Friday Link-O-Rama

Research Reveals Guatemala's Geologic History - Analysis of metamorphic rocks is showing a very complex geological history for Guatemala, particularly the interaction between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates.

More earthquake faults discovered at the Salton Sea - Shaping our understanding of how the San Andreas fault is moving.

Ancient Lava Flow Photographed from Space - Make sure to look at the linked pictures in the article. It's a little lava flow from the cinder cone. You can actually find things like that all over. There's an old lava flow and cinder cone actually visible in Colorado from I-70 as you're passing the Dotsero exit.

County to restore floodplains - We're seeing a lot of restoration for flood plains and dam removal projects now that the impacts of these things are being more fully understood.

Will Krakatoa rock the world again? - A collection of absolutely stunning pictures of the new Krakatoa. The volcano previously erupted (more like catastrophically exploded) in 1883 and killed over 36,000 people. It also affected the world's climate for years after. If the volcano is becoming extremely active again, life could get very interesting for us all.

Are Feminists Man Haters? Deminists' and Nonfeminists' Attitudes Toward Men - Sounds like a very interesting study. And the money quote from one of the researchers, Melinda Kanner: "Our work finds that, indeed, non-feminists believe in traditional gender roles such as men being breadwinners and women being caregivers. At the same time, these non-feminists actually appear to resent the confines of the traditional roles they advocate, which presents a paradox for women and men in traditional heterosexual relationships." Makes sense to me. Also, if you think about anti-feminists, there's also a lot more buy-in to the "common wisdom" that men only want sex, that they're basically violent, that they can't control themselves, yadda yadda. Sounds like a negative attitude to me.

Historians Question Federal Charter - I just found this interesting. Swiss historians are skeptical about some traditional tales about the founding of Switzerland. Part of this is that radiometric data has shown that some of the founding documents aren't as old as they should be, though that could be a case of the originals having been copied if they were deteriorating.

California Board of Geology to be Terminated - Bad news for geology in California.

Two Hualien farmers tap mud volcano for free gas - human ingenuity at its finest.

"I Touched A Crop-Circle-Making UFO," Says Investigator - Just for skeptical fun. The io9 article links through to the original report. Money quote:

He said, "You can have 100 people in a park and this technology can control photons to such a point that only one person out of the hundred might see a craft right above their heads. That also could explain the cases of people driving cars on a busy freeway and are confused after stopping to stare at a UFO in the sky that all the other cars keep rushing by."

Oh special pleading, how I love you. Apparently only some people can see the photos. But I suppose cameras can, and thus we get the film?

Monkeywrenching geology

Monkeywrenching the Batholiths

I saw this item on Pharyngula, and it just kind of blew me away. I mean, you hear about animal rights groups going after biologists all the time, but I'd always thought at least academic geologists were safe from this kind of interference with their experiments.

There were several things about the exchange that really struck me.

First of all, Dr. Hole is incredibly patient in his replies. Far calmer and more patient than I could ever manage, though admittedly I also tend to have an explosive temper.

I'm very surprised that Ingmar Lee didn't get himself hurt, or blow up a significant chunk of the landscape he so loves. Seismic shots are explosives, pure and simple. Messing with them is pretty risky business.

I was also struck by the apparent misunderstanding of how seismic shots work. Now, I wouldn't want to be standing on top of a big one when it goes, but the point of them is to direct the explosive force downward into the ground, in order to create seismic waves. If seismic shots set off classic surface explosions like you see in the movies, they'd be worthless, they'd cause a lot of destruction, and they'd probably cause damage to the receiver arrays. If seismic shots are set properly (and not messed with by people who don't know what they're doing) then there's no surface damage and no surface danger.

From what I've been able to come up with, research-wise, the biggest environmental concern caused by seismic surveys is actually in the wear and tear on the plant life that all the necessary vehicles cause - and the potential of scaring animals away. You do have to be able to get all the equipment out there and back, and that's going to take vehicles. A survey done with explosives is actually far less disturbing to the environment than one using seismic trucks. One thump from the explosives, and it's done. Considering the area is often subject to lightning strikes and its own natural earth quakes, the seismic shots are negligible in comparison to those.

I'm sure the mental image of hapless residents (and cranes) being cartoonishly thrown from the ground by enormous explosions is very dramatic, but in this case, it's just silly.

I think the crux of this is Mr. Lee's accusation that the data from this project will somehow be given to Big Oil, or that Big Oil has its evil little fingers in this scientific pie. Since most seismic surveys are probably done by oil companies (they have more money to do expensive things like that, after all), I can't really blame him for the initial suspicion. However, basic knowledge of geology would prove that notion wrong, considering the area that the seismic is being shot for is chock full of igneous rocks. It's a project looking at batholiths (giant intrusive structures - mountains, basically) which are not known for their rich oil reserves. Oil is found only in sedimentary rocks.

Hating oil companies doesn't make this sort of dangerous vandalism at all okay, though. It also doesn't help the efforts of environmentalists who are fighting oil companies, when someone associated with them goes after a permitted scientific research project while sounding like a self-righteous jerk - and one that could use a little extra geology education, at that. I certainly don't advocate blowing up the landscape. I like the landscape. It's where I keep my stuff. And it has surface processes! But that was never a danger here, at least not until Mr. Lee broke the top off the charge tube.

It really makes me wonder how people like Mr. Lee would have reacted to this very cool project, which determined the age of the Amazon River by drilling into its sediment fans. Well, it involves drills, so it must be evil and associated with the oil companies, right?

Beware the Spinal Trap

I agree whole-heartedly with the efforts of Sense About Science in the UK and its efforts to keep the libel laws out of science. I've already signed the statement and done what little bits I could do.

Another little bit today seems to be the re-posting of Simon Singh's excellent article about chiropractic, which lead the British Chiropractic Association to sue him for libel, apparently because they lack the chops and evidence necessary to defend themselves scientifically. This lawsuit has been seen by many for what it is - an attempt by a cowardly organization to silence and intimidate its critics because it cannot honestly defend itself.

This is, admittedly, not a medicine blog. I've got a passing interest in medicine, but no expertise. However, this is also the blog of someone in the skeptic movement, and of someone who is deeply interested in honesty in science. Today, it's Simon Singh being sued because he said something the purveyors of nonsense didn't like, and the libel laws in the UK are such that it made a lawsuit possible. If these sort of tactics are allowed, we may lose an important weapon - the weapon of ridicule - against those that seek to abuse science and its respectability to their own ends.

And also, in his article, I think Mr. Singh does a very good job of answering that age-old question: What's the harm?

Thus, in support, I shall re-post the article. This is not the original version that lead Mr. Singh to be sued, but rather an edited version that has been approved by his lawyers. Its basic truth remains intact.

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Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.

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You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

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Simon Singh is a science writer in London and the co-author, with Edzard Ernst, of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial.

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If you wish to see the article in its full, original glory, Orac has posted it on his blog with the offending sentences in bold. (So offensive are they, in fact, that you might want to have your fainting couch handy when you read it. [/sarcasm])

Astronomy Picture of the Day with Devil's Tower!

Astronomy picture of the day for July 29.

Very, very beautiful. I love Devil's Tower as a geological formation. I've only been there once, when I was just a kid, but I desperately want to go back some day soon. Beautiful picture!

For a full look at the geological history of the Devil's Tower area, the National Parks Service has a very good description. It covers all the major sedimentary units in the area, as well as talking about the igneous rock that forms Devil's tower.

Actually, reading over the site was a bit of a learning experience for me. I'd only ever heard Devil's Tower referred to as a volcanic plug, but there is apparently not a lot of evidence to support ancient volcanic activity from that area. (Though since this evidence could have long since eroded away, that's not really definitive.) Devil's Tower certainly has a shape that makes people think "Volcano!" but the rather sheer sides of it have more to do with the columnar jointing that the igneous rock experiences. This means that the sections of rock tend to break into six (or more, or less) sided columns and then fall away when stressed by the contraction experienced during cooling.

Also, for some reason I kept thinking that Devil's Tower was basalt. Part of this is because columnar jointing is very common in basalt. (The basalt of the Columbia Plateau springs instantly to mind.) But whether Devil's Tower was formed by an igneous intrusion (making it a laccolith or maybe a stock) or actually is a volcanic plug, basalt would be the wrong, wrong answer.

Basalt is the name for extrusive (read: a volcano barfed it on to the surface of the Earth) igneous rock that is very rich in iron and magnesium. Gabbro is the name for rock of a similar composition that's cooled under the surface of the Earth - or as the case may be, inside a volcano without ever making it to the surface.

Actually, the rock that form's Devil's Tower isn't even gabbro - it's technically "phonolite porphyry." If you've never heard of that, it's okay, I haven't either. We're getting in to very persnickity naming of igneous rocks, and unless you're a geologist who specializes in that kind of rock, it's not something you'd run across. Basically, it's an intermediate intrusive rock, which is a bit like granite but lacks the quarts crystals. So I'd guess it's closer to a diorite. Since it's in the middle of a continental plate, it's got too much silica to be mafic like a gabbro, but there was still enough hot mantle material in the mix to keep it from bumping over into the category of granite.

Either way, beautiful, beautiful picture!

The Grand Canyon of Durham

From the BBC: Floodwaters create 'Grand Canyon'

As you might expect, this news item popped up on my Google alerts because of great flood references. It's now been mentioned on at least a couple of forums where people have an interest in, shall we say, Not Real Geology. I'm actually surprised I missed this entirely until it popped up on Google alerts. The BBC is my news source of choice. Then again, it's an article from last Friday, and Fridays tend to be busy days for me.

So... oh noes! A big flood created a canyon-like structure. Take that, geologists!

This is basically the same deal as the Mt. St. Helens "canyon." The River Wear flooded and carved a new (but apparently temporary) channel into its own flood plain. The "canyon" is about four meters deep at most, which means it runs entirely through unconsolidated floodplain sediment. Sediment on floodplains tends to be pretty fine - about mud sized. This is why flood plains make such prime agricultural real estate.

Now, it must be said that it is a bit surprising for a river to carve itself a new channel in a single flood. (Though the bigger the flood, the more believable this becomes.) The floodplain sediment isn't consolidated, but the farther down you get, the more densely packed it will be due to the weight sitting on top of it. It's not quite the same situation as the fresh ash layer at Mt. St. Helens.

However, this also may not be a new channel. Apparently locals think that this might actually be a disused channel of the river, which was diverted by monks in the 15th century. In that case, if it's an old channel that was simply filled in by enterprising monks, the relatively new soil in the filled channel would probably be a lot easier for the river to wash away than the older soil of the flood plain.

So no. This is not any kind of evidence for a biblical flood. There's still an enormous difference between a river cutting through unconsolidated sediment and cutting down through solid rock. It's a pretty neat opportunity for anyone interested in the local soil, though.

Links that I was going to post on Friday but forgot.

For scientists, moon rocks tell story of a young Earth
And not a young earth in the way you might think - Earth when it was young, billions of years ago. This is some pretty interesting stuff on how the Moon might have formed, and certainly does explain the compositional similarities between the Earth and the Moon.

New life-related geology beckons Opportunity rover
Basically, Opportunity found some clays, which are very indicative of the presence of water. On Earth, the major source of clay is feldspar being chemically weathered via water, so this is some pretty cool stuff. I think calling it "life-related geology" is going a bit far - all it really tells us is that there was probably abundant water. If we want "life-related geology," I'm holding out for stromatolites.

Losing my religion for equality
Former President Jimmy Carter is made of awesome. If you didn't already know that.

Backyard Science Experiment Reveals Grand Canyon NOT Carved by Floodwater
Just in case we needed more evidence. Very cool video.

Recent volcano eruption in Ethiopia causes surface displacement
In all honesty, until I read this article, I had no idea that Ethiopia was so incredibly geologically active. I'm not sure if that's a result of me not doing enough reading, or that it simply hasn't been widely reported.

10 Worst Evolutionary Designs
Shouldn't that be, "10 Worst 'Intelligent' Designs"?

Hey Jupiter, Earth Gets Hit Too - Evidence For North American Cosmic Impact 13,000 Years Ago
Very interesting, since this impact might be connected to the disappearance of the Clovis people in North America, apparently. Though what I thought was the most interesting here was that the evidence came from the presence of microscopic diamonds, rather than disturbed strata or other gross evidence. Though I do wonder what else impact-related might be in that area, structurally.

The "birthers" as classic conspiracy theorists.

I've been hearing a lot about the "birthers" lately, and it's kind of driving me nuts for a variety of reasons. If you've been living under a rock (yay, rocks!), "birthers" are people who believe that President Obama is not actually a natural-born citizen of the United States. They think he was born in Kenya, and that his taking office as president is part of a conspiracy to allow a foreign national to be in that office.

Here's a classic example of the birther theories laid out. Expect to be critted by a wall of text, but at least it's black text on a white background?

In all honesty, I'm not interested in debunking the birther claims. Snopes has a short and sweet page about it that covers all of the important points.

The Birthers seem to be the Truthers for the new presidency. We still get Truthers in downtown Denver on occasion, normally two or three people, holding their signs and looking a little pathetic because they're so totally ignored by everyone around them. While the Truthers live on, their conspiracy theory has lost a lot of its power and interest because of the simple fact that Bush is no longer president. I have a feeling that the Birthers are going to be with us and just as loud and annoying - up until the end of the Obama presidency.

What puts the Birthers in line with the 9/11 Truthers (other than similar short names for the theorists) and the people who think we didn't land on the moon? The UK Skeptics have a very good, quick summary of the characteristics of paranoid conspiracies:
- Assumption that they are right
- Their theories cannot be refuted (also known as: evidence against the conspiracy is actually evidence for the conspiracy)
- Acceptance of supporting evidence and offhand dismissal of non-supporting evidence

All of these factors are very much in evidence for the Birthers. For example, the existence of birth announcements in the Hawaii newspapers or the scan of the president's certificate of live birth are either dismissed out of hand or elaborately debunked. (If you surf around a bit in the site I linked to, you'll find an... impressive "debunking" of the certificate of live birth scan, which reminded me of nothing so much as the loving dissertations on physics that the Truthers used to purportedly show that the towers fell faster than gravity would allow.) Any attempts to ward off the conspiracy theory have been taken as proof that the theory is right. Obama's compaign provided the scan of his birth certificate, which was immediately leapt upon as a forgery and further proof. That, or the evidence is simply ignored since it does not fit the conspiracy. The latest round of news reporting about the Birthers was inspired by a woman at a Delaware town hall meeting standing up and demanding to know where the birth certificate is. Well, it's as much in evidence as it has always been - there are the scans that prove it, and the Hawaiian government confirms it. But that's either completely ignored or dismissed out of hand.

Another beautiful example of this is the Supreme Court deciding not to hear the birth certificate case in 2008.

Quote from the Examiner:

Before Barack was inaugurated, a New Jersey man named Leo Donofrio bravely created an emergency appeal regarding Obama’s qualification to be an American president and sent it to the Supreme Court to be reviewed. Without explaining why, the Supreme Court turned down the emergency appeal and soon after the media completely hushed about the dilemma.[4] Since then, a slew of other lawyers across the country have also attempted lawsuits without making any real progress.

If you're at all aware of the process by which the Supreme Court hears cases, them turning down the case is absolutely not surprise. The Supreme Court actually elects to not hear most of the cases appealed to them. Normally, this is because they agree with the lower court opinion and wish to let it stand, or because the case is simply not within the purview of the court or of interest to them. It's pretty obvious why the Supreme Court wouldn't consider this appeal worth their time and effort, and it really isn't big news that the Supreme Court has decided not to hear a case. But rather than taking that as support of the validity of Obama's presidency, it's taken as support of the conspiracy. SCOTUS refuses to hear the case and won't say why, and then it's hushed up by the media.

Okay, and I have to take one last cheap shot at the Examiner:

If Barack is truly a natural born U.S. citizen, why hasn’t his campaign effectively disproved the claims that he isn’t?

Holy crap, they haven't effectively disproved that he's a reptoid either!

Underlying this all, of course, is the assumption that the conspiracy is true, which is what makes it very easy for the theorists to dismiss any evidence presented to them, or interpret it in such a way that it supports their theory. At this point, the Birthers are mentally and emotionally invested in their conspiracy theory, and no amount of arguing is going to convince them otherwise.

Science News just recently published an article about conspiracy theorists, which definitely has bearing here. While the article is more particularly about British 9/11 Truthers, it's an interesting read.

Goertzel says the new study provides an intriguing but partial look at the inner workings of conspiracy thinking. Such convictions critically depend on what he calls “selective skepticism.” Conspiracy believers are highly doubtful about information from the government or other sources they consider suspect. But, without criticism, believers accept any source that supports their preconceived views, he says.

Any "official" confirmation of President Obama as a US citizen is not going to make a dent in this conspiracy theory. Any websites or people coming out in defense of the president's legitimacy are attacked as part of the conspiracy, or accused of being blind to the deception. (I haven't heard the term "sheeple" thrown around yet, but that could be because I'm just not looking hard enough.) Sites like Worldnetdaily, which I've often heard lovingly called Worldnutdaily (yes, I admit, sometimes I can't let an opportunity to poison the well slip by) support the conspiracy theory and are read and supported by the believes. Sites such as DailyKos or other more mainstream news sites don't support the theory and are criticized for being part of the conspiracy or simply dupes.

“Arguments advanced by conspiracy theorists tell you more about the believer than about the event,” Goertzel says.

This is really what I find most interesting about this. What do the arguments tell us about the conspiracy theorists? In the case of the 9/11 Truthers, the conspiracy theory betrayed a hatred of President Bush so absolute that nothing could put a dent in it, and an absolute distrust of the government. I think the Birthers certainly show the same distrust of the government (though I suppose in this case it's a liberal rather than conservative government) but the arguments are very focused on Obama's supposed status as a foreign national - particularly a Kenyan. Maybe it's xenophobia, or possibly racism. To me it really seems to denote a fear that "foreigners" are in some way taking over the United States. Considering the shifting demographics of our country at the moment, it's not all that surprising. And the US (like many countries) certainly has a history of xenophobia, for all that our lofty stated goal is to be an all-inclusive melting pot.

And now for a slight rant on my part:

At this point, what I really wish is that the news programs would just drop this. This entry was, in fact, inspired by listening to Countdown from last night. The host (someone filling in for Keith Olbermann) was arguing with his guest about how it was somehow Liz Cheney's responsibility to distance herself from the Birthers. Frankly, I disagreed with that a lot (She was sticking to her talking points, and basically ignoring the Birthers. So what?) and the guest kept trying to make the point that the publicity that the Birthers are currently being given is what's giving the movement more steam. It's not the internets or the politicians, really, it's the news programs treating the Birthers as if there might actually be some sort of real controversy that's getting them attention.

I couldn't agree more. We've seen the same thing, over and over and over and OVER with the moon conspiracy nuts. It makes sexy news programming to act as if the theorists are anything other than cranks and treat their claims with even a whiff of validity. Giving them television time with that attitude causes an outbreak of conspiracy maundering, and in the case of the moon landing conspiracy, causes a single tear to roll down the cheek of Phil Plait as he stares nobly off into the distance. I'm sure that it is news that the Birthers are gathering enough steam that their proponents are shouting at politicians in town hall meetings (the Truthers certainly had their day in that arena as well). But if people in the news want to find a villain to blame for the growing popularity of the movement, they ought to be pointing the fingers at themselves, not at the Liz Cheneys of the world.

Yes, it's news when a nut tries to sue regarding his deployment in Afghanistan (which he volunteered for) because he thinks the President isn't really the President because of this conspiracy theory. And I admit, it's even better news when his attorney has the utterly hilarious first name of "Orly" and looks like she wants to be Tammy Fay Baker. So fine. Report on that and move on. Don't extend an already ridiculous story by making it news that - as shocking as it might be - conservative pundits would rather use their air time to get out their talking points than attack a movement that they either don't care about or don't want to directly alienate because its part of their base.

You want someone to dismissively say these people are nut cases and then drop the matter? Start by doing it yourselves. So far, Jon Stewart has dealt with the explosion of Birther news the best out of everyone, and he's quick to remind us that he's not actually a journalist.

Yeesh.

Bacterial Bumps

Ancient Domes Reveal 3.45-billion-year-old Life History

Stromatolites are very cool. They're basically mounds of cyanobacteria (aka blue-green algae), built up over a long period of time like a microbial layer cake. They start out as a layer of happy little bacteria hanging out in warm, shallow water. The bacteria have wild parties and eventually build up a dense mat (you know, those kinds of parties) that sediment sticks to. Well, once sediment has started building up, the bacteria have to get back on top so they can get to the sunlight. Rinse and repeat. Over hundreds or thousands of years, a stromatolite can build up into an impressive hump rising from the sea floor. They stick out of the water entirely during low tide.

We have stromatolites building up even today, though they're not quite as common as they used to be. They're mostly found in warm, shallow waters, such as those off the coast of the Bahamas - modern carbonate platforms. There hasn't really been a time in Earth's history since life appeared that we haven't had at least a few of these shallow marine platforms, though during some periods of history they were far more common than in others.

As fossils, stromatolites are very distinctive. Relatively young (young being in geologic age, here) have a lot of organic material left over in them, which creates the dark bands. Much older stromatolites, like the ones referred to in the article, will have had the organic material "cooked" out of them by depth or perhaps some other mechanism of metamorphism. The internal structure of the fossil remains, however, even if the material has been chemically altered.

Dr. Allwood has a fascinating point when she mentions stromatolites in connection with mars. If there was life on Mars at any point, bacteria is definitely the place to start looking, and stromatolites are some of the most ancient evidence we have for the existence of bacteria on our own planet. It's currently impossible to scope out single bacteria with a rover, but evidence of entire colonies of them? I could definitely see that happening. Our stromatolites can get impressively big, as seen in the shark bay picture. There aren't that many things that would cause internal structure like you see from stromatolites, though there are inorganic processes that can. So finding a bump on Mars and cutting it open to reveal a stromatolite-like structure wouldn't be definitive proof without further analysis, but it would still be pretty exciting.

Friday link-o-rama

Happy birthday, Apollo 11!
(From yesterday.) Oh no! You're over the hill now! We'd better wear black armbands for the birthday party. We can celebrate by watching these newly restored videos of the moon walk while we eat red velvet cake. Woo!
Also: We Choose the Moon - relive the launch in real time!

Dinosaur burrow in Asutralia.
Sounds like a very cool discovery, and may help with understanding some paleo-climate change. Hopefully we'll see more about these!

Why Titan is so exciting.
And it is - very exciting. Planetary geology is very cutting edge as far as science goes, and I'm very excited to see how much we can learn about other planets (and moons) just by analyzing photographs of them. Geomorphology for the win!

Map of Taraniki reveals volcanic history.
I want one of these. Seriously.

Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission holds hearing on gas drilling at nuke test site.
You know, this just seems like a very bad idea, on pretty much every front possible. I'm incredibly puzzled as to why people want to drill for gas there so desperately, considering that natural gas prices are even more in the shitter than oil prices. There are plenty of other natural gas fields if we absolutely feel we must drill. How about we leave the radioactive stuff alone until we're running out.

When Yellowstone Explodes
Article from National Geographic about the Yellowstone caldera. I'm... not terribly thrilled about the title, but the article itself is pretty cool. And you can't argue with the excitement factor when it comes to Things That Could Explode And Kill Us All. That said, I am getting kind of tired of people grabbing my sleeve and, a frantic light in their eyes, exclaiming that did I know there's a supervolcano in Yellowstone that's going to explode tomorrow and cause us all to choke and die in a cloud of hot ash. While technically it could explode tomorrow, I'm of the school of thought that by soon, we mean geologically soon. Which means not soon at all. Won't my face be read when the pyroclastic cloud rolls over Denver and we all asphyxiate under several feet of ash?

Mayon in the Philippines is threatening to erupt again.
We may be getting some impressive pictures out of this soon. Mayon is incredibly active as volcanoes go (48 eruptions in recorded history - nothing to sneeze at) and there are signs that there's a lot of lava activity going on there.

New seismic shooting method for complex structure.
If you're not feeling hyper nerdy, I'd recommend skipping this one. It's about a new method for shooting 3-D seismic to examine sub-surface structure, which I just thought was very interesting.

Ridiculous Life Lessons From New Girl Games
The shit video game makers try to sell to girls makes me CRY. And also forces me to admit that, for all I bitch about the chainmail bikinis and bouncy boobs, at least in WoW girls get to stab things, set them on fire, and hit them with clubs.

Uniformitarianism is dead! Long live catastrophism!

I had something pop up in my google alerts this morning, and it pointed to this article on creation.com. I don't recommend clicking or reading unless you want a helping of brain hurt this early in the day. The part that was of interest to me reads:

By way of illustration, consider geologic formations in the Great Basin of the western United States. The vast horizontal layers of hydraulically deposited sedimentary rock are said to take long periods of time to accumulate, based on the assumption that the rate of deposition was always similar to that observed today in a typical river delta. This concept of uniformity may seem like a reasonable starting point when considered abstractly, but no steady-state river flow could possibly cover such a vast area; neither would it produce the violently buried and mangled bodies found fossilized in many rocks of the region. The present-day erosion conditions applied uniformly in the past could not account for the unusual formations of the Grand Canyon, mesas, badlands, and other canyons. By contrast, the catastrophic processes observed during and following the eruption of Mount St. Helens in the Cascades of Washington state produced a scale model of the Grand Canyon in a very brief period of time. Sediments were rapidly deposited and then suddenly eroded by pyroclastic steam, water, and mudflows in the area northwest of the summit. Now the canyon walls resemble others that are assumed to be of great age, even though they are known to be [merely decades] old.2

The point to be recognized is that science deals with observations of present states and processes, and can only discuss the prehistoric past. In the example of geologic formations of the Great Basin, the assumption of uniformity can be contrasted with a model of catastrophic tectonic, volcanic, and hydraulic activity that would accompany a global cataclysm such as the great Flood of Genesis. The observed eruption of Mount St. Helens demonstrated that rapid processes can produce effects commonly believed to require long periods of time, and thus gives credence, if not preference, to the concept that the earth’s geology did not require long periods of time to develop. Many puzzling formations can only be explained through cataclysmic forces. Similarly, other methods of estimating the age of the earth or of the universe apply assumptions about processes and rates that extend into the distant past. Regardless of how apparently compelling such dating methods may appear to be, the fact remains that they are built on assumptions that must be critically questioned and evaluated.

Wall of text crits you for 2K! (...sorry, little World of Warcraft joke there. You can slap me later.)

Basically, what he's saying is:
- Strictly applying the observed depositional/erosional conditions of today to events of the past doesn't explain everything perfectly.
- There's evidence for catastrophism.
- Hey, there's a canyon by Mt. St. Helens that's like a scale model of the Grand Canyon and it formed in a matter of decades. Suck it, uniformitarians!

I'm not going to get in to the specific third claim here, because Talk Origins has already addressed it, and so very concisely. If someone actually stumbles upon this little bottled note in the vast oceans of the internet and would like me to get in to more detail than that, I definitely can.

What I really want to talk about are the first two points, because those are constantly belabored by creationists. There's evidence for catastrophism! Incremental change doesn't explain everything!

What this boils down to is a straw man, a disingenuous mischaracterization of uniformitarianism, and how geologists apply the principle.

So, what is Uniformitarianism, you ask? It's the principle that as today, so in the past. It's the assumption that the same laws of physics we're operating under today are the same laws of physics there were over the billions of years of Earth history. It's the principle that processes as we see and understand them today occurred in the same manner and to the same effect in the past.

What Uniformitarianism is NOT is the strict application of today's processes to the past. It is not the assumption that if we cannot observe it in person, and in real time today, that it could not possibly have happened in the past.

If you were to apply Uniformitarianism in that manner, for example, you'd have no explanation for komatiite, which is an extrusive igneous rock from the Archean period. There are no rocks forming today that look like komatiite or have its same composition, because conditions on the Earth have changed over the last 2.5 billion years. In the Archean, the Earth was producing so much heat internally that it could produce a full melt of the mantle, and thus komatiite. Today, there's only enough internal heat to allow for a partial melt, and thus we end up with basalt. So does that mean komatiite is impossible, because the Earth's volcanoes aren't spewing it forth today? No. And we understand why. Conditions have changed, following the same laws of physics and chemistry that we operate under today.

I've yet to meet a geologist who follows Uniformitarianism the way creationists like to envision it. Rather than assuming that nothing outside of the geologic processes of today could have possibly applied in the past, we instead use those processes to inform our understanding of the past. Creationists like to whine (yes, whine) that geologists refuse to accept that catastrophic events occur, because we're uniformitarian sticks in the mud. This could not be further from the truth. Anyone that's done even basic reading on volcanoes, earthquakes, glacial outburst floods, or landslides knows that catastrophic events can and do occur. We just don't buy that your catastrophic event could occur because you're incapable of explaining it without a flood (har har) of special pleading.

My favorite example of the reality of catastrophic geological events comes in the relationship between modern glacial outburst floods and the formation of the Channeled Scablands in Washington. (This was also my presentation topic for Skepticamp in Colorado this year.) The current scientific consensus about the Channeled Scablands is that they were formed by a massive, dare I say catastrophic, series of floods. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet formed an ice dam across the Clark Fork River, backing all that water up over a period of years to form Lake Missoula. (The old Lake Missoula bed is where present day Missoula, Montana is located. You can still see the old lake shore deposits in the hills.) When the lake became sufficiently big to partially float the ice dam (it was made of ice, after all) the dam failed catastrophically and the lake was able to drain in a matter of days. (If you'd like to read more about these giant floods, Discover the Ice Age Floods and Ice Age Floods Institute are a couple of good sites to start with.)

This theory of the Scablands formation is actually very new, and there was a lot of scientific pulling of hair and scratching at faces over it. This is obviously also not an event we have any chance of observing today, since it's not the ice age, and the Cordilleran Ice Sheet is long gone. (Something for which the residents of western Washington State are no doubt grateful.) However, in modern times we can still observe glacial outburst floods of a much smaller variety, such as the floods from Hidden Creek Lake at the Kennicott Glacier. Research on these modern floods has certainly led to better understanding of how the ancient Lake Missoula/Cordilleran Ice Sheet floods worked.

Or look at it this way: Have we directly observed a Chicxulub-type impact event? I sure hope that we never will. But we're still doing a lot of work on that and other impact sites, and we are using Uniformitarian principles, since the laws of physics that caused that meteor to hurtle into our planet are still most definitely in force.

So, Dr. Ashton, you are right. Strict adherence to uniformitarianism as you paint it explains very little of the past. And catastrophic events do occur. Strangely enough, geologists know and understand this concept well, and it's created a robust body of evidence and theory to form our picture of the Earth's 4.5 billion year geological history.

Unfortunately for you, we're just a little too uniformitarian (the real sort) to buy the special pleading that the laws of physics have changed so that you can have your 6000 year old Earth.

Just when we thought the Texas Board of Education couldn't get any scarier.

For about five minutes, I had a little flutter of hope in my heart when Don McElroy was given the boot from the Texas Board of Education. He was an infamous creationist stooge, and every time I heard his name, I cringed. While I'm not Texan myself, I'm well aware of the influence that Texas has on the contents of school text books, and the worse science standards get in Texas, the more harm it does to children throughout the united states.

I should have known it wouldn't last. Somehow the governor managed to dig up a candidate nearly as horrifying to head the board, Gail Lowe. She's a prominent part of the conservative bloc on the board, and oh yeah, she's a creationist. Quite an outspoken one, actually.

I weep. Considering that McElroy was trumpeted as an embarrassment to the state of Texas, I'm not sure how the governor thinks this will be an improvement. Though I suppose once he gets around to seceding from the union, we won't be able to make fun of him any more.

This is all a prelude to the latest cringe-inducing education news coming out of Texas. They've set their sights on the teaching of history. Please go read, and then pick your jaw up off the floor and come back.

Seriously, are you kidding me? De-emphasize Thurgood Marshall, who led the charge in Brown v. Board of education, one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in the last century? Particularly when you consider that the argument for changing the standards seems to amount to this: "We're in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it." (Rev. Peter Marshall)

That's very, very scary. Thurgood Marshall, by helping desegregate schools, by chipping away at "separate but equal" throughout his career, is not a moral role model? His contributions deserve LESS emphasis? The man was a freaking SUPERHERO.

Considering the tired old argument about the Bible being the basis for the Constitution has been dragged out by this people, I think that says sad things about the education standards when they went through school. And since there's further justification made by beating the dead horse of American exceptionalism, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Coming soon: a return to the concept of manifest destiny!

You can make a lot of arguments regarding how scientific the study of history can truly be. I recently did a semester of British history at university, and it really opened my eyes to how skeptical - and just a bit scientific - you can be in regards to history education. That's not something that you'll find in K-12 any more. It involves giving the students historical sources, and helping them read and understand through the framework of what the world and people were like at that time. One of the best lessons in skepticism I ever had was reading The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth and turning a skeptical eye on many of his more hilarious claims. (My personal favorite: At one point, the British invade Rome and sack it.*** No, really.)

I suppose that it's too much to ask for US History to be taught like that in public school. But at the very least, could we refrain from directly misleading or lying to the kids if we're not going to teach them how to understand history in a skeptical fashion?

History is written by the winners, indeed.





*** So, for example, this is how I'd start looking at his claim in a skeptical fashion:
- When did Monmouth write this? If it's not a first hand account, how long after the fact is it?
- What are his sources? Are they reliable? Do they even exist?
- If this actually happened, what evidence should there be? If the Romans were too embarrassed to chronicle it, were there other countries around where the citizens would either not care and take note of it as good world gossip, or delight in the fact that Rome just got burnt to the ground?
- Are there any accounts written by British historians that repeat Monmouth's claim that aren't sourced either from him or directly from his source?
- What motive could Monmouth have if he were making up something this ridiculous? What was going on in Britain around the time he wrote this?

...and so on.

Backyard Geology: Garnet/Magnetite sands from the Great Lakes

One of my coworkers (a geologist that I do a lot of work for), who shall for the purposes of this blog be called "Tim," recently went home to Michigan to visit his family. He brought back a very cool little sand sample that he'd scooped up off the beach at Lake Huron. On the site, the sand looked like very unremarkable brown sand, the kind you'd get off of any beach. Under the microscope, though, it had some real character!

When you look at sand through the lens of its characteristics as sediment, the three factors you're most interested in are:

1) Sorting: If sand is "well sorted," it means that most of the grains are about the same sign. The sorting of sediment has implications on how the sand was transported. For example, poorly sorted sediment might have come from something like a landslide, where everything got jumbled together, or from glacial till, which just gets pushed around indiscriminately by the glacier. Well sorted sediment indicates that there was probably longer transportation, and normally by wind or flowing water.

2) Size: Is it big or is it small? A lot (but definitely not all) of sediment begins its life as a larger rock, so this can also be an indication of length of transport, or mechanism that created the sediment.

3) Rounding: Is it round or is it angular? The more round a grain of sediment is, the more punishment its taken over the course of its life, which smooths out the rough edges. (A possible metaphor, here?)

The sand that Tim brought back from Lake Huron was pretty fine in size, very well sorted, and very well rounded. The sorting comes from the fact that it was put on a beach by the lake, and goes hand in hand with the particular grain size for that area of the beach. What the rounding means is that these sand grains have been worked a lot, no doubt by the lake, but possibly by other means.

The normal, average sand that those of us in the continental US are used to seeing is primarily made out of quartz. This is because quartz is very tough and very common as minerals go, so there's lots of it, and it can take a lot of punishment without breaking down. What tells us the most interesting things about sand and where it came from are the other minerals that you can find in it.

In this case, there were very well rounded grains of deep red garnet, and also quite a bit of magnetite. This is some very cool stuff, and not what we see around in Colorado. Garnet comes pretty exclusively from metamorphic rocks, and magnetite is found in both igneous and metamorphic rocks. So the source of this sand was most likely metamorphic basement rock that's been crunched up and worn down into sand.

Knowing what we do about the geologic history of the great lakes - they formed from the ice sheets melting at the end of the last ice age - this sand may very well have started its life as glacial till, dropped into the bottom of the newly formed lakes during the melting.

There was actually a very surprising amount of magnetite in the sample. Tim separated it out by dragging a magnet through the sand, and it made an impressive black fuzz. This is not necessarily how much magnetite you'd get if you dredged a similar sample from the bottom of the lake. Apparently streaks of black sand are common on the lake shorelines, because once the sand has had a chance to dry, the wind blows the lighter quartz and other mineral grains farther up the beach, leaving the heavy magnetite behind. So it's very possible that the surprising amount of magnetite Tim brought home was due to this sorting action.