I’m laying awake, not able to figure this out.
If our civilization were to be left untouched for thousands of years then over time it’d get covered in dirt. Some future generation would have to “dig up” our civilization in the same way we dig up artifacts from the ancient past.
Where does that dirt come from? Is it floating around in the atmosphere? Or does it get created somehow (ie. organic matter decomposing)?
My understanding is that older artifacts are buried deeper, which may not be the correct understanding. But is there some relationship to dirt vs time?
So many questions.
In: 18
Think of all the mountains being constantly scoured by wind and rain and being worn down…all that dust is swept by the wind to other places.
Basically all the mountains and hills are being made shorter and everything below them are being filled in.
The Arbuckle Mountains in Oklahoma are said to be the oldest mountain range in the world, and they are very small now compared to “newer” mountain ranges like the Rockies.
Another example of sand being moved from one place to another by wind is the Caribbean Islands. These islands were formed *entirely* by sands blown west from the Sahara desert! That’s an incredibly far distance – all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.
Overall, it is really mind-boggling how much dirt and sand is moved by the wind from one place to another all around the world.
On a smaller scale, abandoned places can become overgrown with plants and vines (and sometimes trees), which eventually decay and turn to dirt – in which other plants take root, die, and turn to dirt – thereby becoming buried in that fashion as well.
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