Sea Urchins Excavate Pits For Themselves

Eureka Alerts reported, Sea Urchins Erode Rock Reefs. Look at them (above), so snugly, SO PURPLY, so the mauve of The Mauve Decade, one of the first synthetic dyes. It was invented in 1856 by Willam Henry Perkin (subject of a recent Google Doodle). 

"The researchers found that sea urchins did indeed visibly sculpt the rock, removing material from all the rock surfaces during the laboratory experiment. Rates of excavation varied greatly by rock type in the lab: while each urchin excavated around 32g of medium-grain sandstone over a year, meaning that an average-sized pit could be sculpted in under five years, granite excavation was 37 times slower, so arduous that it would take more than a century to form a pit. Field measurements reflected this difference, with granite pits being shallower, and sea urchins flatter, than their sandstone counterparts."

That sentence, "rates of excavation varied greatly by rock type" is so infuriatingly relatable when you are trying to do something hard. Your success in making a mark on the world and a pit for yourself  (like a purple sea urchin) really does depend on the rock type. In our current cultural brainfreeze to "follow your bliss," "gather yourself up by your bootstraps," "thrive where you are planted,"and "chart your voyage" we frequently forget that some rock types are harder than others like granite.