Gods, I love the intarwebs.
Oct. 22nd, 2007 12:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ambitious_wenchDid you know that in 1739 or '40 there was a catastrophic landslide in what would eventually become the northern part of Yosemite National Park?
S'true. Honest. Cross my heart. How do they know?
Good question. But first, here's a retracing of my internet journey that lead me to this knowledge.
Flickr lets you place your photos on a map. I was mapping my recent Mono Lake pictures when I started wandering; The Road to Hawthorne, Nevada. Dirt Roads to Bodie from Mono Lake. A dirt road the circumnavigates the eastern shore of Mono Lake. I venture north, see a few lakes, switch to Google Earth to find trails from the head of Lundy Canyon.
I'm following the border of the park, marked in bright puce green. And then I come upon a broad valley, and on the left what appears to be a massive, rectangular rock slide.
We're talking MASSIVE.
Hell, I can see it from way out in space on Google Earth, practically.
Tilt the image for a flyover perspective. Yup. MASSIVE. Tilt back to perpendicular, back up, and see the name of a peak on the left:
Slide Mountain.
Duh.
I swear to gods that the early white folks who came to America might as well have been kicked out of where ever due to a mind-boggling lack of imagination.
OOOOKAY. Off to Google. And this is what I find (Parameters: Slide Mountain Yosemite Geology): http://landslides.usgs.gov/docs/wieczorek/reg015-08.pdf
So, how do they know when the slide happened? Dendrochronology. Hmmm? Google it yourself. Go on an adventure of your own. Hint: Try googling for Douglass AND dendrochronology and Shulman and Methuselah
S'true. Honest. Cross my heart. How do they know?
Good question. But first, here's a retracing of my internet journey that lead me to this knowledge.
Flickr lets you place your photos on a map. I was mapping my recent Mono Lake pictures when I started wandering; The Road to Hawthorne, Nevada. Dirt Roads to Bodie from Mono Lake. A dirt road the circumnavigates the eastern shore of Mono Lake. I venture north, see a few lakes, switch to Google Earth to find trails from the head of Lundy Canyon.
I'm following the border of the park, marked in bright puce green. And then I come upon a broad valley, and on the left what appears to be a massive, rectangular rock slide.
We're talking MASSIVE.
Hell, I can see it from way out in space on Google Earth, practically.
Tilt the image for a flyover perspective. Yup. MASSIVE. Tilt back to perpendicular, back up, and see the name of a peak on the left:
Slide Mountain.
Duh.
I swear to gods that the early white folks who came to America might as well have been kicked out of where ever due to a mind-boggling lack of imagination.
OOOOKAY. Off to Google. And this is what I find (Parameters: Slide Mountain Yosemite Geology): http://landslides.usgs.gov/docs/wieczorek/reg015-08.pdf
So, how do they know when the slide happened? Dendrochronology. Hmmm? Google it yourself. Go on an adventure of your own. Hint: Try googling for Douglass AND dendrochronology and Shulman and Methuselah
no subject
Date: 2007-10-22 11:58 pm (UTC)Keep in mind the education level of those early settlers. Many of them probably could not read or write. If they had a Ph.D., they probably would not have ventured west looking for opportunity that they could not find at home.