The Durham Grand Canyon!

The Durham Grand Canyon!

u2w3.com

On Friday night, it was a perfectly ordinary, perfectly flat, cornfield.
By Saturday morning, it was riven in two by a vast trench up to 100ft across, 15ft deep and 200 yards long.

The enormous gully - so big that locals have called it 'the Grand Canyon of Durham' - is believed to have been formed in a matter of minutes when millions of gallons of floodwater from surrounding farmland suddenly tore through the soil towards the River Wear.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Don't you just love the power of nature?!

In a matter of hours huge volumes of earth shifted like it was nothing.... it just goes to show what can happen when the rains come... and they keep coming!

Just look at a couple of those photos with the man standing in the 'gorge' and you get an idea of just how much soil has been moved.

I'm sure it will be turned into a tourist feature quite soon.... ice cream anyone?

u2w3.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/7bde6df9c51a.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 22/7/09 by AlwaysQuestion]

That's amazing to think it only happened in a few hours time.

I've always been fascinated by nature, and this is a perfect example of how unexpected it can be.

Wow that is something!

There was speculation that the flood had exposed the original course of the Wear, which was altered by monks in the 15th or 16th century.

Just goes to show you that man doesn't hold a candle to mother nature.

Wow...I was expecting a canyon....goes to show what expectations do for ya, I suppose...we call that a ditch around these parts...but still a pretty awesome testament to how little permanent impact mankind has on this world.

Many of the comments on that site point to climate change as the reason for this...

Any thoughts on that?

reply to post by HunkaHunka


I agree - in a way. I completely agree with climate change, that things are moving around (colder/hotter/wetter/drier), but I think it's just part of a cycle that the earth goes through rather than anything man-made.

It's to big for main-stream news/politics etc. to say otherwise now simply because it's worth so much money (big business). Climate shifts means they can change things under the 'premise' of man-made and also charge us for the ride with tax. Change will happen though regardless.

Some great pictures and observations here:

www.ukweatherworld.co.uk...

Edit: I would say that this has absolutely nothing to do with climate change and anyone suggesting such is being disingenuous. It's an interesting event, caused by a localised heavy rainfall event. Such as happens somewhere or other every year. Nothing more.

[edit on 24-7-2009 by Essan]