Massive Sinkholes
It is likely that some people consider life itself and their lives in particular to represent massive sinkholes out of which they are incapable of scrambling, despite their most ardent attempts to rescue themselves. From a life of misery, one that promises them nothing for the future.
They can be living in wealthy countries or those countries which have not yet advanced beyond the 19th Century in terms of civil accommodations. They can be the victims of their own bad choices, or victims of a dictatorially oppressive regime.
But somewhere in those psyches, however broken by bad life experiences due to personal improvidence or impersonal lack of opportunities, there is likely a tiny spark of hope. That, in some ways unimagined, they will not be left to a fate that swallows them into a bleak, black empty hole.
So it is just as well that no one can foresee the future, that human beings are not imbued with a sixth sense or a visionary capability that would reveal the future to them. The future is a mystery to us all.
Here was a family, two parents, two children, living in a small rural community in Quebec, surrounded at a remove by neighbours and extended family. Close to a tiny town named for the patron saint of lost causes: Saint-Jude.
A rural road leading to other dispersed private properties ran across the front of this family's property. Their house was only 15 years old, with a lovely pale green metal roof, a two-story family dwelling. With a finished basement.
It was there, in that basement, where the family had assembled for a relaxed and comfortable evening to share the viewing of television. And it was there, in their home, in the finished recreation room that all four family members, parents and children sitting together on a sofa in front of their television set, that all died.
A family pet, a dog, chained to a tether outside survived; discovered by rescuers hours later, wet, mud-slathered and decidedly confused.
No one could save the parents and the children for they suffocated, suffocated in a mudslide that inundated the house, after their house had been swept off its foundation, and into a huge sinkhole of leda clay that had dissolved as a result of becoming too unstable through a surfeit of rain.
Who might have suspected such a dread occurrence might exist? But it can, and it has on occasion in that part of Canada where once Lake Champlain rested.
That ancient lake, long gone, left behind its bed of leda clay. Much of the Province of Quebec and some of the Province of Ontario, particularly the Ottawa Valley, is based on leda clay; in the Ottawa Valley, a mixture of leda clay and sand, a very unstable geology.
The sinkhole measured half a kilometre long and 30 metres deep. A dreadful natural geological phenomenon that ancient glaciers which receded ten- to 12-thousand years ago, gifted us with. This type of clay has severely limited strength with mechanical properties that are quite amazing.
When this clay becomes saturated it can liquify. In a small community where everyone knows everyone else, and there are extended family connections, this tragedy hits particularly hard.
calgaryherald.com
They can be living in wealthy countries or those countries which have not yet advanced beyond the 19th Century in terms of civil accommodations. They can be the victims of their own bad choices, or victims of a dictatorially oppressive regime.
But somewhere in those psyches, however broken by bad life experiences due to personal improvidence or impersonal lack of opportunities, there is likely a tiny spark of hope. That, in some ways unimagined, they will not be left to a fate that swallows them into a bleak, black empty hole.
So it is just as well that no one can foresee the future, that human beings are not imbued with a sixth sense or a visionary capability that would reveal the future to them. The future is a mystery to us all.
Here was a family, two parents, two children, living in a small rural community in Quebec, surrounded at a remove by neighbours and extended family. Close to a tiny town named for the patron saint of lost causes: Saint-Jude.
A rural road leading to other dispersed private properties ran across the front of this family's property. Their house was only 15 years old, with a lovely pale green metal roof, a two-story family dwelling. With a finished basement.
It was there, in that basement, where the family had assembled for a relaxed and comfortable evening to share the viewing of television. And it was there, in their home, in the finished recreation room that all four family members, parents and children sitting together on a sofa in front of their television set, that all died.
A family pet, a dog, chained to a tether outside survived; discovered by rescuers hours later, wet, mud-slathered and decidedly confused.
No one could save the parents and the children for they suffocated, suffocated in a mudslide that inundated the house, after their house had been swept off its foundation, and into a huge sinkhole of leda clay that had dissolved as a result of becoming too unstable through a surfeit of rain.
Who might have suspected such a dread occurrence might exist? But it can, and it has on occasion in that part of Canada where once Lake Champlain rested.
That ancient lake, long gone, left behind its bed of leda clay. Much of the Province of Quebec and some of the Province of Ontario, particularly the Ottawa Valley, is based on leda clay; in the Ottawa Valley, a mixture of leda clay and sand, a very unstable geology.
The sinkhole measured half a kilometre long and 30 metres deep. A dreadful natural geological phenomenon that ancient glaciers which receded ten- to 12-thousand years ago, gifted us with. This type of clay has severely limited strength with mechanical properties that are quite amazing.
When this clay becomes saturated it can liquify. In a small community where everyone knows everyone else, and there are extended family connections, this tragedy hits particularly hard.
calgaryherald.com
Labels: Canada, Environment, Nature
posted by Pieface @ 6:27 PM
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