2987: Tectonic Surfing
| Tectonic Surfing |
 Title text: The worst is when you wipe out in the barrel and you're trapped for several million years until erosion frees you. |
Explanation[edit]
Surfing is a sport where the participant tries to stand or otherwise remain stable on a moving surface as long as possible. Traditionally the name "surfing" refers to riding a surfboard that is itself floating on the ocean waves as they crash into shore, but in colloquial English it is possible to "surf" other things such as a crowd of people, the floor of a moving bus, a subway car, or the Internet.
In this comic, Beret Guy is surfing the Earth's tectonic plates. Tectonic plates move very slowly compared to a normal surfing experience — so slowly, ordinary people perceive them to be stationary ground. But Beret Guy, in typical Beret Guy fashion, sees the broader picture in the most whimsical way possible and is now surfing the plates across the Earth's mantle below. He seems to be moving horizontally at about 4-5 cm/year (~1 m/20 yrs) which would put him on one of the moderately fast plates,[1][2] at least relative to the more stable North American plate. For comparison, the fastest-moving plate, the Pacific Plate, would move about two meters in 20 years relative to the African Plate (which is used as the standard which all other plate motions are measured against).
While doing this he says "Radical", "Gnarly", and "Hang loose" which are exclamations commonly used among surfers. After 20 years, he is still standing there, having moved about one meter with the continental plate. This is thus another of the strange powers of Beret Guy — being able to stay in place for 20 years. This was also seen in 1088: Five Years, where he waited five years to find out where he would be after that time.
The title text refers to riding the barrel, in which one surfs inside the hollow part of a breaking wave, while a wipe out means you get swept off your surf board. If you wipe out in a barrel, you most likely submerge under water. If this were possible in tectonic surfing, you would be stuck under a tectonic plate and you would have to wait until the material you're trapped in erodes. In reality, there's no such thing as breaking waves in plate tectonics, but there are geological folds that can be seen as similar to the way that turbulent water mixes. Things do get trapped when two tectonic plates collide in a process called subduction, in which one plate disappears below another.
Of note, Beret Guy is mentioned to have a "subduction license", as seen in 1388: Subduction License, so he may have some recourse in such a situation. Due to said license, he would survive and reemerge from the continental plate barrel in a million years time.
A previous comic about tectonics being slow is 2061: Tectonics Game.
Transcript[edit]
- [Cueball walks up to Beret Guy who is standing with one leg in front of another and his arms spread wide.]
- Cueball: What are you doing?
- Beret Guy: Tectonic surfing!
- [Cueball is standing behind Beret Guy, who is in the same pose.]
- Beret Guy: Radical!
- Beret Guy: Gnarly!
- Beret Guy: Hang loose!
- [Beret Guy is alone, still in the same position in the center of the panel.]
- [Beret Guy is in the same position, but at the right edge of the panel with his head partly outside the right edge. Above him is a box with a Caption:]
- 20 years later:
References[edit]
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Where is the speed Beret Guy's moving at coming from? It looks to me like he moved about half his own height in 20 years so assuming he's 6 ft: 36in/20year gives 4.57 cm/year 7 cm/year for his speed seems high and 11 seems ridiculous. 172.71.159.45 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Maybe 2061 could get a tony-hawk spin off... --Lupo (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
