Weathering does not attack rock evenly. It finds cracks, corners and weaknesses, and the shapes left standing are whatever it could not reach. Here are seventeen.
1. The Rock Was…
There is a distinction that changes how a whole category of coastal feature should be thought about, and it comes down to whether something is a population or a structure.…
There is a category of traditional building technique that looks primitive and turns out to be doing something subtle, and thatch is the clearest example available.
The appearance suggests a…
Almost nothing about a reef is the animals. It is a structure they built, shaped by light, waves and water depth, and every part of its form is a record…
There is a useful question to ask about any standardised object: what is actually setting the dimension?
For a great many things the answer is a material property or a…
There is a recurring result in materials science that is worth stating as a general principle: arrangement frequently matters more than composition.
The lining of certain shells is the standard…