I Turn to You, Dear Readers

Posted on September 4, 2008 by Aunt B.

Why does the top of Russia look like Swiss cheese?

Filed under: Random Things

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11 Responses

  1. John Carney, on September 4th, 2008 at 4:42 pm Said:

    You would think that if any place looked like swiss cheese, it would be the holy land.

    (ducking)

  2. nm, on September 4th, 2008 at 5:41 pm Said:

    Glaciation? Plus repeated flooding, freezing, and melting.

  4. Toby Higbie, on September 5th, 2008 at 12:18 am Said:

    I’ll go with nm, looks like a post glacial landscape. I think those are pothole lakes. The idea is that as the continental glaciers receded at the end of the ice age, big chunks of ice were left behind. The water rushing out of the melting glacier carried silt that built up around the chunks of ice. Eventually the chucks melted leaving lakes. At least that’s what I recall from a class I took 20 years ago!

    You can probably find similar landscapes in the upper Midwest, below the Canadian Shield. Or check northern Canada.

    On the other hand, maybe it is cheese! Yum.

  5. saraclark, on September 5th, 2008 at 10:32 am Said:

    I’m going with Glaciers for $500, Alex.

    That looks really cool though. I wonder how it compares to Minnesota?

  6. nm, on September 5th, 2008 at 11:25 am Said:

    All the answers so far have been correct, except for the cheese. A formerly glaciated area with constant freezing and melting over a base of permafrost is what tundra is. You won’t find tundra in the lower 48 of the US, because we’re too far south for permafrost.

  7. Aunt B., on September 5th, 2008 at 11:30 am Said:

    Saraclark, I just looked at Minnesota and Minnesota does indeed look like that on a much smaller scale.

    NM, then what was that hell JR took me to in Colorado, where we drove up to the very high edge of the world and about made me throw up? I thought at the rest area I almost refused to leave that that was tundra.

  8. nm, on September 5th, 2008 at 11:50 am Said:

    Oh, maybe they also call the area right past the treeline on mountains “tundra”? I thought the term was only applied to open plains of stuff like this, in northern Russia and Canada. (ahem) That’s because I know the word from the Russian, in which language it only means flatlands, of course (ahem).

  9. Aunt B., on September 5th, 2008 at 11:55 am Said:

    NM, I invite you to look at this, to catch a glimpse of the hellish place my friends took me to:

    http://instaar.colorado.edu/tundracam/tundra.php

    I can’t guarantee that this is the same hellish place, because I had to close my eyes, but let me say that, when a day trip ends up with you at the hotel where Stephen King wrote The Shining and that’s the most relaxing place you’ve been all day, since there are no winding roads far above the trees, that says something.

  10. nm, on September 5th, 2008 at 12:32 pm Said:

    It looks pretty.

  11. Aunt B., on September 5th, 2008 at 12:40 pm Said:

    That’s how they sucker you in. “Oh, let’s go see something beautiful that we have to climb straight up this mountain while peering down a deadly drop into the trees miles below in order to get to.” Only they leave off that last part.

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