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This should be an educational and family friendly earthcache. This is located in a park that has an abundance of beautiful plant life and a creek running through. A gem in this concrete jungle.
Depending on which way you approach this cache, the terrain will differ.
Watch the kids around the creek. It can be steep in some areas.
For this earthcache we will be looking at the affect erosion has on the environment. There are two different types of soil erosion; Wind and Water. Soil erosion from water comes in the form of rain and runoff. When the rain falls, it can break up the particles of the soil, especially fine sand and silt, and disperse them. This destruction of soil increases with thunderstorms, or heavy rain. Runoff can carry these particles to rivers, oceans, streams or lakes. Runoff occurs when water drifts down a slope, or surface, and is not absorbed into the soil. Runoff increases when soil is crusty, compacted, or is over hydrated, as in it can't absorb any more water. This runoff can carry off more rich topsoil.
Soil can also resist erosion. This depends on a variety of factors. Things such as high amounts of animal and plant matter decomposed in the soil, the ability for water to pass through the soil, and good soil structure creates good resistance to erosion. Fine sand, silty and loamy soil has good resistance, other soils have a poor resistance to erosion. A slope can increase the affects of erosion, obviously, because it increases speed, and destruction of the runoff and sediment. There are farming techniques that can help this, but your best bet is to farm on flatter land. The compaction of soil can decrease soil erosion, but it also increases runoff, as we covered earlier. This increase can actually cause more damage than originally. Some farming techniques lower the amount of animal and plant matter in the soil. This can increase soil erosion. Soil that's eroded one year, is weaker the next, creating a chain reaction, where every year the soil gets worse.
When the land is covered with vegetation, the roots of the plants and trees interlock and interlace to bind the soil particles so the soil particles can't be carried away by wind or water. When, say a tree for example, is on the edge of a creek the particles of dirt stay around and inside the root mass causing further erosion to either slow down or divert to cause a separate portion of the creek to form and in extreme cases, causing a whole new creek to form.
There is a tree at the cache site that has caused a certain type of erosion to occur. Use the information above to answer these questions about the geological formation:
1. With the lesson above teaching about erosion and the different factors that cause different erosion types, how did the tree remain standing here?
2. What type of erosion caused this to happen?
3. With the way the base looks, do you think that another leg of the creek could be formed here? Why or why not?
4. How long do you think it took for this geological feature to form?
5. Pictures are no longer allowed to be a requirement for earthcaches, but they are always welcome! Feel free to snap a few of this beautiful nature area in this concrete jungle of ours. (Not a requirement.)
When you feel you have all questions covered, email me via my profile. Any "found it" logs will be deleted without answers to the logging requirements.
Resources: Personal knowledge of earth science. Wikipedia.com
CAA4JN
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
[Don't forget to send in your answers! Any "Found it" logs posted without answers to the logging requirements will be deleted!]