I've now officially survived my second week of grad school. Well, technically yesterday was the official survival date, but I was in Colorado Springs for most of the day. And then when I got home, I decided that a round of Plants v. Zombies was more interesting than writing anything. I think Popcap has figured out a way to inject heroin directly into the eyeballs of anyone who plays its games, through the internet.
So after two weeks of grad school, how do I feel?
My panic has converted to stress, so that's good. Maybe.
This week I taught my first two labs. There wasn't really a whole lot of teaching involved this time, since it was mostly just going through the syllabus, then turning the students loose on an array of minerals so they could test the physical properties. I'm going to try to be incredibly nice about grading this one, I think; some physical properties can be pretty subjective (luster, for example) and I remember how much I loathed the physical properties lab as an undergrad because of it.
I'm also finding it interesting how a class as a hole can have a certain attitude with it. One of my lab sections was much more sociable than the other. One of them buckled down and got through all of the work a lot quicker, and there seemed to be a lot less questions. I'll be interested to see how things change once all of the students get to know each other better and hopefully become less shy.
Next week I'm going to have to start attending Mineralogy lectures regularly, I think. That's when lectures about the things I don't remember and was never that good at (eg: point groups) start up. It'll help me survive teaching lab, but I'm not all that thrilled about having three hours a week less to work with.
And time is the big, big thing. The last two weeks, there's been a couple of days each week where I haven't even left school until about 1900, because I've been in the library trying to pull articles. I'm hoping that will calm down soon, once I've got at least a decent library for the Bighorn Basin established. That time may ultimately be spent with thin sections instead, though, since I feel like my free time during the day (and when the petrology lab is free) is pretty limited.
I'm trying not to make myself crazy about Bighorn Basin, though. I had a good chat with my adviser on Friday about that. My big problem is that I want to feel like I'm doing something toward the project. And right now, I've got to face the reality that for the time being, all I can really do is read. A lot. And then some more. The Bighorn Basin is an area that's already had a lot of study, so I need a thorough understanding of what everyone else has done before I can really get to any questions that haven't already been answered. For me, that feels pretty frustrating, since reading doesn't really feel like work. But I just need to calm down, and do it, and not let my impatience get the better of me.
Maybe that's my first big lesson.
My classes are going all right. I dropped down to two, since the Surface Process Modeling class didn't sound entirely relevant, and two classes is already a pretty damn scary load. Which is another thing that takes getting used to. As an undergrad, I felt like I was seriously slacking if I wasn't taking at least four, if not five classes. Not so, here.
I've also been joking that in just two weeks of school, I'm already dumber. What I really mean is that I already feel like I know even less than I did before - college has always had that effect on me. The more classes I go to, the less I feel like I actually know.
Case in point would be the lab exercise we did for sequence stratigraphy on Friday. The professor gave us a log section to correlate. This is something I thought that I could do in my sleep, because I've been correlating logs for the last four years. So I went on my merry way, and royally screwed it up.
Most of the fields I've worked with span two, maybe three sections, which makes them three miles "long" at most. And because of the very small area a field covers, I tend to make a couple little assumptions - (1) the formations of interest should be present throughout the field, and (2) they should all be about the same thickness, unless you have a good reason to think you're working with something like channel sands. These little assumptions tend to be useful because sometimes you get logs that aren't of the best quality, and also mean that if you can't hunt down your formation (or something that just might be your formation if you turn your head and squint because Jesus, what were the loggers on?) then there's something pretty interesting going on.
This mindset basically made me mis-correlate a big part of the section on Friday. Because I wanted the various formations to be continuous, and about the same thickness. Which might work in a field, but not in a region, where pinch-outs and facies changes are the rule rather than the exception.
Scale. It's all about scale.
See, that's what I mean - I've only been in grad school for two weeks, and I already feel dumber.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
At least I still have time to read. (The Other Boleyn Girl)
I finished reading The Other Boleyn Girl, though my version of the novel wasn't listed as a movie tie-in. In fact, I hadn't realized that it was a movie AND a BBC mini-series until that point. So I've thrown those two on my Netflix queue, even though I admit to some doubt about the movie. I just can't imagine Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn. I just can't see her reaching that level of self-serving bitchiness, but I'll find out eventually.
Anyway, I don't normally like historical fiction, but I thought this one was good. If nothing else, it kept me up for a couple hours last night and Friday night, because I just kept reading until I couldn't stay awake any longer. For all that you go in mostly knowing how it's going to end (at least for Anne) the benefit of the narrator being a less well-known historical figure is that you don't know how her story will end. And the writing is compelling as well.
What I actually thought was the most well-executed was the relationship between Anne and her sister Mary, who narrates that novel. I think the author captured a very interesting emotional dynamic - how the sisters depend on each other, love each other, and at the same time are rivals. The love between the the sisters is always colored by distrust and hatred.
The other interesting point that the book emphasizes is the way that Henry VIII's divorce affected the position of all women - at least noblewomen - in the country. It's an interesting point, particularly when the power dynamic started out as incredibly uneven. The point presented by the book was that the divorce really destroyed the only protection even the most faithful wife might have. I feel like Philippa Gregory was perhaps trying to examine the role of women (or, more particularly, noblewomen) during that time period because it's something that often gets glossed over when Henry VIII's many wives are talked about. And she certainly makes an effort to explain why women were fighting to capture his interest even when being Queen seemed like a scary job.
After I finished the book, I picked up my British History text and re-read the section about Henry VIII (and his children as well, just because I felt like continuing on) and I think that the broad historical points were represented accurately. The finer ones - like the life of Mary Boleyn - isn't something that I can speak on.
When I've finished a book, I've been trying to think about what I like about it and what I didn't like, because I'm hoping that it will inform my own efforts at writing. I've already covered what I liked - the complex relationship is definitely number one in my book.
What I didn't like has more to do with the writing style than anything else. I actually liked how short the author kept some of the scenes - they weren't any longer than they needed to be, and kept the complex story moving without bogging things down. However, I think at some points the author also over-emphasized certain things. For example, Mary butting heads with Anne over her son was something that came up a little more often than it really needed to, I think, particularly because it was effectively the same scene and conversation each time. Like, just in case we forgot, Anne likes pushing Mary's buttons and making her miserable and is using a child to do so. Also, I was very, very tired of the phrase "the other Boleyn girl" by the end of the novel.
It was an enjoyable read, but I don't think I'm likely to pick up any of the author's other books. I looked at some of them on Amazon and the summaries didn't seem all that appealing, and I'm not really that in to historical fiction or romantic fiction to begin with.
Anyway, I don't normally like historical fiction, but I thought this one was good. If nothing else, it kept me up for a couple hours last night and Friday night, because I just kept reading until I couldn't stay awake any longer. For all that you go in mostly knowing how it's going to end (at least for Anne) the benefit of the narrator being a less well-known historical figure is that you don't know how her story will end. And the writing is compelling as well.
What I actually thought was the most well-executed was the relationship between Anne and her sister Mary, who narrates that novel. I think the author captured a very interesting emotional dynamic - how the sisters depend on each other, love each other, and at the same time are rivals. The love between the the sisters is always colored by distrust and hatred.
The other interesting point that the book emphasizes is the way that Henry VIII's divorce affected the position of all women - at least noblewomen - in the country. It's an interesting point, particularly when the power dynamic started out as incredibly uneven. The point presented by the book was that the divorce really destroyed the only protection even the most faithful wife might have. I feel like Philippa Gregory was perhaps trying to examine the role of women (or, more particularly, noblewomen) during that time period because it's something that often gets glossed over when Henry VIII's many wives are talked about. And she certainly makes an effort to explain why women were fighting to capture his interest even when being Queen seemed like a scary job.
After I finished the book, I picked up my British History text and re-read the section about Henry VIII (and his children as well, just because I felt like continuing on) and I think that the broad historical points were represented accurately. The finer ones - like the life of Mary Boleyn - isn't something that I can speak on.
When I've finished a book, I've been trying to think about what I like about it and what I didn't like, because I'm hoping that it will inform my own efforts at writing. I've already covered what I liked - the complex relationship is definitely number one in my book.
What I didn't like has more to do with the writing style than anything else. I actually liked how short the author kept some of the scenes - they weren't any longer than they needed to be, and kept the complex story moving without bogging things down. However, I think at some points the author also over-emphasized certain things. For example, Mary butting heads with Anne over her son was something that came up a little more often than it really needed to, I think, particularly because it was effectively the same scene and conversation each time. Like, just in case we forgot, Anne likes pushing Mary's buttons and making her miserable and is using a child to do so. Also, I was very, very tired of the phrase "the other Boleyn girl" by the end of the novel.
It was an enjoyable read, but I don't think I'm likely to pick up any of the author's other books. I looked at some of them on Amazon and the summaries didn't seem all that appealing, and I'm not really that in to historical fiction or romantic fiction to begin with.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Waters of Mars
No, not the super awesome episode of Doctor Who. And forgive me if I keep this short and only semi-coherent. I've spent most of my day staring at thin sections of fossilized sea varmint poop (you heard me right) so... yeah. It's the glamor. That's why I chose this educational path.
However, Mars is much more glamorous than peloids. Fortuitously enough, the geological colloquium today featured Bryan Hynek, who researches Mars. He did an interesting talk about Martian river valleys, and also the existence of an early ocean on Mars.
Mostly what struck me about the river valley portion was just how much higher resolution imaging has done for the field. In one example, he showed an area that had an extremely small drainage density when calculated from pictures taken by the Viking (if I remember correctly) mission. With the newer, higher resolution data a lot more tributaries are apparent and the drainage density in that area climbed up to something you'd expect to find in Utah. Which isn't to say Mars was a watery paradise back in the Noachian, but it had actively flowing water. Looking at the river valley distribution and age, it was mostly concentrated in the early history of the planet, but it's still interesting to think of Mars as a significantly wet planet.
This lead in to looking at the possibility of a Martian ocean, which isn't really a new idea. Using climate models, it's apparently not really possible to create the sort of drainage networks that have been found without an ocean. This is actually not an idea I'd been exposed to before, probably because I don't read nearly enough about planetary geology. Bryan also looked at river deltas (some of the pictures had the classic bird's foot shape like the Mississippi delta) that emptied into the probable site of the ocean and used that to estimate the sea level and thus the shoreline. He had a striking picture of Mars with elevations up to the proposed sea level filled in with blue. There's something jarring about seeing a third of the red planet hidden under and ocean.
There are still a lot of questions to be answered (like the big issue of constructing an atmosphere for the Noachian epoch that would have made this possible and sourcing all of the gases), and doesn't really do much for the question of if there's water on Mars today - but it's a lot of fun to think about if nothing else. And cool. Let's not forget cool. And it made me remember all sorts of terminology from geomorphology that I'd almost managed to forget.
Oh yes, and evidence of moraines left by retreating glaciers on the volcanoes. Pitterpat goes my heart.
I'll add it to my list of things to do as soon as time travel is invented, right after (3) Pet a [herbivorous] dinosaur - (4) Go sailing on Mars. Do not forget respirator.
However, Mars is much more glamorous than peloids. Fortuitously enough, the geological colloquium today featured Bryan Hynek, who researches Mars. He did an interesting talk about Martian river valleys, and also the existence of an early ocean on Mars.
Mostly what struck me about the river valley portion was just how much higher resolution imaging has done for the field. In one example, he showed an area that had an extremely small drainage density when calculated from pictures taken by the Viking (if I remember correctly) mission. With the newer, higher resolution data a lot more tributaries are apparent and the drainage density in that area climbed up to something you'd expect to find in Utah. Which isn't to say Mars was a watery paradise back in the Noachian, but it had actively flowing water. Looking at the river valley distribution and age, it was mostly concentrated in the early history of the planet, but it's still interesting to think of Mars as a significantly wet planet.
This lead in to looking at the possibility of a Martian ocean, which isn't really a new idea. Using climate models, it's apparently not really possible to create the sort of drainage networks that have been found without an ocean. This is actually not an idea I'd been exposed to before, probably because I don't read nearly enough about planetary geology. Bryan also looked at river deltas (some of the pictures had the classic bird's foot shape like the Mississippi delta) that emptied into the probable site of the ocean and used that to estimate the sea level and thus the shoreline. He had a striking picture of Mars with elevations up to the proposed sea level filled in with blue. There's something jarring about seeing a third of the red planet hidden under and ocean.
There are still a lot of questions to be answered (like the big issue of constructing an atmosphere for the Noachian epoch that would have made this possible and sourcing all of the gases), and doesn't really do much for the question of if there's water on Mars today - but it's a lot of fun to think about if nothing else. And cool. Let's not forget cool. And it made me remember all sorts of terminology from geomorphology that I'd almost managed to forget.
Oh yes, and evidence of moraines left by retreating glaciers on the volcanoes. Pitterpat goes my heart.
I'll add it to my list of things to do as soon as time travel is invented, right after (3) Pet a [herbivorous] dinosaur - (4) Go sailing on Mars. Do not forget respirator.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Fluffy Kittens Are Good
Example provided:
QED, bitches1.
1 - Post not actually about fluffy kittens. Void where prohibited.
QED, bitches1.
1 - Post not actually about fluffy kittens. Void where prohibited.
Time to sharpen some pencils
Well, school kind of started this week.
I say kind of, because classes don't actually start until next week. But Wednesday was the grad student orientation, and now I'm in training to learn how to be a TA.
I feel rusty on the whole being a student thing after eight months off. I'm a little worried about my organizational skills having fallen apart. I went and bought my dayplanner for the semester, though I don't really have anything to put in it yet. I'm taking three classes (technically four, but the last is a seminar that's just an hour a week with no work outside of class); since my research project doesn't really get started until next year, I'm trying to get as many classes as I can out of the way. So we'll see how that goes.
What I'm more worried about is the two sections of Mineralogy Lab that I'm going to teach. I haven't really taught before, and Mineralogy was not one of my best classes. It was also a class I took in my first undergrad semester at CU, so I'm pretty rusty on it to begin with. I'm supposed to meet with Joe and the other TA tomorrow, so hopefully that will help allay some of my worries.
It's definitely going to be very different as a semester.
And while I got myself into a routine of posting every weekday recently, I don't think I'll be able to keep that up. Obviously, I haven't managed anything since Tuesday. Oh well. Grad students don't have free time, I've been told.
I say kind of, because classes don't actually start until next week. But Wednesday was the grad student orientation, and now I'm in training to learn how to be a TA.
I feel rusty on the whole being a student thing after eight months off. I'm a little worried about my organizational skills having fallen apart. I went and bought my dayplanner for the semester, though I don't really have anything to put in it yet. I'm taking three classes (technically four, but the last is a seminar that's just an hour a week with no work outside of class); since my research project doesn't really get started until next year, I'm trying to get as many classes as I can out of the way. So we'll see how that goes.
What I'm more worried about is the two sections of Mineralogy Lab that I'm going to teach. I haven't really taught before, and Mineralogy was not one of my best classes. It was also a class I took in my first undergrad semester at CU, so I'm pretty rusty on it to begin with. I'm supposed to meet with Joe and the other TA tomorrow, so hopefully that will help allay some of my worries.
It's definitely going to be very different as a semester.
And while I got myself into a routine of posting every weekday recently, I don't think I'll be able to keep that up. Obviously, I haven't managed anything since Tuesday. Oh well. Grad students don't have free time, I've been told.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Building a Straw Mosque
I know the bizarre controversy about the Islamic community center planned in New York City a few blocks from the site once occupied by the World Trade Center has been going on for a while, but I haven't said anything before now because I've been so utterly baffled about the whole thing that words have simply escaped me. Imagine me reading article after article, staring open-mouthed at my computer screen (possibly with a little dangling string of drool depending on how late the hour is) and that's about right. I'm basically stunned, confused, and filled with the need to plant my face in my palm, repeatedly.
I would like to note one thing. I don't personally know anyone who was even injured on 9/11/2001. I've never even been to New York City. So I can't really imagine the pain or anguish that is felt by someone every day when they get up and touch a hole that will permanently be in their life, or look at a scar that still sits in the middle of their city. I don't want to insult or belittle that.
But I also think that grief and tragedy, personal or otherwise, should not dictate what rights someone is allowed to have, or how the law should be applied.
Go back to the first paragraph I wrote. Note that I said "Islamic community center" rather than "mosque." Note that I said "the site once occupied by the World Trade Center" rather than "Ground Zero." The words I used aren't very emotionally charged, at least not unless you have a knee-jerk hate for all things Muslim, in which case I feel sorry for you. And particularly in the case of using "Islamic community center" instead of "mosque," the less emotionally charged phrase is more accurate. If there is a mosque (and I've seen some disagreement on if it's a mosque or if it's "worship space," whatever that means), it's just a part of a community center that also includes basketball courts.
Word choice can have a lot of meaning. Some of this word choice might be shorthand to save time. But I kind of doubt that. I think there's been a very deliberate decision to use the most inflammatory, emotional language possible. So "Islamic community center a few blocks away from the WTC site" has been replaced with "Ground Zero Mosque." And I hope we all know what it's called when you misrepresent something to weaken it, then argue against the misrepresentation.
It doesn't necessarily bother me in principle that people are talking about this. There are a lot of times when the rights guaranteed in the Constitution end up resulting in things that make us personally squirm or feel angry - I'm thinking Fred Phelps and his gang, here, or the KKK having a rally on Martin Luther King Jr's birthday - there are plenty of things to take your pick from. Most of the time it ends up at "Well, I don't like it, but I've got to defend the right to do it."
What does bother me, however, is that this debate is being built on top of a straw man - or a straw mosque as the case may be. And what bothers me even more is that this straw mosque is being used as a kind of dog whistle to call up resentment against American (and non-American) Muslims in general.
I haven't had much nice to say about President George W. Bush in a long time. But I will compliment him on one thing at least - after 9/11, the man did his level best to strongly separate the terrorists from regular Muslims, both at home and abroad. And people from his administration are trying to defend the Islamic community center now. Too bad it doesn't seem to be working any longer.
Maybe it's because it's an election year, and some of the politics have gone past the point of disturbing and pear-shaped to just horrifying. (I'm looking at you, Sharron Angle.) I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that American Muslims and their community center are being used as a political football. But I sure am disgusted, and more than a little worried that this could get escalated to a truly awful level.
Since it isn't just the community center in New York:
How lovely.
So we should trample one of the most important rights, the right to freedom of religion, because in the past, in other places, mosques have been used to commission violence and incite hatred. I wonder if this means that we ought to be protesting proposed Catholic churches, because they're hotbeds of pedophilia. Or protesting proposed Southern Baptist churches because they encourage the murder of doctors and incite hatred against homosexuals.
Of course we wouldn't. Because this is America, damnit. Because Americans are Catholic and Southern Baptist and Lutheran and Jewish and Atheist and Buddhist, and we have rights and freedoms, one of which is the ability to continue to believe or not as we see fit even if there was once a giant, murderous space bastard with facial hair you could hide a cute mammal in who claimed to have the same belief system as us.
Oh yeah. And Americans are Muslim, too.
I would like to note one thing. I don't personally know anyone who was even injured on 9/11/2001. I've never even been to New York City. So I can't really imagine the pain or anguish that is felt by someone every day when they get up and touch a hole that will permanently be in their life, or look at a scar that still sits in the middle of their city. I don't want to insult or belittle that.
But I also think that grief and tragedy, personal or otherwise, should not dictate what rights someone is allowed to have, or how the law should be applied.
Go back to the first paragraph I wrote. Note that I said "Islamic community center" rather than "mosque." Note that I said "the site once occupied by the World Trade Center" rather than "Ground Zero." The words I used aren't very emotionally charged, at least not unless you have a knee-jerk hate for all things Muslim, in which case I feel sorry for you. And particularly in the case of using "Islamic community center" instead of "mosque," the less emotionally charged phrase is more accurate. If there is a mosque (and I've seen some disagreement on if it's a mosque or if it's "worship space," whatever that means), it's just a part of a community center that also includes basketball courts.
Word choice can have a lot of meaning. Some of this word choice might be shorthand to save time. But I kind of doubt that. I think there's been a very deliberate decision to use the most inflammatory, emotional language possible. So "Islamic community center a few blocks away from the WTC site" has been replaced with "Ground Zero Mosque." And I hope we all know what it's called when you misrepresent something to weaken it, then argue against the misrepresentation.
It doesn't necessarily bother me in principle that people are talking about this. There are a lot of times when the rights guaranteed in the Constitution end up resulting in things that make us personally squirm or feel angry - I'm thinking Fred Phelps and his gang, here, or the KKK having a rally on Martin Luther King Jr's birthday - there are plenty of things to take your pick from. Most of the time it ends up at "Well, I don't like it, but I've got to defend the right to do it."
What does bother me, however, is that this debate is being built on top of a straw man - or a straw mosque as the case may be. And what bothers me even more is that this straw mosque is being used as a kind of dog whistle to call up resentment against American (and non-American) Muslims in general.
I haven't had much nice to say about President George W. Bush in a long time. But I will compliment him on one thing at least - after 9/11, the man did his level best to strongly separate the terrorists from regular Muslims, both at home and abroad. And people from his administration are trying to defend the Islamic community center now. Too bad it doesn't seem to be working any longer.
Maybe it's because it's an election year, and some of the politics have gone past the point of disturbing and pear-shaped to just horrifying. (I'm looking at you, Sharron Angle.) I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that American Muslims and their community center are being used as a political football. But I sure am disgusted, and more than a little worried that this could get escalated to a truly awful level.
Since it isn't just the community center in New York:
In Murfreesboro, Tenn., Republican candidates have denounced plans for a large Muslim center proposed near a subdivision, and hundreds of protesters have turned out for a march and a county meeting.
In late June, in Temecula, Calif., members of a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.
How lovely.
“A mosque is not just a place for worship,” Ms. Darwish said in an interview. “It’s a place where war is started, where commandments to do jihad start, where incitements against non-Muslims occur. It’s a place where ammunition was stored.”
So we should trample one of the most important rights, the right to freedom of religion, because in the past, in other places, mosques have been used to commission violence and incite hatred. I wonder if this means that we ought to be protesting proposed Catholic churches, because they're hotbeds of pedophilia. Or protesting proposed Southern Baptist churches because they encourage the murder of doctors and incite hatred against homosexuals.
Of course we wouldn't. Because this is America, damnit. Because Americans are Catholic and Southern Baptist and Lutheran and Jewish and Atheist and Buddhist, and we have rights and freedoms, one of which is the ability to continue to believe or not as we see fit even if there was once a giant, murderous space bastard with facial hair you could hide a cute mammal in who claimed to have the same belief system as us.
Oh yeah. And Americans are Muslim, too.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Fan Number One
This is the funny thing about the story I just had published, particularly that it ended up being my proverbial toe-dip into the deep end of writing for profit: I really hated The Book of Autumn when I first wrote it. I quite literally wrote it because it was stuck in my head, like a ping pong ball lodged in a water pipe, and the only way for me to be able to write a story that I actually wanted to write was to get TBoA out on paper first. It started out as about 5K words of rushed, shitty prose with no story arc to speak of, which I stuck in my backpack and did my best to ignore for the next year while I spent my limited undergrad free time on stories that I actually, you know, liked. But the story refused to go away, and I eventually gave in and typed it up, adding and correcting and smoothing along the way. At which point I read it over and decided that I still hated that story, because it just wouldn't cooperate with me.
I ended up sending the story off to my dear friend Isaac (who was my Bridesman at my wedding, incidentally) and whined at him, "I hate this story, it doesn't work, what the hell is wrong with it." And Isaac, superhero that he is, figured out a lot of the fixes I needed to make to transform TBoA into something readable and interesting that I actually started liking, just a little. Isaac also, it should be noted, came up with the title for the story. Because once it was cleaned up and ready to be sent out into the big, scary world of the slush pile, I realized that "Story I Hate" was probably not a suitable title.
At the time I sent TBoA to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, it was still the something of the unloved child out of the three stories I was attempting to find homes for. (It should be noted that the other two are, at this time, still homeless.) Scott e-mailed me and asked me if I could fix up the story's ending, because it didn't quite work for him. I gave it my best shot, and in the process, it was like something snapped into focus. I made some little tweak, and BAM. I didn't hate the story any more, or resent it for being difficult. In fact, I really, really loved it.
Which I think really goes to show the sort of super powers a good editor has.
I think one of my biggest failings as a writer right now is that when something in one of my stories doesn't quite work, I can't figure out why - if I notice at all. I've gotten a lot of rejections in the recent past that read something like, "This is a great story, but something just doesn't quite work for me." While I take the compliment for what it is, it also makes me a little crazy, because if someone could just tell me why something doesn't work, I could fix it. I understand that most editors are way too busy to spend time on a story that's got even a little something broken in it, and I certainly don't expect one to when he or she is wading through a pile of unsolicited stories. But that's why I'm starting to sound just a little fangirlish about Scott - he took the time, he gave me a chance, and he used his magical editor powers to point out the last element that needed to be tweaked into place to turn my story into something I could truly love.
Oh, and then he gave me money for it.
If there is a Scott Andrews fan club, I would like to join it. If not, maybe I should just start one myself.
I ended up sending the story off to my dear friend Isaac (who was my Bridesman at my wedding, incidentally) and whined at him, "I hate this story, it doesn't work, what the hell is wrong with it." And Isaac, superhero that he is, figured out a lot of the fixes I needed to make to transform TBoA into something readable and interesting that I actually started liking, just a little. Isaac also, it should be noted, came up with the title for the story. Because once it was cleaned up and ready to be sent out into the big, scary world of the slush pile, I realized that "Story I Hate" was probably not a suitable title.
At the time I sent TBoA to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, it was still the something of the unloved child out of the three stories I was attempting to find homes for. (It should be noted that the other two are, at this time, still homeless.) Scott e-mailed me and asked me if I could fix up the story's ending, because it didn't quite work for him. I gave it my best shot, and in the process, it was like something snapped into focus. I made some little tweak, and BAM. I didn't hate the story any more, or resent it for being difficult. In fact, I really, really loved it.
Which I think really goes to show the sort of super powers a good editor has.
I think one of my biggest failings as a writer right now is that when something in one of my stories doesn't quite work, I can't figure out why - if I notice at all. I've gotten a lot of rejections in the recent past that read something like, "This is a great story, but something just doesn't quite work for me." While I take the compliment for what it is, it also makes me a little crazy, because if someone could just tell me why something doesn't work, I could fix it. I understand that most editors are way too busy to spend time on a story that's got even a little something broken in it, and I certainly don't expect one to when he or she is wading through a pile of unsolicited stories. But that's why I'm starting to sound just a little fangirlish about Scott - he took the time, he gave me a chance, and he used his magical editor powers to point out the last element that needed to be tweaked into place to turn my story into something I could truly love.
Oh, and then he gave me money for it.
If there is a Scott Andrews fan club, I would like to join it. If not, maybe I should just start one myself.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
I'm wearing my big girl writer pants now!
I'm super excited today, for a couple reasons. One is that it looks like I might have landed a little freelance writing work to supplement my income going in to grad school, so I'm all wound up and nervous about that. But even more so, I've published my first ever short story in a pro market! WOO!
So pretty please, go to Beneath Ceaseless Skies and check out my story, The Book of Autumn. Go now. It's okay, I'll wait.
If you liked it (and I hope you did!) please consider supporting Beneath Ceaseless Skies, since the editor (Scott) is an incredible human being who gives sad little newbs like me a chance. Actually, please consider supporting BCS even if you think my story was total crap and you're now about to flounce off in a huff. Because then Scott could presumably use the funds to find stories less lame than mine. So either way, we all win, right?
I've been pretty much exploding into random bouts of joyful squealing since I signed the contract for the story at the end of June. I just didn't talk about it all that much (on the internets at least) because I wasn't entirely sure when it would be published. And the last time I sold a story, which was to a token payment market, I ran around and told the world how gleeful I was, and then everybody wanted to know when my story would be published so they could join in the celebration. And it got kind of embarrassing after a while to admit that, well, I didn't actually know, but I totally swear I wasn't hallucinating it or anything.
And this morning, as soon as I saw that it was online and all official-like, I went and bought my affiliate membership in the SFWA, because (1) it let me check off one of the smaller ticky boxes on "nerdy shit I want to accomplish before I die" and (2) I just can't resist the fun of being able to claim that John Scalzi is my professional overlord, and least kind of sort of. Though of course the real reason is that the SFWA is an incredibly important organization that hauls a lot of water for its members, and it's a good place to go if you're interested in writing science fiction and/or fantasy, and maybe some day making a career of it.
Of course, there is no such thing as perfection, particularly not in connection with something as messy as life. Just to keep me from floating off like a little glee-filled balloon, this morning Loki (the cute but stupid cat) decided to eat an enormous rubber band. So I've been following him around the house all day in anticipation of him gracing the carpet with rubber-band-filled kitty vomit. I did talk to my vet and he said for now, that's all I can really do... hope that it comes out of one end or the other and doesn't get stuck in between. So please keep your fingers crossed for me on this one. I'd really rather Loki not hoover up my new earnings with a vet bill, but what can I say. He's a helper like that.
So pretty please, go to Beneath Ceaseless Skies and check out my story, The Book of Autumn. Go now. It's okay, I'll wait.
If you liked it (and I hope you did!) please consider supporting Beneath Ceaseless Skies, since the editor (Scott) is an incredible human being who gives sad little newbs like me a chance. Actually, please consider supporting BCS even if you think my story was total crap and you're now about to flounce off in a huff. Because then Scott could presumably use the funds to find stories less lame than mine. So either way, we all win, right?
I've been pretty much exploding into random bouts of joyful squealing since I signed the contract for the story at the end of June. I just didn't talk about it all that much (on the internets at least) because I wasn't entirely sure when it would be published. And the last time I sold a story, which was to a token payment market, I ran around and told the world how gleeful I was, and then everybody wanted to know when my story would be published so they could join in the celebration. And it got kind of embarrassing after a while to admit that, well, I didn't actually know, but I totally swear I wasn't hallucinating it or anything.
And this morning, as soon as I saw that it was online and all official-like, I went and bought my affiliate membership in the SFWA, because (1) it let me check off one of the smaller ticky boxes on "nerdy shit I want to accomplish before I die" and (2) I just can't resist the fun of being able to claim that John Scalzi is my professional overlord, and least kind of sort of. Though of course the real reason is that the SFWA is an incredibly important organization that hauls a lot of water for its members, and it's a good place to go if you're interested in writing science fiction and/or fantasy, and maybe some day making a career of it.
Of course, there is no such thing as perfection, particularly not in connection with something as messy as life. Just to keep me from floating off like a little glee-filled balloon, this morning Loki (the cute but stupid cat) decided to eat an enormous rubber band. So I've been following him around the house all day in anticipation of him gracing the carpet with rubber-band-filled kitty vomit. I did talk to my vet and he said for now, that's all I can really do... hope that it comes out of one end or the other and doesn't get stuck in between. So please keep your fingers crossed for me on this one. I'd really rather Loki not hoover up my new earnings with a vet bill, but what can I say. He's a helper like that.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Well, I took my 24 hour time out, and I STILL want to punch Robert Gibbs in the face.
Just in case yesterday was the one day of the summer where you unhooked your internet umbilical cord and were consequently far enough away from the general population that you couldn't hear either the shrieks of outrage from the liberals or the squeals of schadenfreude-laden glee from the conservatives, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said some really dicky stuff:
I have no doubt that I am not part of the "professional left." From what Gibbs said in his total non-apology today, the "professional left" is apparently people on cable TV. So... I guess Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and a couple of other wonks over at MSNBC, and... uh... Michael Moore? I have a hard time buying that Gibbs took time out of his busy day to direct some spittle-flecked invective at people who can probably be counted on one person's fingers and toes.
Be that as it may, considering I'm not one of the "liberal elite" (ooh, scary), that statement still really pissed me off. Because you're damn right I'm not going to be satisfied until we get a reasonable health care system. (Though, really, the Pentagon is just fine where it is.)
There are a lot of specific points in what he said that I could address, like the whole thing with comparing Obama to Bush - which is not something I would personally do, though every time Obama continues a Bush era policy that widdles all over privacy and freedom, I cry a little - but I'm not going to. Instead, I'd like to go to the root cause of why exactly I still want to knock Mr. Gibbs one, right in the kisser.
It's simple. Mr. Gibbs, you don't own me. And, come to that, neither does your boss. I may have donated money to the campaign (and I did), and I may have proudly voted for Obama (which I also did), but that in no way obligates me to keep my mouth shut when he does something I don't like. Particularly not when he's specifically said on several occasions that the left ought to hold him accountable - or does that only apply if the left has nice things to say?
Coincidentally, I am far more invested in my relationship with my husband than I am in my relationship with the President of the United States, and you know what? I'm not obligated to keep my mouth shut when he does something dumb either.
And neither of those simple facts would change, even if I were Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann or whoever Mr. Gibbs claims he was having his tantrum at. They aren't owned by the guy they voted for either. And, coincidentally, I also think both of them spend a lot more time saying nice things about Obama (and his various accomplishments) than I ever have.
When Bush was President, I think there was this idea in everyone's mind that he had monolithic, unquestioning support from the right. I don't know how much of that was reality and how much of it was a news narrative, though it's pretty easy to make arguments that the Republicans are more disciplined than the Democrats in general (but let's be honest here... slime mold is more disciplined than the Democratic party in general), that they have Fox News, and that there was quite a bit of equating criticizing the President with being un-American. So perhaps President Obama - or at the very least his press secretary - thinks that he ought to be on the receiving end of a similar sort of support. That he deserves it, even. That's certainly the vibe that I'm getting from this.
No one in this world deserves that sort of dogmatic support from me, or from anyone else. Not even my husband, my best friend, or my parents. And certainly not a politician. If someone does something I don't like, or something that I think is a bad idea, I am well within my rights to say so. And in fact, I actually start getting worried if I feel like I'm agreeing with someone too close to 100% of the time, because that's just not natural.
That's why, even a day later, I'm still angry at Mr. Gibbs, because I think his real position is that we shouldn't be allowed to criticize the President if we voted for him, that we owe him some kind of special allegiance, and that we should just shut up and like what we're given. No, I don't think so.
And if you just take his comments on their face and not read into them, they don't make much sense either. There really aren't that many people (I'm not going to say none, since it's not like I know everyone in the world) saying the words that Gibbs stuffed into his lefty meaniehead straw man's mouth. A lot of lefties (and not-so-lefties) are bitching about the President compromising, or starting negotiations too much toward the center, or who knows what else. But I don't think too many of them are claiming that (a) the President has accomplished absolutely nothing, and if they are, shame on them, and (b) that they wish they'd never voted for him, because the alternative was so great.
Aside: Often when someone coming from the left bitches about the President, a smug conservative pops out of the woodwork and snidely asks something like, "How's that hopey changey working out for ya?" Well, here's the thing. If we're sitting on our blogs and whinging about how Obama's not being liberal enough, what sort of brain tumor does it take to think that somehow means we've got buyer's remorse and wish we voted for McCain and the lipstick-wearing IQ black hole that he wanted as his Vice President? Yes, because if someone's upset that Obama's talking about offshore drilling, the people who were chanting, "Drill, baby, drill" at their convention are the option we wish we'd gone for. So even if I'm wasting hundreds of words bitching about Obama (or as the case may be, his press secretary), the hopey changey is still working out just fine, thanks.
Frankly, Mr. Gibbs should be happy that the lefties are spending so much time kvetching about the current politics. Because that means we're still paying attention. The alternative would be an absence of commentary, and an electorate that would rather play Madden on the Xbox than volunteer, donate, and vote.
This very well could be an all-new, exciting evolution in the Democratic strategy of taking careful aim and shooting itself in the foot, right before an election.
Pinning your strategy on the Republicans being so chock full of the crazy that the progressives you shit all over won't dare not vote just seems like a really bad move to me. But what do I know? I'm not supposed to be talking because I don't have anything nice to say.
“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”
The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”
I have no doubt that I am not part of the "professional left." From what Gibbs said in his total non-apology today, the "professional left" is apparently people on cable TV. So... I guess Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and a couple of other wonks over at MSNBC, and... uh... Michael Moore? I have a hard time buying that Gibbs took time out of his busy day to direct some spittle-flecked invective at people who can probably be counted on one person's fingers and toes.
Be that as it may, considering I'm not one of the "liberal elite" (ooh, scary), that statement still really pissed me off. Because you're damn right I'm not going to be satisfied until we get a reasonable health care system. (Though, really, the Pentagon is just fine where it is.)
There are a lot of specific points in what he said that I could address, like the whole thing with comparing Obama to Bush - which is not something I would personally do, though every time Obama continues a Bush era policy that widdles all over privacy and freedom, I cry a little - but I'm not going to. Instead, I'd like to go to the root cause of why exactly I still want to knock Mr. Gibbs one, right in the kisser.
It's simple. Mr. Gibbs, you don't own me. And, come to that, neither does your boss. I may have donated money to the campaign (and I did), and I may have proudly voted for Obama (which I also did), but that in no way obligates me to keep my mouth shut when he does something I don't like. Particularly not when he's specifically said on several occasions that the left ought to hold him accountable - or does that only apply if the left has nice things to say?
Coincidentally, I am far more invested in my relationship with my husband than I am in my relationship with the President of the United States, and you know what? I'm not obligated to keep my mouth shut when he does something dumb either.
And neither of those simple facts would change, even if I were Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann or whoever Mr. Gibbs claims he was having his tantrum at. They aren't owned by the guy they voted for either. And, coincidentally, I also think both of them spend a lot more time saying nice things about Obama (and his various accomplishments) than I ever have.
When Bush was President, I think there was this idea in everyone's mind that he had monolithic, unquestioning support from the right. I don't know how much of that was reality and how much of it was a news narrative, though it's pretty easy to make arguments that the Republicans are more disciplined than the Democrats in general (but let's be honest here... slime mold is more disciplined than the Democratic party in general), that they have Fox News, and that there was quite a bit of equating criticizing the President with being un-American. So perhaps President Obama - or at the very least his press secretary - thinks that he ought to be on the receiving end of a similar sort of support. That he deserves it, even. That's certainly the vibe that I'm getting from this.
No one in this world deserves that sort of dogmatic support from me, or from anyone else. Not even my husband, my best friend, or my parents. And certainly not a politician. If someone does something I don't like, or something that I think is a bad idea, I am well within my rights to say so. And in fact, I actually start getting worried if I feel like I'm agreeing with someone too close to 100% of the time, because that's just not natural.
That's why, even a day later, I'm still angry at Mr. Gibbs, because I think his real position is that we shouldn't be allowed to criticize the President if we voted for him, that we owe him some kind of special allegiance, and that we should just shut up and like what we're given. No, I don't think so.
And if you just take his comments on their face and not read into them, they don't make much sense either. There really aren't that many people (I'm not going to say none, since it's not like I know everyone in the world) saying the words that Gibbs stuffed into his lefty meaniehead straw man's mouth. A lot of lefties (and not-so-lefties) are bitching about the President compromising, or starting negotiations too much toward the center, or who knows what else. But I don't think too many of them are claiming that (a) the President has accomplished absolutely nothing, and if they are, shame on them, and (b) that they wish they'd never voted for him, because the alternative was so great.
Aside: Often when someone coming from the left bitches about the President, a smug conservative pops out of the woodwork and snidely asks something like, "How's that hopey changey working out for ya?" Well, here's the thing. If we're sitting on our blogs and whinging about how Obama's not being liberal enough, what sort of brain tumor does it take to think that somehow means we've got buyer's remorse and wish we voted for McCain and the lipstick-wearing IQ black hole that he wanted as his Vice President? Yes, because if someone's upset that Obama's talking about offshore drilling, the people who were chanting, "Drill, baby, drill" at their convention are the option we wish we'd gone for. So even if I'm wasting hundreds of words bitching about Obama (or as the case may be, his press secretary), the hopey changey is still working out just fine, thanks.
Frankly, Mr. Gibbs should be happy that the lefties are spending so much time kvetching about the current politics. Because that means we're still paying attention. The alternative would be an absence of commentary, and an electorate that would rather play Madden on the Xbox than volunteer, donate, and vote.
This very well could be an all-new, exciting evolution in the Democratic strategy of taking careful aim and shooting itself in the foot, right before an election.
“I don't think they will [stay home], because I think what's at stake in November is too important to do that,” he said.
Pinning your strategy on the Republicans being so chock full of the crazy that the progressives you shit all over won't dare not vote just seems like a really bad move to me. But what do I know? I'm not supposed to be talking because I don't have anything nice to say.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The great geological fart
Yes, I know, this is why you read my blog, because I'm informative AND classy.
I've finally started doing my initial readings for my grad school project, which I really should have gotten moving on months ago. I don't know if being out of school for eight months has just destroyed my ability to manage my time, or maybe I lack the sense of urgency that actually being in school and having solid due dates provides. Either way, I'm trying to read a couple per day.
What I'll be working on in grad school is a project examining the local change in climate in the Bighorn Basin during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Here's something of a broad summary at io9 of the PETM and why it's significant, but if you're too lazy to read even that extremely conversational post, the one sentence summary is: Temperature went up, a lot of species died, and there are many suspected parallels between those events and the climate change we are facing today. So the PETM is an area of current interest in a lot of fields, because it may further our understanding of current environmental events.
In the io9 article, the emphasis is on the catastrophic event that might have thrown the environment out of whack, either massive volcanic activity or a meteor impact. I think that tends to give the events of the PETM a little less urgency on the surface, since today we're not facing world-altering volcanic activity OR a meteor strike. Instead, we're facing whatever threat our own fossil-fuel burning activities might cause. Whatever the ultimate carbon contribution to the atmosphere, billions of humans tooling around in cars is certainly less... well, dramatic than seas of basalt flooding large swathes of the continents.
The articles I've read so far have been interesting because the focus hasn't been on a big, sexy, catastrophic kick-off for all of the carbon that caused the rapid (4-8 degrees C ocean surface temperature rise in a few thousand years) temperature increase, but rather a sort of positive feedback loop from degassing of methane hydrates in continental shelf and deep ocean sediments. This is supported by examining carbon isotope ratios, which show distinct, rapid (geologically speaking) shifts in the ratios that might show multiple pulses of carbon input (Bains et al 1999). This sort of geologically instantaneous is pretty much consistent with either an impact or methane hydrate dissociation. And since we're looking at possibly several discrete events it's unlikely that every one of them was an impact.
The most interesting paper I've read so far is from 2002; it only looks at a single site, but the isotope data there indicates that there was a brief period of ocean surface warming prior to the massive methane release - the great geological fart, so to speak (Thomas et al). Of course another of the papers suggests that methane hydrate dissociation doesn't necessarily have to be thermally triggered; a significant amount of methane could be released because of submarine seismic or volcanic activity, or even gravitational slumping (Bains et al).
So the scenario that these papers build up is that something triggered the release of a large amount of methane into the atmosphere. It did what greenhouse gases tend to do, and this might have caused a reinforcing effect that could have lead to more methane getting put into the atmosphere. And then things got hot and uncomfortable. Of course, the initial cause of the methane hydrate dissociation is still a matter of question. Maybe it was seismic activity, or an impact that started this chain reaction, so to speak, and the methane release just added insult to injury. The Thomas et al paper suggests that the dissociation was thermally caused (as indicated by the brief period of surface warming prior to carbon being dumped into the the atmosphere), and that's really the most worrying scenario. Because if we're looking at temperature driven methane dissociation, the ultimate source of that temperature change at the end of the Permian wouldn't be relevant in today's world - it would be the temperature change happening at all, and driving further warming.
Sea surface temperature already is increasing. At the site in the Thomas paper, they're estimating about a 2 degree C surface temperature increase before the methane hydrates dissociated and made a beeline for the atmosphere. We're not really that far off from that sort of increase in some areas of the ocean right now. (Of course, what the surface temperature was at the time is not stated and may not be something we know for certain.) The real take home is that it very well could be a positive feedback situation: you get a little warming, it sets off a big geological fart, that adds up to more greenhouse effect and more warming, and pretty soon the Earth starts sounding like it had the baked bean special at the Chuckwagon last night.
Now, these are of course only a few papers, and this is a complicated subject. The mechanisms for warming in the PETM are still a subject of great debate, and new data is coming in constantly. But it's certainly something to think about. There very well may be lot more carbon waiting out there than just what we're burning to run our cars and power our cities, and it could be waiting for a thermal cue to bubble up to the surface and make things quite unpleasant for thousands of years to come.
Silent but deadly, indeed.
ETA: A very nice anonymous commenter pointed me toward a summary of the current research (as of 2008) on the methane hydrate issue. It's still a very viable hypothesis and the challenge remains figuring out exactly how a massive methane burp would relate to the ocean warming, and exactly how much carbon we're talking about, here. Also:
So there are still questions that need to be answered. But I'd say the three papers I read here are still pretty much in line with the main body of the research, including the questions still remaining to be answered.
Articles:
Warming the fuel for the fire: Evidence for the thermal dissociation of methane hydrate during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Deborah Thomas, et al. Geology; December 2002.
A Transient Rise in Tropical Sea Surface Temperature During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. James C. Zachos, et al. Science 302 (2003). DOI: 10.1126/science.1090110
Mechanisms of Climate Warming at the End of the Paleocene. Santo Bains, et al. Science 285 (1999). DOI: 10.1126/science.285.5428.724
I've finally started doing my initial readings for my grad school project, which I really should have gotten moving on months ago. I don't know if being out of school for eight months has just destroyed my ability to manage my time, or maybe I lack the sense of urgency that actually being in school and having solid due dates provides. Either way, I'm trying to read a couple per day.
What I'll be working on in grad school is a project examining the local change in climate in the Bighorn Basin during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Here's something of a broad summary at io9 of the PETM and why it's significant, but if you're too lazy to read even that extremely conversational post, the one sentence summary is: Temperature went up, a lot of species died, and there are many suspected parallels between those events and the climate change we are facing today. So the PETM is an area of current interest in a lot of fields, because it may further our understanding of current environmental events.
In the io9 article, the emphasis is on the catastrophic event that might have thrown the environment out of whack, either massive volcanic activity or a meteor impact. I think that tends to give the events of the PETM a little less urgency on the surface, since today we're not facing world-altering volcanic activity OR a meteor strike. Instead, we're facing whatever threat our own fossil-fuel burning activities might cause. Whatever the ultimate carbon contribution to the atmosphere, billions of humans tooling around in cars is certainly less... well, dramatic than seas of basalt flooding large swathes of the continents.
The articles I've read so far have been interesting because the focus hasn't been on a big, sexy, catastrophic kick-off for all of the carbon that caused the rapid (4-8 degrees C ocean surface temperature rise in a few thousand years) temperature increase, but rather a sort of positive feedback loop from degassing of methane hydrates in continental shelf and deep ocean sediments. This is supported by examining carbon isotope ratios, which show distinct, rapid (geologically speaking) shifts in the ratios that might show multiple pulses of carbon input (Bains et al 1999). This sort of geologically instantaneous is pretty much consistent with either an impact or methane hydrate dissociation. And since we're looking at possibly several discrete events it's unlikely that every one of them was an impact.
The most interesting paper I've read so far is from 2002; it only looks at a single site, but the isotope data there indicates that there was a brief period of ocean surface warming prior to the massive methane release - the great geological fart, so to speak (Thomas et al). Of course another of the papers suggests that methane hydrate dissociation doesn't necessarily have to be thermally triggered; a significant amount of methane could be released because of submarine seismic or volcanic activity, or even gravitational slumping (Bains et al).
So the scenario that these papers build up is that something triggered the release of a large amount of methane into the atmosphere. It did what greenhouse gases tend to do, and this might have caused a reinforcing effect that could have lead to more methane getting put into the atmosphere. And then things got hot and uncomfortable. Of course, the initial cause of the methane hydrate dissociation is still a matter of question. Maybe it was seismic activity, or an impact that started this chain reaction, so to speak, and the methane release just added insult to injury. The Thomas et al paper suggests that the dissociation was thermally caused (as indicated by the brief period of surface warming prior to carbon being dumped into the the atmosphere), and that's really the most worrying scenario. Because if we're looking at temperature driven methane dissociation, the ultimate source of that temperature change at the end of the Permian wouldn't be relevant in today's world - it would be the temperature change happening at all, and driving further warming.
Sea surface temperature already is increasing. At the site in the Thomas paper, they're estimating about a 2 degree C surface temperature increase before the methane hydrates dissociated and made a beeline for the atmosphere. We're not really that far off from that sort of increase in some areas of the ocean right now. (Of course, what the surface temperature was at the time is not stated and may not be something we know for certain.) The real take home is that it very well could be a positive feedback situation: you get a little warming, it sets off a big geological fart, that adds up to more greenhouse effect and more warming, and pretty soon the Earth starts sounding like it had the baked bean special at the Chuckwagon last night.
Now, these are of course only a few papers, and this is a complicated subject. The mechanisms for warming in the PETM are still a subject of great debate, and new data is coming in constantly. But it's certainly something to think about. There very well may be lot more carbon waiting out there than just what we're burning to run our cars and power our cities, and it could be waiting for a thermal cue to bubble up to the surface and make things quite unpleasant for thousands of years to come.
Silent but deadly, indeed.
ETA: A very nice anonymous commenter pointed me toward a summary of the current research (as of 2008) on the methane hydrate issue. It's still a very viable hypothesis and the challenge remains figuring out exactly how a massive methane burp would relate to the ocean warming, and exactly how much carbon we're talking about, here. Also:
...no study has uniquely demonstrated that oxidized CH4 (or another compound) was the source of the carbon addition. There are also issues regarding the mass of carbon injected during the PETM, and whether gas hydrates at this time could furnish such a quantity.
So there are still questions that need to be answered. But I'd say the three papers I read here are still pretty much in line with the main body of the research, including the questions still remaining to be answered.
Articles:
Warming the fuel for the fire: Evidence for the thermal dissociation of methane hydrate during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Deborah Thomas, et al. Geology; December 2002.
A Transient Rise in Tropical Sea Surface Temperature During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. James C. Zachos, et al. Science 302 (2003). DOI: 10.1126/science.1090110
Mechanisms of Climate Warming at the End of the Paleocene. Santo Bains, et al. Science 285 (1999). DOI: 10.1126/science.285.5428.724
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