Geologic Time, oceans Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Geologic Time, oceans - Assignment Example The softer rocks are greatly eroded than the harder strata (Timmons & Karlstrom, 2012). The softer strata are mainly made up of soft sedimentary rocks while the harder are made up of harder and older sedimentary rocks, which are mainly deposited at the bottom strata. This leads to the formation of the gorge (canyon) and explains its appearance. The upper strata are new and weaker; hence, they eroded massively and widely. The cross-sectional view of the canyon, therefore, appears as v-shaped. Moreover, the strata are eroded in irregular manner, depicting that some strata are harder than others are. Since they were once deposited at different geologic timescales and of different composition (toughness), they are subjected to different degrees of erosion. Each strata of the Grand Canyon was deposited at different geological time scales by the very processes that result to the formation of sedimentary rocks. The geological interpretation of the Grand Canyon occurred through a time scale involving may years ago. The horizontal formation at the bottom, which is the Tapeats Sandstone, was deposited in the region at about 550 million years ago. 250 million years ago, the preceding strata, the Kaibab Limestone, which forms the rim, was deposited (Timmons & Karlstrom, 2012). The whole strata stretch over 250 miles. In eastern Arizona, they are one mile lower in elevation. The uplift of the canyon occurred 70 million years ago. It took hundreds of years for the sediments to cement into a hard rock the sediments were unconsolidated and soft when the layers thinned and bent. The plastic deformation of Grand Canyon strata interestingly indicates the reality behind global flood of Noah. River Colorado starts from north central Colorado. It ends at a California’s gulf. The waters of the river come from the melting snow from the top of Rocky Mountains. It passes through seven states in the US; it also passes through Mexico. The main tributaries of River Colorado include San,

A series suggestion of principles and strategies that could be Essay

A series suggestion of principles and strategies that could be employed to create more urban ecovillages and sustainable urban n - Essay Example The explosion of technologies of the 1700s caused by the unbridled combustion of fossil fuels and a greater than seven fold increase in human numbers has put at risk the very basis of the earth’s social and institutional resiliencies. The beginnings of the perception of the changing natural environment and its repercussions were felt in the early 19th century itself when Henry David Thoreau (1854) published his book Walden. The movement to preserve the environment started in the 1960s in the form of the Green Anarchist movements. Murray Bookchin also in the 1960s put forward the social issues effecting the environment at the time and went on to coin the term social ecology in 1974. His belief was that all environmental problems were rooted in deep- seated social problems. Ecovillage Concept and Sustainability Over the years that followed ecology and conservation gained momentum as the period of industrialisation and economic development in terms of productivity and cost- benef it ratios grew. Urban areas expanded exponentially with little or no concern for the ecological quotient. Concern for the environment brought interest in the study on environmental mapping along with the growing realization that the parameters that determine the quantity of industrial productivity and economics don’t add up to an increased happiness quotient or quality of life for humans and the biodiversity. The realisation that the environment was reaching appoint of no return gave way to the ethos of sustainable development and a quest to achieve sustainability through judicious use of resources. The advent of the ecovillage concept or the sustainable neighbourhood initiative was one such effort to mitigate and arrest the loss of habitat and to take nature as a component in the economics and ecology of human living. Hildur and Ross Jackson the pioneers in this field, set up the Gaia Trust In 1987. Their 20 years experience in cohousing gave a head start to the Danish ecovi llage network. The ecovillage concept continued without any set definition or principles until 1991 when The Gaia Trust entrusted Diane and Robert Gilman to identify and report on the best ecovillages. The report Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities carried the definition of an ecovillage as stated by Gilman as â€Å"a human scale, full-featured settlement, in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world, in a way that is supportive of healthy human development and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future.† In 1993 Gaia Trust also took the initiative to form the Danish Ecovillage Network and in 1995 at the fall conference of the Gaia Trust at Findhorn Where 400 people from ecovillages from across the world participated the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) was launched. This global ecovillage concept has now come to transcend the urban-rural dichotomy and is fast becoming the post industrial way of organizing society at the grassroo ts level. Principles Successful neighbourhood initiatives are being based on certain universal principles of sustainability, self reliance and social integrity. These are broadly classified into four components- the social, ecological, economical and spiritual/cultural components. Hildur Jackson (1998) on the other hand visualized the elements in an ecovillage in the form of 4 dimensions-earth, air, fire and water. In each she placed another set of 4 categories of determinants that would