Leo Caesius
Banned
My favorite artist is Gian Battista Pironesi. There's something about seeing Roman ruins, festooned with vegetation like Angkor Wat and lit by moonlight, that really gets my blood flowing.Hendryk said:
How long for a city to crumble naturally ??
- Thread starter Nik
- Start date
I'm in agreement with you here, Leo--something about seeing a vast post-apocalyptic metropolis being slowly consumed by nature just hammers in the point of just how ephemeral humanity's presence really is on this planet. I have one or two posters like that in my apartment. One of the books that I'm writing has to do with that whole 'disease wipes out 99% humanity and survivors slowly rebuild' threads that appear on this board from time to time. I find those threads (and this one) an immense source of inspiration and ideas.
Er...why is everyone looking at me like that for.....?
Er...why is everyone looking at me like that for.....?
But it's true that the speed at which a city crumbles depends on the type of environment it was built in to begin with. Sad to say, but Las Vegas would probably outlast New York by several decades if not centuries. Worst of all is the hot and humid environment of tropical jungles such as the ones in Central America and South-East Asia; Angkor Vat is only the most famous of numerous former settlements that were swallowed by vegetation within years of being abandoned.
Yes, any city in a dry desert area would last a whole lot longer. In the US, that means places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque would still be largely intact when most of the other cities had become piles of rubble covered with forests or grasslands. The first to decay would be cities in hot and humid areas - Miami, New Orleans, Charleston, Atlanta. Seattle might be part of this list because while the summers aren't that hot, the winters usually aren't that cold either, so decay could continue year-round. Cities in colder but still humid areas like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia would take a little longer because of the winters that stop decay or slow it to a crawl. Then cities in areas that were somewhat drier but weren't quite arid - Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas, Omaha. Finally, the cities in genuinely arid regions.
Yes, any city in a dry desert area would last a whole lot longer. In the US, that means places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque would still be largely intact when most of the other cities had become piles of rubble covered with forests or grasslands. The first to decay would be cities in hot and humid areas - Miami, New Orleans, Charleston, Atlanta. Seattle might be part of this list because while the summers aren't that hot, the winters usually aren't that cold either, so decay could continue year-round. Cities in colder but still humid areas like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia would take a little longer because of the winters that stop decay or slow it to a crawl. Then cities in areas that were somewhat drier but weren't quite arid - Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas, Omaha. Finally, the cities in genuinely arid regions.
That's true, I hadn't taken that into account. I've seen roads that were freshly paved in the summer develop so many potholes that be February of the next year they're starting to look like the surface of the moon. There's no shortage of work for road-repaving crews in the northeastern US.
I wonder if that means the northeastern cities would actually be the first to decay.
I wonder if that means the northeastern cities would actually be the first to decay.
Florida should go pretty quickly too. The place is just itching with the near-jungle environment waiting to come back.
Paul Spring said:
True--but all the road salt and heavy traffic plays a role in the decay as well--take all that away and the road decay may not be quite as quick.
Gunslinger: Don't forget all that kudzu(
). That stuff is already a major problem in most of the southeastern U.S. even with humans actively chopping/burning the stuff whenever possible--take the human equation out and I guarantee you that most cities in that region will be looking like long lost Mayan cities in just a few years.I actually know something about this.
As others have said, it depends on a number of factors, including climate, whether the structures and surrounding terrain are eroding down or being buried by alluvial sedmenation or aeolian (wind) deposition, how dry or waterlogged the soil covering the ruins or structure are, temperature fluctuations, acidity in water or air, how aggressively vegetation can take over the ruins,what the buildings are made of, how tall they are, and scavenging or reuse of building materials by later peoples.
In a temperate, moist climate, environmental factors will start to wear away preindustrial buliding materials (stone, mortar) fairly quickly, but the worst damage is typically done by roots and human scavenging (the Forum looks as it does more from looting and scavenging than natural decay). Left on their own, stone or masonry buildings will eventually end up looking like mounds of rubble covered by trees and bushes in several hundred years. Roofs go fairly quickly and the upper courses of walls, lacking support, gradually collapse around the lower walls, effectively hiding them. It's important to know that most ruins visited by tourists have undergone significant excavation and clearing to expose the surviving masonry and often major reconstruction to make them look like buildings. Places like Mesoamerican cities generally just looked looked like featureless mounds of rock and earth covered with dense vegetation before excavation. Before aerial mapping and surveying, even trained archaeologists could walk over whole cities and miss major buildings.
We have no examples, but I'd suspect that a modern midwestern US city center with steel and glass skyscrapers like Chicago or Dallas would be recognizeable for millenia - probably at least as long as the Giza pyramids. A city like Las Vegas in a warm arid desert would last even longer. Not only would modern alloys and glass sheeting resist root damage, soil formation and freeze-thaw fragmentation, there are few natural process which could level or bury such a place. Of course, buildings and upper floors would gradually collapse creating a massive rubble mound with large sections of skeletal steel sticking out of the top and well preserved lower floors below. It would be cool to excavate. On the other hand, well-vegetated suburbs made of frame houses with brick/frame walls would turn to rotted rubble and vegetation thickets in only a few hundred years
As others have said, it depends on a number of factors, including climate, whether the structures and surrounding terrain are eroding down or being buried by alluvial sedmenation or aeolian (wind) deposition, how dry or waterlogged the soil covering the ruins or structure are, temperature fluctuations, acidity in water or air, how aggressively vegetation can take over the ruins,what the buildings are made of, how tall they are, and scavenging or reuse of building materials by later peoples.
In a temperate, moist climate, environmental factors will start to wear away preindustrial buliding materials (stone, mortar) fairly quickly, but the worst damage is typically done by roots and human scavenging (the Forum looks as it does more from looting and scavenging than natural decay). Left on their own, stone or masonry buildings will eventually end up looking like mounds of rubble covered by trees and bushes in several hundred years. Roofs go fairly quickly and the upper courses of walls, lacking support, gradually collapse around the lower walls, effectively hiding them. It's important to know that most ruins visited by tourists have undergone significant excavation and clearing to expose the surviving masonry and often major reconstruction to make them look like buildings. Places like Mesoamerican cities generally just looked looked like featureless mounds of rock and earth covered with dense vegetation before excavation. Before aerial mapping and surveying, even trained archaeologists could walk over whole cities and miss major buildings.
We have no examples, but I'd suspect that a modern midwestern US city center with steel and glass skyscrapers like Chicago or Dallas would be recognizeable for millenia - probably at least as long as the Giza pyramids. A city like Las Vegas in a warm arid desert would last even longer. Not only would modern alloys and glass sheeting resist root damage, soil formation and freeze-thaw fragmentation, there are few natural process which could level or bury such a place. Of course, buildings and upper floors would gradually collapse creating a massive rubble mound with large sections of skeletal steel sticking out of the top and well preserved lower floors below. It would be cool to excavate. On the other hand, well-vegetated suburbs made of frame houses with brick/frame walls would turn to rotted rubble and vegetation thickets in only a few hundred years
Ivan Druzhkov said:
Here is a website of photos of Chernobyl and the surrounding area taken by a motorcyclist not too long ago. Just click on the chapters at the bottom of the site to go to each page. Very sad stuff to see.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/
Description of Kudzu from Floridata.com: "Mulch with cinder blocks, fertilize with Agent Orange, and prune daily."Doctor What said:Don't forget all that kudzu(
Yeah, I've read Rainbow Six. Not bad. ("You want to live in harmony with nature? Well, get out there and harmonize!"
) But for my scenario I need an 'agent' considerably meaner...something mutagenic, perhaps...hey Doc, any suggestions? 
BrianP said:
Wow
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter11.html
etc
In a very vague way I am reminded of the mountains in Spain aback Fuengirola in the late 1970s-mid 1980s. The expected tourist boom had died, and there were just modern roads going nowhere, all curbs and unfinished lamp posts that juts went around and around and then back to the main road as none of the buildings were ever fnished, and few started. That was spooky and weird
Of course, its all changed now. They built a motorway through the mountains at the back and eventually the modern boom overtook the old and they built new sstuff there
Grey Wolf
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter21.html
This really sums it up
He probably left for a fishing trip and never came back. I wonder how he felt. It's like you life has been cut into two pieces. In one is your slippers still under you bed, photos of a first love that are left on the piano...in the other is you yourself, you memories and a fishing rod.
As well as the pictures from the kindergarten at the end
Grey Wolf
This really sums it up
He probably left for a fishing trip and never came back. I wonder how he felt. It's like you life has been cut into two pieces. In one is your slippers still under you bed, photos of a first love that are left on the piano...in the other is you yourself, you memories and a fishing rod.
As well as the pictures from the kindergarten at the end
Grey Wolf
Thande
Donor
If you're looking for a POD for a most of humanity wiped out scenario, there's always that thing in the 70s when biochemist Paul Berg thought it would be quite a good idea to transpose the genome from SV40 (Simian Virus 40, a lethal cancer-causing virus which fortunately can only recognise monkey cells) into E. coli, the bacterium used as a model organism in the lab. Only snag being that E. coli is also a common human gut bacterium, and if the mutants from the lab had got into a lab worker and then into the sewage system... at least 99% of the people infected would have got cancer, usually terminal. The whole medical care system would have collapsed into anarchy and ruin. If the mutants managed to spread worldwide before anyone noticed...
Fortunately, he was considerate enough to tell his peers of his plans, and they developed faces similar to the eek smiley and stopped him. But what if, etc.
If the mutants managed to spread worldwide before anyone noticed...Fortunately, he was considerate enough to tell his peers of his plans, and they developed faces similar to the eek smiley and stopped him. But what if, etc.
I never knew the soviets had motorcycles...
They just seem so... capitalist, you know?
They just seem so... capitalist, you know?
Leo Caesius
Banned
I've always associated the two. Of course, if you're a Nazi and you're riding a motorcycle, you will not be caught under any circumstances without those big clunky safety goggles that make you look like a fruit fry (D. melanogaster).Thande said:
Ouch...
IIRC, that was basis of a fair thriller called, 'The Last Enemy'. At finale, the hero has to lock himself in contaminated containment unit with the villain to ensure spilt bugs don't get out. Six months on, both given clean bill of health. Month later, villain collapses with terminal bowel cancer, so hero knows he's next...
-------------
What started me down this thread was one of those vivid dreams where you can feel the nettles, taste your sweat and lick your blisters...
We'd dragged our crude sled weary miles through an unmanaged temperate forest, turned up a side-valley to our home-cave on its ragged scree slope. The look-out tossed down the end of a knotted rope, we got the sled's load and our stone tools inside. The fresh meat was always welcome, we had dug herbs for our Healer, but the skin-wrapped lump was our prize.
We'd followed my glimpsed vein of copper through the 'high caves' to a rich seam, dug out lumps, then a tangled blob bigger than a horse-skull, could see more, beyond. Even this would cast to a dozen fighting-blades and five long-axe heads. This year, many more Garstons would die if they raided us for Women or winter food...
Yet, there was sadness: I knew from my grand-father, who'd learned from his great-grand-mother's youngest sister that the brown streaks on the high-cave walls --so like dried blood-- had wept from a white metal that could cleave our copper like flesh... and we knew not how.
IIRC, that was basis of a fair thriller called, 'The Last Enemy'. At finale, the hero has to lock himself in contaminated containment unit with the villain to ensure spilt bugs don't get out. Six months on, both given clean bill of health. Month later, villain collapses with terminal bowel cancer, so hero knows he's next...
-------------
What started me down this thread was one of those vivid dreams where you can feel the nettles, taste your sweat and lick your blisters...
We'd dragged our crude sled weary miles through an unmanaged temperate forest, turned up a side-valley to our home-cave on its ragged scree slope. The look-out tossed down the end of a knotted rope, we got the sled's load and our stone tools inside. The fresh meat was always welcome, we had dug herbs for our Healer, but the skin-wrapped lump was our prize.
We'd followed my glimpsed vein of copper through the 'high caves' to a rich seam, dug out lumps, then a tangled blob bigger than a horse-skull, could see more, beyond. Even this would cast to a dozen fighting-blades and five long-axe heads. This year, many more Garstons would die if they raided us for Women or winter food...
Yet, there was sadness: I knew from my grand-father, who'd learned from his great-grand-mother's youngest sister that the brown streaks on the high-cave walls --so like dried blood-- had wept from a white metal that could cleave our copper like flesh... and we knew not how.