Posted on 09/06/2005 11:55:52 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Nothing lasts forever.
Just ask Ozymandias, or Nate Fisher.
Only the wind inhabits the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, birds and vines the pyramids of the Maya. Sand and silence have swallowed the clamors of frankincense traders and camels in the old desert center of Ubar. Troy was buried for centuries before it was uncovered. Parts of the Great Library of Alexandria, center of learning in the ancient world, might be sleeping with the fishes, off Egypt's coast in the Mediterranean.
"Cities rise and fall depending on what made them go in the first place," said Peirce Lewis, an expert on the history of New Orleans and an emeritus professor of geography at Pennsylvania State University.
Changes in climate can make a friendly place less welcoming.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping
Alas, Babylon!...........
Except when it doesn't.
"Cities rise and fall depending on what made them go in the first place,"
Well, New Orleans still has the Mighty Mississippi - so it will rise again.
I don't know what happened to the other ancient places, but I do know what happened to Mesa Verde: the Anasazi were aliens, and the mothership returned for them. Okay, I don't really know what happened at Mesa Verde either. Where's Coast-to-Coast radio when you want to discuss these things?
Pretty good for the NYT (doesn't blame Bush, but geological forces instead).
But maybe not forever. Maybe just one big flood will take it away. Check out this. Here's an excerpt:
In each decade since about 1860, the Atchafalaya River had drawn off more water from the Mississippi than it had in the decade before. By the late nineteen-forties, when Rabalais was in his teens, the volume approached one-third. As the Atchafalaya widened and deepened, eroding headward, offering the Mississippi an increasingly attractive alternative, it was preparing for nothing less than an absolute capture: before long, it would take all of the Mississippi, and itself become the master stream. Rabalais said, “They used to teach us in high school that one day there was going to be structures up here to control the flow of that water, but I never dreamed I was going to be on one. Somebody way back yonder—which is dead and gone now—visualized it. We had some pretty sharp teachers.”
The Mississippi River, with its sand and silt, has created most of Louisiana, and it could not have done so by remaining in one channel. If it had, southern Louisiana would be a long narrow peninsula reaching into the Gulf of Mexico. Southern Louisiana exists in its present form because the Mississippi River has jumped here and there within an arc about two hundred miles wide, like a pianist playing with one hand—frequently and radically changing course, surging over the left or the right bank to go off in utterly new directions. Always it is the river’s purpose to get to the Gulf by the shortest and steepest gradient. As the mouth advances southward and the river lengthens, the gradient declines, the current slows, and sediment builds up the bed. Eventually, it builds up so much that the river spills to one side. Major shifts of that nature have tended to occur roughly once a millennium. The Mississippi’s main channel of three thousand years ago is now the quiet water of Bayou Teche, which mimics the shape of the Mississippi. Along Bayou Teche, on the high ground of ancient natural levees, are Jeanerette, Breaux Bridge, Broussard, Olivier—arcuate strings of Cajun towns. Eight hundred years before the birth of Christ, the channel was captured from the east. It shifted abruptly and flowed in that direction for about a thousand years. In the second century a.d., it was captured again, and taken south, by the now unprepossessing Bayou Lafourche, which, by the year 1000, was losing its hegemony to the river’s present course, through the region that would be known as Plaquemines. By the nineteen-fifties, the Mississippi River had advanced so far past New Orleans and out into the Gulf that it was about to shift again, and its offspring Atchafalaya was ready to receive it. By the route of the Atchafalaya, the distance across the delta plain was a hundred and forty-five miles—well under half the length of the route of the master stream."
Fascinating link. Thank you.
Only the wind inhabits the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, birds and vines the pyramids of the Maya. Sand and silence have swallowed the clamors of frankincense traders and camels in the old desert center of Ubar. Troy was buried for centuries before it was uncovered. Parts of the Great Library of Alexandria, center of learning in the ancient world, might be sleeping with the fishes, off Egypt's coast in the Mediterranean....but Twinkies are forever.
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If there were a major earthquake under N.O., or nearby, probably the whole works would slide, maybe right on into the Gulf, and nothing on Earth could stop it. But an earthquake is unlikely, so why not live below sealevel, right on the sea, in an area where there's a yearly hurricane season?
it's customary to ping people you name in your posts...
I did not know there was a "Alas Babylon!" Freeper! ........
LOL! Reminds me of how I found out about dagnabit...
Been here for 7 years. Ever read the Sunday talk show thread? ;-)
No, The talking head shows on Sunday are useless blathering from bung-hole chablis and brie journalistas who consider themselves the illuminati........I call them the illegtimati ignoranti........
"Where's Coast-to-Coast radio when you want to discuss these things?"
Don't worry. It is broadcasting into your fillings the way it always does.
You are not alone.
LOL! Thanks for venturing out to reassure me.
You're welcome.
I was out refoiling the roof anyway.
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