There was a documentary about dinosaur bones on the TeeVee the other day, and a new word popped up: Liquefaction. New to me anyway.
Seems that those dinosaurs got caught up in an earthquake that encased them in liquefaction which preserved their bones.
Liquefaction occurs when an earthquake shakes the soil, saturates it with groundwater, and turns it into mud. It acts like quicksand and swallows anything on the surface. Once the shaking ceases and the water subsides, the ground hardens. It's not instantaneous, but if anything got absorbed into the slush and wasn't removed rather quickly it was stuck.
You can see an example of that in this video. It has the appearance of an amateur news report after an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, roughly one year ago. At about the 16 second mark we see a car with its wheels stuck in the muck. After about another ten seconds in the video we see the hapless owner digging it out with a shovel, and the substance appears to have the consistency of not quite dry cement. Pretty amazing.
Speaking of earthquakes, hold onto something while you read The First 15 Minutes After the Big One, a hypothetical scenario of the minutes following a shift in the San Andreas fault producing a 7.8 earthquake epicentered 100 miles from Los Angeles. Via Newmarksdoor.com.
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