# Geology/ Planet of the Apes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 8, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295 "2011-11-08T17:32:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/1 "2011-11-08T17:32:09Z")
The Statue Of Liberty stands on a small island surrounded by water. At the end of the original POTA movie, sometime in the far future, she is buried in sand up to her waist at the edge of the coast, and a cliff has risen beside her. Are there any known geological processes that could cause this to happen? ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/2 "2011-11-08T17:44:32Z")
Faulting would be the most logical explanation. A strike-slip fault could cause elements on either side to come into proximity with each other that previously were some distance apart. There’s potentially both a lateral and vertical component to them. The San Andreas is a classic example. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/3 "2011-11-08T17:47:19Z")
No, of course not. Sure, eventually the spot the Statue is on could have a cliff beside it. Except the Statue would have crumbled to pieces by then. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/4 "2011-11-08T17:49:49Z")
I think that they were trying to imply that a nuclear blast caused a shift in the terrain in the not so distant past. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/5 "2011-11-08T18:15:42Z")
Just call it the Hollywood Fault. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/6 "2011-11-08T18:52:16Z")
They blew it up, damn them all to hell. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/7 "2011-11-08T19:30:15Z")
He was terribly mistaken. What actually happened was that the Cloverfield monster chucked the head and torch across the Atlantic. He’s actually on the Dover shores. Had he kept traveling, he would have eventually found the Chunnel entrance, been recognized by EU border security as human, and allowed to rejoin human civilization. Only England was overrun by those damn dirty apes. (New York was decimated by the Cloverfield monster, but was saved by the intervention of Gamera. Unfortunately, Gamera was caught by ICE agents for ‘working’ without a passport and deported to Japan.) ---
**Author:** ![Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tyrrell_mcallister/32/16772_2.png) [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/8 "2011-11-08T19:41:26Z")
I always figured that the statue had toppled in some atomic blast, after which the improbably intact upper half had floated to the location where Charlton Heston finds it. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/9 "2011-11-08T19:45:51Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > He was terribly mistaken. What actually happened was that the Cloverfield monster chucked the head and torch across the Atlantic. He’s actually on the Dover shores. Had he kept traveling, he would have eventually found the Chunnel entrance, been recognized by EU border security as human, and allowed to rejoin human civilization. Only England was overrun by those damn dirty apes. (New York was decimated by the Cloverfield monster, but was saved by the intervention of Gamera. Unfortunately, Gamera was caught by ICE agents for ‘working’ without a passport and deported to Japan.) Of course, we also see the sun setting over the ocean in that scene, so some trans-oceanic or trans-continental transportation must have taken place. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/10 "2011-11-08T20:23:01Z")
Oh, that’s just Dave, shining away. The events take place several years after the Jupiter missions. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/11 "2011-11-08T23:20:44Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > The Statue Of Liberty stands on a small island surrounded by water. > > At the end of the original POTA movie, sometime in the far future, she is buried in sand up to her waist at the edge of the coast, and a cliff has risen beside her. > > Are there any known geological processes that could cause this to happen? you have two major processes in action: deposition and sea level change. when you say the statue is now at the edge of the water and buried waist-deep, it means the sea level has risen that much, and there has been a lot of deposition. deposition seems to have been more drastic, since the shoreline retreated, despite the rise. harder to explain the cliff. barring an earthquake or volcanic action (the statue won’t survive things that near) i would say the cliff is land-fill; done to counter the sea level rise. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geology-planet-of-the-apes/602295/12 "2011-11-08T23:26:45Z")
It’s in the Forbidden Zone. It was Taylor’s destiny. Nova was hot.