Mountains Flowing:

(SFX: dramatic music, 4 LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out
of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also
dropped water.  The mountains melted from before the LORD) 
     THAT'S A RECITATION FROM JUDGES 5, WHERE THE PROPHET DEBORAH PREDICTED
THAT MOUNTAINS COULD FLOW LIKE RIVERS.  IT'S NOT SOMETHING WE REALLY SEE ON A
DAY TO DAY BASIS,  BUT A GROUP OF GEOLOGISTS RECENTLY SHOWED THAT MOUNTAINS
IN THE WESTERN US DO FLOW UNDER THEIR OWN WEIGHT. LESLIE SONDER IS AN EARTH
SCIENTIST AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

     Sonder: "Rocks on time scales of tens of millions of years. . . flow ever so slowly.   . .
You don't see the rocky mountains rolling towards you as if they are a big wave,. . .but it
behaves like a fluid."

     THIS CONTRADICTS THE LONG-ACCEPTED VIEW THAT LAND ONLY MOVES ALONG
ON TOP OF RIGID TECTONIC PLATES.  WHEN THESE PLATES COLLIDE THEY MIGHT FORM
MOUNTAINS, AND OF COURSE WHEN THEY SLIP PAST EACH OTHER THEY CAUSE
EARTHQUAKES. 

     Sonder: "It works reasonably well for continents, but when you start to look. . . in
more detail, you find that it's not a good description." 

     SONDER AND HER GROUP LED BY CRAIG JONES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
EXAMINED THE FORCES BOTH PUSHING UP AND PULLING DOWN AND DETERMINED THAT
THE BEST WAY TO EXPLAIN THE FORCES WAS THE IDEA THAT THE MOUNTAINS CAN FLOW
LIKE A LIQUID. 

     Sonder: "think of the contintnetal mass as a big slab of taffy.  when taffy is cold it is
brittle, but as son as it gets a little hotter it will start to flow and so the continents are the
same thing, they ver outer most part of them the stuff that we see on the sruface is brtitle
but not so far beneath our feet it does flow."

     FIGURING OUT NEW WAYS THAT THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPES FORM WILL HELP
SCIENTISTS UNDERSTAND OTHER ACTS OF GODS LIKE EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES.