英语博客：Road works.
时间：2019-02-05 作者：英语课 分类：英语博客 A cup of English
This Spring, we have experienced an unusual amount of rain, so much so that it has caused problems in many areas. I was driving to a local bakery the other day, when I came to some road works. I had to stop my car and wait for the heavy machinery 1 to get out of the way, so I took a few minutes to look around at what had happened. The road followed a hillside that was cut away to look a bit like a cliff, but the mixture of rock and soil looked crumbly. The consistent rain over the course of a week had loosened the rock from the soil and brought some boulders 2 down onto the road. A very dangerous situation! Watch out drivers! The heavy machinery was clearing the road so the traffic could continue. When I got home, I looked up the geology of this area on the internet. It turns out there are two trails that a person can drive along to view an enormous variety of geological activity. Apparently 3, about 17,000 years ago there were enormous glaciers 4 covering a lot of North America. It just so happens that there was a blockage 5 of ice that stopped a huge lake of melted water from flowing south. When the ice block finally gave way, the gigantic flood affected 6 this area by depositing massive 200 ton boulders in strange places, and tons of gravel 7 in other places. Scientists say that there is evidence of 50 cubic miles of earth and rock being displaced up to a hundred times, and contributing to what is now this area. It's funny what you learn by looking something up on the internet, isn't it? A man who has written a book about the geology of this area, Mr. Charles L. Mason, writes that there has been "a buffet 8 of geological events....that are unparalleled nearly anywhere else on earth." Gosh, and I learned all of that because I had to wait for some road works. Whatever will I learn next?
Grammar notes.
Related vocabulary: glaciers, boulders, gravel, geology.
1. There are small glaciers in the mountains nearby.
2. Some people climb on the large boulders that are a few miles away.
3. Our driveway used to be all gravel, but the little rocks would get everywhere, so now it is asphalt.
4. Geology is the study of rock formations.
- Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
- Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。
- Seals basked on boulders in a flat calm. 海面风平浪静，海豹在巨石上晒太阳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- The river takes a headlong plunge into a maelstrom of rocks and boulders. 河水急流而下，入一个漂砾的漩涡中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
- He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。
- Glaciers gouged out valleys from the hills. 冰川把丘陵地带冲出一条条山谷。
- It has ice and snow glaciers, rainforests and beautiful mountains. 既有冰川，又有雨林和秀丽的山峰。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）
- The logical treatment is to remove this blockage.合理的治疗方法就是清除堵塞物。
- If the blockage worked,they could retreat with dignity.如果封锁发生作用，他们可以体面地撤退。
- She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
- His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。
- We bought six bags of gravel for the garden path.我们购买了六袋碎石用来铺花园的小路。
- More gravel is needed to fill the hollow in the drive.需要更多的砾石来填平车道上的坑洼。