It fell, having been shaken to its destruction by earthquakes in January, 2020. Of course, like the Old Man, either gravity or seismic activity was bound to fall in the natural tendency of things that are up to become things that are down.
The processes that formed and destroyed both landmarks were natural processes operating as they have always operated to change Earth’s surface. With respect to the Old Man, its granite was subject to exfoliation, an onionskin-peeling process that lifts off external layers once held in place by interlocking crystals and the pressure of overlying rock. Uplifted and exposed to weathering and lower pressure at Earth’s surface, the rock of Cannon Mountain exfoliates. But it was also eroded by an alpine glacier that plucked boulders and carried them away. In doing so, the massive river of ice left by chance the face, the Old Man precariously cantilevered over the glacial valley into which it eventually tumbled.
Those who would mourn the loss of the face on the mountain should realize that it was at best temporary, probably not more than ten thousand years old, a long time for us individually, but a short span for Nature. The same can be said for those who mourn the loss of Punta Ventana. It wasn’t a matter, as we say, of whether or not the arch would fall, but rather simply when it would fall. No doubt over Earth’s multi-billion-year history, many such arches formed and fell.
That we just happen to be alive when a “wonder” succumbs to natural processes is a matter of chance. Unfortunately, none of us lives long enough to see the formation of new natural wonders that take thousands of years to develop. Sea arches, for example, form as wave refraction sends wave energy into the sides of headlands. You could spend your lifetime watching waves attack a headland (land that juts out into the sea) without seeing a sea stack form, even though one might be in the process of forming. Similarly, you could wait for the next glacial advance or go to Greenland or Antarctica to see rocks being plucked to form features similar to the Old Man, but the plucking of rock by a glacier occurs under the mass of glacial ice or along its sides. Again, you won’t see in a lifetime such processes complete their work.
Whereas it is true that some processes like seismic and volcanic activity, floods, and landslides produce features in the short run, most don’t. The Mississippi Delta has taken 7,000 or 8,000 years to form substantially enough for New Orleans to have the land on which it rests. Farther down the river the buildup was even more recent; there are towns on the Balize Lobe of the delta that could not have existed when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. So, even if delta development is relatively fast in terms of “geologic time,” no one living today could have watched the entire development of the delta.
There are those who would postulate some significance to the natural destruction of natural features, as though Nature, the Fates, Evil Forces, or even God gave some sign to be interpreted in human terms. But no, there’s no significance other than the loss of a tourist attraction or a feature that lends itself to Earth studies. Rocks form, they become features, they change in the rock cycle, and they become the stuff of new rocks. Look around the planet, and you will see such features in various stages of formation or decay. There’s no moral lesson, no message from the gods in any of the processes. Relish the landmarks you see because no other critters, many of them denizens of those very features, have the ability to assign significance or look on in wonder.
Change is the nature of Nature. You are lucky to see a change—if it doesn’t involve injury or death, as the family of the sole victim of the recent Puerto Rican earthquakes can attest. You got to see Nature in action in the fall of the Old Man and Punta Ventana; you got to see the consequences of natural processes at work. Otherwise, the slow development or decay of features goes unnoticed in a process known as uniformitarianism, Sir James Hutton’s and Charles Lyell’s hypothesis about how ancient Earth processes parallel those of modern Earth. What rivers used to do, for example, is what rivers do now. Most such processes occur slowly; some like the eruption of a volcano, a landslide, or an earthquake can occur in a blink.
To any earth scientist, the tumbling destruction of the Old Man and Punta Ventana was always possible. Their destruction reveals Nature’s indifference. But look at what I just wrote. I’ve personified Nature. Am I writing an allegory?
Maybe indifference isn’t the correct word because it implies a choice between caring and not caring. Natural processes and features make no choices. They just are. Does that mean we should resign ourselves to suffering from processes like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions? No. What it means is that we need to understand those processes and features if we are to anticipate some of their consequences. We cannot, of course, anticipate all such rapid changes, but we can avoid building on active volcanoes or fault zones, can move back from the river’s edge or sea cliff, or refrain from building below unstable slopes.
“Nature,” if such an entity exists, doesn’t choose. We do.
*https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=pics+of+the+Old+AMan+of+the+Mountain&fr=yhs-pty-pty_maps&hspart=pty&hsimp=yhs-pty_maps&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F5%2F53%2FOld_Man_of_the_Mountain_4-26-03.jpg#id=0&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F1DgHK_3gQwk%2Fhqdefault.jpg&action=click
** https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Punta+ventana+pics&fr=yhs-pty-pty_maps&hspart=pty&hsimp=yhs-pty_maps&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FBFXjzSai3oA%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg#id=0&iurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FBFXjzSai3oA%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&action=click
And
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/01/06/puerto-rico-earthquakes-destroy-tourist-spot-punta-ventana/2826863001/
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