You know that feeling that things sometimes aren’t always how — or where — you thought they were? Should you visit these destinations, they could evoke that sense. Here’s a look at some well-known sites that are on the move, ever so slightly:
*Big Ben is tilting. More to the point, the landmark clock tower at Britain’s Palace of Westminster leans about 18 inches to the left, leading some to suggest that Parliament is slowly slipping into the River Thames and making the tilt a point of discussion there this week.
The cause is unclear, though settling in the ground and construction of an underground parking garage are among the possibilities, Reuters reported. It’s also possible the problem dates to the tower’s construction in the 1850s.
But fear not, says a construction expert who worked on the garage beneath the houses of Parliament. He says it would take 10,000 years for the 316-foot tower to lean enough for it to be of real concern.
*New Mexico is bursting, it seems. Specifically, along the Rio Grande Rift. The fault line dividing the state is widening, but not by much — less than a millimeter a year or about an inch every 40 years.
At that rate, the drive from Phoenix to Dallas could get about a mile longer … 2.5 million years from now.
*That’s nothing compared with the San Andreas Fault, which accounts for movement of up to 1.5 inches every year.
Isolating that movement between Los Angeles, west of the fault line, and San Francisco, on the east, those two cities could be a mile closer together in about 42,000 years. Though, “the big one” could change all that.
*If you’d visited upstate New York 12,000 years ago, you might not know where to find Niagara Falls today.
Changes in water flow and erosion have shifted the falls seven miles upstream over that time. But lest you think that has the falls’ future over a barrel, the rate of recession is now estimated at less than a foot per year.
Twitter: @RobManker
