Waterscapes

While it took 3.8 billion years to sequester minerals that surround what is still commonly referred to as New York City and build a baptismal freshwater flow, it took less than 100 years of industrial experimentation to corrupt it, and more than 150 years to build a public water system that’s been continually in process…

A photo of outcrops of rounded Stromatolite forms in a shallow pool of seawater — Stromatolites at Lake Thetis, Western Australia. Image Credit: Ruth Ellison / Creative Commons.

Waterscapes

While it took 3.8 billion years to sequester minerals that surround what is still commonly referred to as New York City and build a baptismal freshwater flow, it took less than 100 years of industrial experimentation to corrupt it, and more than 150 years to build a public water system that’s been continually in process…

A photo of outcrops of rounded Stromatolite forms in a shallow pool of seawater — Stromatolites at Lake Thetis, Western Australia. Stromatolites are ancient rock-like living structures that dominated the shores 3.5 billion years ago as the Earth’s first visible-to-the-naked-eye life form. They grow in extremely salty lagoons or bays in Australia, Brazil, Mexico and the Bahamas. Image: Ruth Ellison / Creative Commons.

“This earthly matter is an abundant fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of minerals, plants, and animals that comprise it. Some energy dissipated in decay, some is added by absorption from air, some is stored in soils, peats, and long-lived forests; but it is still a circuit, a slowly augmented revolving fund of life. There is always a net loss by downhill wash, but this is small and offset by the decay of rocks, that in the course of geological time, rises up to form new lands.”

-from A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold.

Left arrow (previous post)

Up arrow (back)

Right arrow (next post)