The sweeping vista Edward Burtynsky captures in this picture depicts the regrowth of vegetation and reclamation by nature of an abandoned marble quarry where two centuries of human activity laid bare millennia of geologic devel­opment. Depicting the dark water as it flows through the triangular outcropping in the rockface and settles into the quarry’s basin, Burtynsky invites consideration of how the ebb and flow of economic conditions, the development of technology and transportation, and access to labor have affected the changing demand for industrial stone extraction and the results it leaves on the landscape.