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The natural world. Looking pretty for 3.5b years.

Bobbing Boulders

Bobbing Boulders

Author: Hugh Bollinger/Wednesday, July 27, 2016/Categories: natural history, video, environment, adventure

                                  Illhorn Mountain and Illgraben Valley, Switzerland (credit: Wikipedia)

Geomorphology is the study of landforms and how they were created. Whether mountain building or erosion, drifting continental plates, or random events like floods or rockfalls these processes have produced all the landscapes on Earth. The Grand Coulees of Washington State were formed in a geolocial 'blink of an eye' when an ice dam plugging a massive glacial-fed lake broke at the end of the last ice age. Trillions of gallons of water flooded out when 500 cubic miles of water in Lake Missoula, was released. A 'Biblical-scale' flood, equivalent to ten times the combined flow of all the rivers in the world, cut the sharp canyons in less than 48 hours.

A Swiss video captured the process still happening when enough water, released in torrential rains or storms, fell on an unstable mountain slope. The bobbing boulders are the size of semi-trucks and mini-vans here.



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