For people interested in the subject generally I highly recommend John McPhee's anthology "Annals of the Former World." Actually I highly recommend everything John McPhee has written but this is a good start :).
I just finished Annals of the Former World. It's essentially a 700 page-long ode to geology, using scientific terms for their prosody as much as their meaning. I once saw someone else remark that "Rising from the Plains" was the greatest western ever written.
I used to think geology was a dumb science, but this book single-handedly made me obsessed with the topic. Geology is really more like "earth history" and it's a startlingly young field, a dynamic which plays out across the volumes.
Having recently gotten into watching documentaries or youtube videos of accounts of mountaineering expeditions it's amazing how lazy content creators, film makers and journalists can be when choosing what images or videos to show. You'll get something about climbing a mountain in the Andes and keep getting shown completely misleading pictures of Himalayan mountains, etc.
As a geologist with 2 degrees and a lot of passion in the subject, I’ve never heard of lithospheric drip related to orogenic dips until now, but I love it and kick myself for not questioning the over simplicity of typical thought around lower crust processes enough.
> a cold, round anomaly about 200 km below the surface.
> By estimating how far the drip had fallen and calculating the speed of its descent, the researchers estimate that the drip broke off between 2 and 5 million years ago.
A few megayears later, the bit that broke off is still falling.
200km in 2m years, I make that in the ballpark of 0.1m per year - a bit less if it's > 2m years, and started below the surface.
Geology is fascinating. When geologists describe effects over long periods of time, it's like they're describing liquids, not solid matter.
It's interesting to think about the fact that on a long enough timeline, all the matter that we consider to be solid actually behaves more like liquid; bobbing up and down like a rough ocean. The continents shifting apart like two opposing currents with the plagues sliding one above another like what happens when two great currents meet... All the solid objects we interact with are like liquids frozen in time and we're actually moving through time extremely rapidly. So rapidly that we are able to temporarily shape the 'liquids' before they eventually disintegrate and melt into a puddle; as also happens to us.
Thinking about the world in this way makes everything we do seem much more complex, but at the same time, more futile, than it initially appears.
What about ice pressing down? The repeated glaciations might have pushed in area down and back up several times over 6 million years. Might have even caused that drip to break off.
For people interested in the subject generally I highly recommend John McPhee's anthology "Annals of the Former World." Actually I highly recommend everything John McPhee has written but this is a good start :).
I just finished Annals of the Former World. It's essentially a 700 page-long ode to geology, using scientific terms for their prosody as much as their meaning. I once saw someone else remark that "Rising from the Plains" was the greatest western ever written.
I used to think geology was a dumb science, but this book single-handedly made me obsessed with the topic. Geology is really more like "earth history" and it's a startlingly young field, a dynamic which plays out across the volumes.
References to his books should carry a warning - something to the effect of:
"may inspire circuitous road trips involving many stops dangerously examining road-cuts on busy interstate highways"
And if you manage to wade through that tome, Myron Cook's Youtube channel [1] is an excellent place to continue your exploration of geology.
1. https://www.youtube.com/@myroncook
I can also recommend: "The Earth: An Intimate History" by Richard Fortey
Second for John McPhee! Also Rising From the Plains.
Can vouch for his “Oranges” too! A phenomenal writer
Why does this article have a picture of the Maroon Bells? As opposed to something along Green River or, ideally, the 700m deep canyon being described?
Having recently gotten into watching documentaries or youtube videos of accounts of mountaineering expeditions it's amazing how lazy content creators, film makers and journalists can be when choosing what images or videos to show. You'll get something about climbing a mountain in the Andes and keep getting shown completely misleading pictures of Himalayan mountains, etc.
I was confused by the image too:
A few images: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=4e98a81333b88c42&udm=2...
Map with elevation: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gates+of+Lodore/@40.585090...
> Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Using what they can from free, public domain sources.
Darn AI agents, I guess they are still cheaper than interns.
The actual paper (open access): https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...
As a geologist with 2 degrees and a lot of passion in the subject, I’ve never heard of lithospheric drip related to orogenic dips until now, but I love it and kick myself for not questioning the over simplicity of typical thought around lower crust processes enough.
As an exploration geophyicist who 1/ posted this, and 2/ can bang rocks together, I wonder if you've heard of Continental Drip, Ormonde de Kay, 1973.
It introduces an entire other level of simplistic thought.
The Südpolarfluchtkraft is out there.
Fascinating to think of entire mountain ranges moving up and down like the skin on a wobbly pudding.
And the speed at which it happens:
> a cold, round anomaly about 200 km below the surface.
> By estimating how far the drip had fallen and calculating the speed of its descent, the researchers estimate that the drip broke off between 2 and 5 million years ago.
A few megayears later, the bit that broke off is still falling.
200km in 2m years, I make that in the ballpark of 0.1m per year - a bit less if it's > 2m years, and started below the surface.
The invisible hand of the lithospheric drip
I would like to offer a digression on silver, but as it turns out the area was occupied initially for the fur trade:
https://npshistory.com/publications/dino/green_river.pdf
You sly dog.
Geology is fascinating. When geologists describe effects over long periods of time, it's like they're describing liquids, not solid matter.
It's interesting to think about the fact that on a long enough timeline, all the matter that we consider to be solid actually behaves more like liquid; bobbing up and down like a rough ocean. The continents shifting apart like two opposing currents with the plagues sliding one above another like what happens when two great currents meet... All the solid objects we interact with are like liquids frozen in time and we're actually moving through time extremely rapidly. So rapidly that we are able to temporarily shape the 'liquids' before they eventually disintegrate and melt into a puddle; as also happens to us.
Thinking about the world in this way makes everything we do seem much more complex, but at the same time, more futile, than it initially appears.
What about ice pressing down? The repeated glaciations might have pushed in area down and back up several times over 6 million years. Might have even caused that drip to break off.
It's a detailed paper by five highly qualified researchers, with over 100 citations, and thanks six different reviewers.
It seems very likely to me that they would have said something about this theory if it were relevant.
That wouldn't cause the "bullseye" pattern the article describes, would it?
I don't think the recent glaciation got as far south at Utah, anyway.
A time lapse video would have been great.
Unfortunately the camera was lost to flooding about 2.5m years ago, so the only visual records are some rock art.
Can we take a moment to appreciate that Dr. Adam Smith works at the University of Glasgow?