THE SINKING EARTH

Rex Burress

Suddenly it seems there is subsidence in the soil! “The soil is sinking! The soil is sinking!” said Chicken Little, “and we must tell the king!” What would King President say? “Fake news?”

However, if you can believe anything anymore, with scientific measurements, several locations show a nearly two foot lowering of the soil-level in places, especially in Colusa County and along the California Aqueduct, evidently caused by over-use of groundwater aquifers, so states a report of the Sacramento Valley Survey. If soil fills that void, can water ever regain its former space?

Although we like to think the earth is stable, like our health and house, the truth is that the planet and most features on it are very unstable and in a constant flux of change. Volcanoes, earthquakes, and erosion lead the way, but there are many subtle ways that soil, and even mountains, are moved! An inferno fire like at Paradise, or a wipe-out flood, can change people's lives and alter landscapes.

Ever since Earth was in a fiery fluid state and started cooling, holes have developed, bubbles in basalt have been refilled with minerals [geodes], water has riddled rocks and created caves, especially in limestone, and waters have eroded canyons and made stream and river channels. Loren Eiseley said, “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” Natural phenomena like water, wind, sun, ice, erosion, earthquakes, and time have contributed to changing landscapes and subsidence of soil. But water and the lack of water is the big mover. Agriculture, well-digging, [oil wells, fracking, pipelines], and mining cause disturbances, too. Around cities, pipes, foundations, and infrastructure, barely allow room for soil.

On the periphery of hole-makers are craters left by asteroid and meteorite crashes. Ever since the surface of the planet has solidified, it has been pounded by a chaotic throng of flung space stones, the damage disguised by Earth's vegetation. I know of one crater basin in the Mayacama Mountains west if Napa Valley that is completely cloaked with oaks and manzanita, including a spring-fed swamp filled with giant Woodwardie Ferns! Visitors can see only a basin of peace where once there was utter disaster, unless you look beyond the new-born floral beauty.

Imagine the intrusion of a wall of volcanic lava that flowed down from Lassen country some 20-million-years-ago to make Table Mountain. In and around the hard basalt, there are gaps and holes created in the process of time, both natural and man-made. Right now, basalt is being crushed for gravels on the west side, and ancient sandy rivers are being mined for the silica in the east side Morris Ravine. On the south side at the dead-end of Indian Canyon, caves have been dug in pursuit of petrified wood. After millions of years of this [if mankind lasts that long], Table Mountain may not exist!

Less extensive hole-making is caused by waterfalls grinding away at hard rock, and animals burrowing into the soil in quest of finding food or digging dens. Getting out of sight into the ground is the salvation of many mammals, but the biggest earth-mover is man. Nothing is safe from machinery, and even the gold-miner's shovels made a dent. Vast “Twin Tunnels” are proposed to move water over desert spaces, “war silos” holding nuclear madness fissure the earth, and even Oroville Dam has a huge hole with water turbines.

With sinking soil and diggers, it is doubtful that mankind will exist on Planet Earth for a million years...and how long will an abused special planet provide a marvelous foundation for life? Who wants to live and die on a space-station, or the Moon, or on Mars? Patrick Henry said in 1775,“As for me, give me liberty or give me death,” and he didn't even know about future sinking soil, satellites, or even airplanes!

 “Silence is the necessary soil for any thought to flourish”--Stephan Hough

“Americans are worried about climate change because they can already witness its effects. They see its signature in the drought of California, where record heat has dried the state's fertile soil.”--Brian Schatz