the.com/cliff
the planet's way of admitting it gives up gracefully, vertically, and all at once
means A steep, often near-vertical face of rock, especially along a coast or at the edge of high ground.
from From Old English 'clif,' the same word essentially unchanged for over a thousand years, with cousins across the old Germanic tongues — Old Norse 'klif' and Dutch 'klip' among them. The root seems to have always meant a steep rock or precipice, suggesting our ancestors looked at sudden drops and reached for a short, blunt syllable to match the short, blunt experience of arriving at one.
- erosion star
- some retreat over a meter per year
- fossil archive
- exposed layers read like Earth's open diary
- nesting fortress
- seabirds breed where no predator dares climb
- white giants
- Dover's chalk is crushed ancient plankton skeletons
white cliffs of dover — iconic 350-foot chalk cliffs on the english coast, featured in countless films and literature
cliffs of moher — 700-foot sea cliffs in county clare, ireland, one of ireland's most visited natural attraction
el capitan — 3,000-foot granite monolith in yosemite national park, california, world's premier big wall climbing destination