14
votes
Could a massive flood have formed the Grand Canyon?
tl;dr: no.
Long answer:
First of all, like mentioned by others in the comments, you would need some physical mechanism to take a whole lot of water, evaporate it, and drop it at once at a place ...
- 23.1k
13
votes
How long does it take for a stone to alter?
Mountains and rock do decompose or weather into sediment. A basic rock cycle overview shows the possible pathways between all three rock types (igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary) how one type ...
- 5,959
11
votes
Accepted
Will the oceans swallow all of the land?
If no new mountains were built, yes. Ultimately the processes of erosion would render the continents flat, and the seas would be left shallow and filled with sediments. The reason that this doesn't ...
- 281
10
votes
Accepted
Erosion without weathering?
Your concept of weathering is erroneous. It is not uncovering or stripping off material. Weathering is a very slow process of breaking down rocks, soil & minerals, in-situ, via contact with the ...
- 24.6k
9
votes
Have there ever been any islands that disappeared due to rising sea level?
Definitely, there are lots.
As you say, sea-level is rising in most (but not all) coastal areas. Indeed, at the end of the last ice age ca. 12,000 years ago, sea-levels rose about 120 m. Many islands ...
- 11k
8
votes
Accepted
Could a massive flood have formed the Grand Canyon?
In addition to all of the above there are meanders inn the Grand Canyon which are hydraulic outcomes of 'minimum energy flow configurations'. This constrains the discharge rates that are possible - to ...
- 14.2k
7
votes
Are there any photographs of mountains without significant erosion (on Earth or otherwise)
Fresh shield volcanoes that are dome-shaped may be of interest to you.
Shield volcanoes on Venus - The Pancake Domes
Shield volcanoes on Earth - The Galapagos Islands
- 13.5k
7
votes
Accepted
Confused about whether physical impact is 'erosion'
I'm assuming here that you're asking whether you can apply the term ‘erosion’ to the damage your stone suffered, rather than the damage your floor suffered. In this case, the applicability of the term ...
- 5,431
6
votes
Accepted
Is an underground mine collapse or a tunnel collapse called a sinkhole?
This is probably more of an English language question than a science question.
The answer to it depends on the extent of a person's vocabulary & knowledge of a particular field of engineering.
...
- 24.6k
6
votes
Are craters on Earth covered by vegetation?
No, there are nowhere near this many craters on earth.
I think you're asking if there are lots of craters on earth too, but they're hard to see because of vegetation and the oceans. The answer is 'no'...
- 11k
6
votes
Are craters on Earth covered by vegetation?
Without water there would be no multi-billion year history of plate tectonics, no glacial action, and no fluvial erosion, so the Earth would look unrecognizably primitive. But we have an atmosphere, ...
- 14.2k
6
votes
Accepted
Could the Grand Canyon be flooded by the ocean if it got deep enough?
It is unlikely just from erosion. There are a couple reasons for this but because of the time scale over which this process would occur, other phenomenons might change the geologic picture completely.
...
- 246
6
votes
Accepted
How do canyons form?
I guess you are talking about subaerial (as opposed to submarine) canyons, and are mostly thinking of numerical (as opposed to physical) models.
I expect there are numerical models suitable for ...
- 11k
5
votes
Are craters on Earth covered by vegetation?
Erosion (especially), viscous relaxation, uplift, crust recycling (in the long term), volcanic activity, filling of the crater with deposits, and distortion by crust deformation (eg earthquakes) are ...
- 1,207
5
votes
Accepted
Are craters on Earth covered by vegetation?
Well the oceanic crust get recycled (through subduction), the oldest being only ~200 million year old, and the average, much younger. And on continents it is not just vegetation but dynamic processes ...
- 2,381
5
votes
How have global sedimentation rates changed over the last billion years?
Big question.
There is not enough data resolution at the moment, neither spatially nor temporally. There are geological periods thought to have undergone higher erosion rates based on the abundance ...
- 1,723
5
votes
The Dust Bowl: how's the recovery of all that topsoil going?
Soil is not a single uniform material. When wind erosion takes hold, as in the infamous 'dust bowl' of the 1930s, it is the uppermost A horizon, and to a lesser extent the B horizon that is mainly ...
- 14.2k
5
votes
Will the oceans swallow all of the land?
Interesting question.
As long as plate tectonics persists, then, as @Arkenstein mentions, mountain building and ocean basin formation will create enough topographical variety to ensure that land ...
- 1,082
4
votes
Accepted
How does the west coast of Japan have cliffs?
Why are waves from full width oceans critical for the formation of cliffs? There are many cliffs in inland regions, particularly, mountainous regions & escarpments along rivers.
The sides of Table ...
- 24.6k
4
votes
Accepted
How large is the chance that the Badlands Guardian emerged from natural processes?
The chance that this occurs in this particular spot is indeed small. The chance that a natural face-like feature occurs somewhere on the earth's hundreds of millions of square miles of land area is ...
- 380
3
votes
How does this melted-wax erosion pattern form in sandstone?
Differential erosion, the "wax-drips" have been hardened by chemical deposition, usually by calcium salts, washed down from the soil at the top of the cliff. There are different mineral deposits that ...
- 4,260
3
votes
Accepted
How long will it take for the ocean to erode Rockall?
Impossible to give an accurate answer because nobody has ever studied rates of erosion of this kind of rock in such a setting. Typical long-term rates of cliff cut-back in an exposed position are 5 to ...
- 14.2k
3
votes
Are there any photographs of mountains without significant erosion (on Earth or otherwise)
Alternatively, are there any mountains on Earth where (for whatever
reason) erosion hasn't played a big role in shaping them so far, and
which therefore look similar to the uneroded mountains one ...
- 2,783
3
votes
Are there any photographs of mountains without significant erosion (on Earth or otherwise)
It's a question of rates of erosion. All mountains start to erode from the moment that mountain building begins. The erosion stops, or slows down to minuscule amounts when the mountains are protected ...
- 14.2k
3
votes
What is the purpose of analyzing the bed-load of a river?
Typically rivers can be divided into three areas when it comes to erosion:
far upstream there is the area where most erosion happens
in the middle mostly transport of material happens
downstream ...
- 726
3
votes
What is the erosion rate of mountains?
This may not answer your question, but it indicates that erosion is extreme at high altitudes.
More than 60 percent of the sediment delivered to the world's oceans in the prehuman world originated ...
- 2,369
3
votes
Accepted
What produces these amazing 3D structures in Tibet?
The terrain examples show some striking similarities to what is referred to in the United States as "Badlands" - a type of terrain formed by layered sedimentary strata of rock that is soft enough to ...
- 1,144
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