Fairy Circles. Who ya gonna call?

Midsummer Eve (1908) by pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Robert Hughes

A scientist!  A mystery is afoot, quite literally.  You may have read about it in the New York Times Science section recently – Namibian “Fairy Circles,” From Start to Finish.  Biologist Walter Tschinkel of Florida State University recently wrote a fascinating paper about the “life cycle” of strange spots that appear and eventually disappear on the surface of the Namibian desert.  He offers no explanation for the formation of these fairy circles but does debunk a few prior hypotheses including hydrocarbon seeps, termite colonies, or self-organized landscape features.

Namibian fairy circle (photo by Walter Tschinkel)

Namibian fairy circles photographed from the air by Michael Fay.

Tschinkel's paper did not consider the possibility that these circles could be caused by fungi, the cause of fairy rings seen elsewhere in the world (pic below)….maybe you’ve been lucky enough to see one?  A really nice history of fairy rings, and how they can kill local vegetation, can be found on Wikipedia.

Fairy ring on a suburban lawn

However, the mystery deepens with the “heuweltjies”, or “little hills”, of South Africa, located just south of Namibia.  We would drive for hours in South Africa through the polka-dotted landscape of the heuweltjies but, unlike further to the north, they are not flat but are mounds.  The accepted wisdom is that these are fossil termite mounds but I am skeptical, especially after reading Tschinkel’s study.  However, I also can’t imagine how fungi could build such large mounds.  I sampled sediment in and outside of the heuweltjies but when I realized I couldn't bring soil samples back to the U.S. I left the bags with a Cape Town graduate student, Eugene, in hopes that he'd be inspired to investigate further.  Mystery beckons, scientific glory awaits!

Heuweltjies north of Cape Town

More heuweltjies (look in middle distance)

Hanging out in Strip Mines in South Africa....

Dear friends, family, and followers,

I know some of you have noticed I haven't been blogging for awhile and quite of few of you have been poking me with the figurative stick in hopes I'll start up again.  Here's hoping!  I miss it too and want to get back to it.  I'm trying to find a new equilibrium with a busier job in an endlessly distracting city.  I'm going to make it a bit more personal....hopefully avoiding saccharine quicksands of self-indulgence. 

So, I'll continue with a few blog posts from South Africa, where I recently went on a geological field expedition in search of ancient shorelines from past warm climates. We first headed north (not quite to the Skeleton Coast of Namibia) to a down-on-its-luck mining town called Hondeklip.  The De Beers mining company has very effectively stripped off the surface of the land in its quest for buried diamonds.  The landscape is quite ravaged and ugly but it does make for some easily accomplished field geology.....nice exposures!

 We stayed a few nights at the Honnehok (or Kennels) Chalets in Hondeklip having home-cooked dinners at The Red Spider (no menu, just let proprietress know in the morning you're coming).  I love the use of shells on the chain fence....the sign above the shell bucket says "Leave your cares here".

 It never ceases to surprise me that even in the remotest places on Earth art has a way of inserting itself.

Shell and kelp garlands gussy up the place....

Shipwreck covered with seabirds.  Shortly after this picture was taken four of us had a debate about whether or not we saw a green flash.  My view is that if you are debating it, it probably didn't happen -- my lifelong quest continues.....

Heading down into one of the strip mines....

 Sea level!  Fossil barnacles on fossil oysters on a not so ancient beach rock.....at 30 meters elevation.

Steve Jobs, the William Morris of our time

In Calcutta's The Telegraph, an article written by Mukul Kesavan argues that Steve Jobs was the William Morris of our time.  It is a fascinating read...it would appear that the only thing that stood between WM and total world domination was his conscience with regards to worker's rights.  And if you want to know more about that, or are an Apple devotee of any sort, I highly recommend the play "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs".

"Comparisons across great spans of time and space are always absurd but if you are going to look for an earlier incarnation of Jobsness, you could do worse than William Morris. In this silly season for over-the-top obituaries, I’m saying that Jobs was a latter-day William Morris and that Apple is the lineal descendant of the Kelmscott Press."

read the rest...

Quasicrystals Quite Unquadrate

(Image Eric Heller)

 

(Image J. W. Evans)

(image)

(Image Mark Grundland)

(Image Eric Weeks)

 

This week Dan Shechtman won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of quasicrystals, ordered but not periodic crystal mineral structures that lack traditional symmetry.  Many people have since noted that Islamic tiles exhibit similar ordering.  I took the last pic above at the Alhambra, built in the 14th century. 

Here's a funny quote from Shechtman's wikipedia page.  "(he) experienced several years of hostility toward his non-periodic interpretation (no less a figure than Linus Pauling said he was "talking nonsense" and "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.")"

Makes me proud to be a scientist...

If you have a few minutes to be inspired, this video, part of the Periodic Table of the Videos series, exemplifies everything that is wonderful and good in science.

 William Morris would be a great supporter of the narrator Dr. Poliakoff who is a leader in the field of green chemistry, which designs products and chemical processes that avoid introducing hazardous substances into our environment and lives.

In Port in Curacao...

The word "port" doesn't really do justice to the sweet little bay, Caracas Bay, that we have tied up in (due to the fact we couldn't fit under bridge to main harbor in Willemstad).  The pic above was taken from port side of ship...you can just make out some of ship's crew swimming.  Most ports are the skeeviest places ever.  Other crew went off on bikes that were pulled out of storage, some went for hikes or runs....and of course some went down to the great little thatched bar, Pop's, not a quarter mile up beach.

Later in day, Bride of Deepwater Horizon pulled up next to us, on her way to Gulf of Mexico.  The crew were laughing as five years ago both this "ship" and the JR were side by side in dry dock in Singapore being built and renovated, respectively.  Small world even for big vessels.

 The JR travels with its own guard shack which gets lifted off deck with the ship's crane...

Farewell JR.  Hopefully I'll sail on you again someday soon!

The Bridge & Possibly Most Important Machine on Ship

Don't worry, the softee machine is not on the bridge....yesterday we were talking with the "camp boss" Alex who runs the galley, and asked him how he planned menus for eight weeks at sea, a full two-hour meal service every six hours that will, in every case, be breakfast for some, lunch for others, and supper for the rest.  He said that the first thing he does is find out where all the scientists/crew are from for that particular leg....Japan, Russia, Philippines, Germany, India, France, etc so he can plan traditional dishes from each of those countries.  A little bit of home after many weeks away from family....how incredibly sweet and thoughtful.

Geek humor alive and well on the high seas....

Jesus in your pancake?  Or a research vessel in your microscopic mineral thin section....

Every expedition has a T-shirt logo contest that gets added to the wall-of-fame in the stairwell.  I liked this one....Shatsky Rise is in the western Pacific.

JOIDES Resolution, The World's Most Important Research Vessel

I've been vague about what the JR is and why I am on it.  The JOIDES Resolution is a drilling ship that for nearly thirty years has traveled to every corner of the world's oceans doing scientific research.  It is the flagship of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, a consortium of about 16 member nations, funded by national government research dollars (e.g. your tax dollars!), that undertakes basic scientific research that requires drilling capability in the deep sea.  You could think of it as the oceanographic equivalent of the International Space Station.  Through recovery and analysis of deep ocean sediments and rocks, the JR has made possible fundamental discoveries in plate tectonics, Earth's climate history, the deep biosphere (did you know organisms live in rock miles below the ocean floor?), earthquake hazards, mineral resources, etc. etc.

A typical cruise length for the JR is two months (the boat can spend 75 days at sea without reprovisioning).  A party of about two dozen scientists will come on ship (having applied from institutions around the world) and undertake their expedition, aided by about 100 additional people who work on the ship (drillers, deckhands, caterers, lab techs, engineers, mates, etc).  This particular week is one of those extremely rare moments when the ship is underway without every spare bunk being gobbled up by a scientist----a between-expedition transit from the Pacfic to Atlantic.  The ship's operators kindly allowed four of us to tag along, a science writer (my dad, Chet Raymo), a journalist (Amy Mayer), and an artist (Wendy Jacob).  I've spent four months at sea on this ship in the past, am very involved in the program, and pitched/organized the idea.  I have little idea what these three talented people will produce from this experience, but rest assured I will link to it here when it happens.

The JR is an incredible international treasure for the world of science but, as she spends nearly her entire life at sea, few people have heard of her.   Soooo...if you want a little more insight into some of the science that has resulted from deep sea drilling you can shoot over to my dad's blog Science Musings.  Here you can see some more of this impressive facility....next stop, the engine room.....

 The engine room controls seven 16 cylinder diesel engines for a total of 5200 horsepower.  The control panel in first pic runs the propellers, drill floor, lights, AC, water distillation, etc., namely the entire ship.

The engine room is a thing of beauty.  Seriously, Martha Stewart would approve (is that color Turkey Hill sage???)----look at that tool rack!  What I can't convey is heat so great the handrails are hot to the touch and noise so loud that one can only communicate with hand signals.

The derrick you saw before....we can drill holes many kilometers deep into the Earth's crust in the deepest parts of the ocean with a shipboard dynamic positioning system that can keep ship on station (within a few meter circle) for months at a time.  

The only pool on this ship....the moon pool goes through the center of ship below the derrick.

 Over 15 kilometers of drill pipe is onboard.

 The rig floor with the trap door over the moon pool closed.  Tomorrow, the Bridge and Galley.  (Still looking for the craft room  ;-)

Transiting the Panama Canal

 The JR passing through Miraflores Locks (thanks for screen cap Tom!)

It is surprisingly low-tech.  Here are rope handlers bringing us the tie line in a dingy.

 Boat is tied to "mules", little cog railways cars, on either side.  They will pull us through locks.

As we get into narrow section of lock the rope from other side is thrown aboard.  The ropes are used to haul on the steel cables attached to the mules.

 

Approaching the second set of locks, San Miguel Locks

 On the Chagras River section.  It's really hard to believe these container ships don't roll over all the time.

 On Lake Gatun, the large artificial lake formed when the Chagras River was dammed.

Going back down to sea level through the final set of locks, Gatun Locks.

The Atlantic in the distance!  Another successful transit over the continental divide and lots of sunburned faces in the mess hall in the evening....