Well, in its history, it has been or is all of these things. This article on a copper mine that the Chinese are planning to build in a few years does a great job of shedding some light on the lavish and impressive history of this war-torn region. Helmand province, one of the most bitterly contested between NATO and the Taliban in modern memory, was once home to an impressive, and wealthy, presumably Buddhist civilization. It was all based on the mining of copper. This brown metal brought fabulous riches to this area, at least until all the trees were used up and smelting could no longer occur. Today, the Chinese are planning on extracting it and, once again, the Afghan people will benefit economically. The sad part, though, is the cultural loss that is inevitable with this type of a mine. The plan is to build an opencast mine. I've included a picture of the Mirna Mine in Siberia (Diamond mine) for reference...in case you don't know what one of these looks like:
All I can say is "ecological and archaeological disaster". None of these ancient sites will exist any longer. How sad.
On a lighter note (not really), could our civilization survive an electromagnetic pulse? Well, this article explores that question. They can occur naturally (the sun) or be created by man (military weaponry, terrorist A-bomb) and essentially fry electronics. A large enough pulse could sideline power for millions of people at a time over a huge region. Check this article out!
Geology -- We are taking our quiz on chapter 9 today and will start talking about Mass Wasting (Chapter 8).
Astronomy -- Mercury was hot, but Venus is hotter! Venus today, Mars on Thursday!
Geology BRCC -- Come early tomorrow, we leave at 7:30. We're going to Bergton to gauge streams! Friday, we'll analyze our data.
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