Three men face felony raps after toppling ancient rock at Utah state park and cheering

[conuly]

You know what their justification is?

“Some little kid was about to walk down here and die, and Glenn saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way."

*sigh*

http://nydn.us/H80yy2

Comments

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because a rock that was lying in the same spot for literaly thousands of years was totally likely to fall over any given minute for no reason, dude. That totally makes sense.

Tell you what, whether they're charged or not, they should get kicked out of the Boy Scouts anyway. Nobody that stupid should be in charge of teaching kids.

[conuly]

Thousands? Technically true, but millions is more accurate. Hundreds of millions. If the dinosaurs didn't topple that thing, some kid wouldn't either.

Well, unless they were really, really STUPID.

I wonder if we could, you know, prop it back up?

[rachelkachel]

Thousands is probably more accurate for formations like that, or tens of thousands. I don't think it would be millions, though. Sandstone is not very durable, for a rock.

Are you familiar with Balanced Rock, at Arches National Park? It used to have a similar formation nearby, but that one collapsed in the 70s. Just natural weathering. And Landscape Arch could collapse any time. They don't let you walk under it any more.

[conuly]

The park spokesman said it had been there since the Jurassic. How is that determined?

[rachelkachel]

I believe the rock was formed during the Jurassic, and eroded into that shape later. I'm not a geologist, I just visit southern Utah a lot - being local - so my knowledge is vague and possibly untrustworthy, and I haven't been able to find specific information. This is pieced together from Wikipedia and what I remember from my trip to the Grand Canyon this summer.

A few hundred million years ago, the rocks currently at the surface were deposited. They were then covered by other layers, until the entire region was uplifted about 17 million years ago, when they started to erode away. The formations in Goblin Valley were created when the harder layer above protected bits of the softer layer below, and they're constantly eroding and changing, particularly with the freeze/thaw cycle.

At Bryce Canyon - a similar area - the rate of erosion is a few feet every hundred years, according to Wikipedia.

[conuly]

Well, that certainly is interesting and useful information, but I must say I preferred the image of little baby dinosaurs trying but failing to topple this thing.

Reality. Spoiling things for everybody for hundreds thousands millions of years.

[rachelkachel]

As for how it's determined... carbon dating, that sort of thing. Matching up fossil records with similar rock layers elsewhere. Deposits based on what we know of where oceans were at that point? Limestone is full of sea creatures. Sandstone used to be deserts, usually.

[conuly]

Bah, carbon dating. That's the answer for everything, isn't it!

"When are you going to have kids?"
"I dunno, right now we're just carbon dating."

"Is is bread safe to eat?"
"Not sure, but you can carbon date this granola."