South Front of the San Gabriel Mountains, Southern California

South Front of the San Gabriel Mountains, Southern California PDF Author: William B. Bull
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Erosion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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South Front of the San Gabriel Mountains, Southern California

South Front of the San Gabriel Mountains, Southern California PDF Author: William B. Bull
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Erosion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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The Control of Nature

The Control of Nature PDF Author: John McPhee
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374708495
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
While John McPhee was working on his previous book, Rising from the Plains, he happened to walk by the engineering building at the University of Wyoming, where words etched in limestone said: "Strive on--the control of Nature is won, not given." In the morning sunlight, that central phrase--"the control of nature"--seemed to sparkle with unintended ambiguity. Bilateral, symmetrical, it could with equal speed travel in opposite directions. For some years, he had been planning a book about places in the world where people have been engaged in all-out battles with nature, about (in the words of the book itself) "any struggle against natural forces--heroic or venal, rash or well advised--when human beings conscript themselves to fight against the earth, to take what is not given, to rout the destroying enemy, to surround the base of Mt. Olympus demanding and expecting the surrender of the gods." His interest had first been sparked when he went into the Atchafalaya--the largest river swamp in North America--and had learned that virtually all of its waters were metered and rationed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project called Old River Control. In the natural cycles of the Mississippi's deltaic plain, the time had come for the Mississippi to change course, to shift its mouth more than a hundred miles and go down the Atchafalaya, one of its distributary branches. The United States could not afford that--for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and all the industries that lie between would be cut off from river commerce with the rest of the nation. At a place called Old River, the Corps therefore had built a great fortress--part dam, part valve--to restrain the flow of the Atchafalaya and compel the Mississippi to stay where it is. In Iceland, in 1973, an island split open without warning and huge volumes of lava began moving in the direction of a harbor scarcely half a mile away. It was not only Iceland's premier fishing port (accounting for a large percentage of Iceland's export economy) but it was also the only harbor along the nation's southern coast. As the lava threatened to fill the harbor and wipe it out, a physicist named Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson suggested a way to fight against the flowing red rock--initiating an all-out endeavor unique in human history. On the big island of Hawaii, one of the world's two must eruptive hot spots, people are not unmindful of the Icelandic example. McPhee went to Hawaii to talk with them and to walk beside the edges of a molten lake and incandescent rivers. Some of the more expensive real estate in Los Angeles is up against mountains that are rising and disintegrating as rapidly as any in the world. After a complex coincidence of natural events, boulders will flow out of these mountains like fish eggs, mixed with mud, sand, and smaller rocks in a cascading mass known as debris flow. Plucking up trees and cars, bursting through doors and windows, filling up houses to their eaves, debris flows threaten the lives of people living in and near Los Angeles' famous canyons. At extraordinary expense the city has built a hundred and fifty stadium-like basins in a daring effort to catch the debris. Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking in his vivid depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those who would attempt to wrest control from her--stubborn, often ingenious, and always arresting characters.

Conifer Country

Conifer Country PDF Author: Michael Edward Kauffmann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578094168
Category : Conifers
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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San Gabriel

San Gabriel PDF Author: Richard J. Arnold
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467130613
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
San Gabriel is often referred to as the birthplace of the Los Angeles region. The areas first inhabitants were native peoples often called Gabrieleo because of their association with the San Gabriel Mission, which was founded in 1771; the mission became the fourth and most productive of the 21 California missions built along El Camino Real. Saloons and gambling halls arrived during the Wild West era, and shoot-outs became commonplace. Joshua Bean owned one such saloon until his 1852 murder. His brother, the future judge Roy Bean, inherited and operated his Headquarters Saloon until Roy was run out of town by local authorities. The vintage images in this book chronicle San Gabriel through the 20th century, covering city growth and oddities, including early resident William Money, the regions first documented cult leader and founder of the Moneyan Institute, and the infamous Man From Mars bandit, who terrorized the community with grocery store robberies.

From the Islands to the Mountains

From the Islands to the Mountains PDF Author: Richard V. Heermance
Publisher: Geological Society of America
ISBN: 0813700590
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Active Tectonics

Active Tectonics PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309036380
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Over 250,000 people were killed in the Tangshan, China earthquake of 1976, and other less active tectonic processes can disrupt river channels or have a grave impact on repositories of radioactive wastes. Since tectonic processes can be critical to many human activities, the Geophysics Study Committee Panel on Active Tectonics has presented an evaluation of the current state of knowledge about tectonic events, which include not only earthquakes but volcanic eruptions and similar events. This book addresses three main topics: the tectonic processes and their rates, methods of identifying and evaluating active tectonics, and the effects of active tectonics on society.

The San Gabriel Valley

The San Gabriel Valley PDF Author: Enrique Diaz
Publisher: HPN Books
ISBN: 1893619451
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 93

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Official--Automobile Blue Book

Official--Automobile Blue Book PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automobile travel
Languages : en
Pages : 788

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Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America

Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America PDF Author: Mason L. Hill
Publisher: Geological Society of America
ISBN: 0813754070
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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Book Description
One of six volumes generated by each GSA section for the Decade of North American Geology (DNAG) project, this centennial field guide contains descriptions of 100 sites or site clusters representing outstanding geologic locations in Alaska, southern Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

Technical Bulletin

Technical Bulletin PDF Author: Albert Thomas Mitchelson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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