#silicate weathering

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

50 Million Years of Climate Change with Christina!

Have you ever thought about how dinosaurs lived on a warm, swampy Earth and how we live on one that’s cold enough to keep pretty much the entirety of Greenland and Antarctica buried under kilometers-thick sheets of solid ice and wondered, hmm, how did we get from there to here? The short answer is that it took 50 million years of declining atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and dropping temperatures, not to mention building an ice sheet or two. For the longer story of the last 50 million years of climate change, including some of the reasons why, catch this episode of our podcast with Dr De La Rocha! You’ll hear about plate tectonics and continental drift, silicate weathering, carbonate sedimentation, and the spectacular effects the growth of Earth’s ice sheets have had on Earth’s climate. There are also lessons here for where anthropogenic global warming is going and whether or not its effects have permanently disrupted the climate system. Fun fact: the total amount of climate change between 50 million years ago and now dwarfs what we’re driving by burning fossil fuels, and yet, what we’re doing is more terrifying, in that it’s unfolding millions of times faster.

Bonus content: If you want to see sketches and plots of the data discussed in this episode, you can do so here!

!!Nerd alert!! 

If you're interested in the primary scientific literature on the subject, these four papers are a great place to start.

Dutkiewicz et al (2019) Sequestration and subduction of deep-sea carbonate in the global ocean since the Early Cretaceous. Geology 47:91-94.

Müller et al (2022) Evolution of Earth’s plate tectonic conveyor belt. Nature 605:629–639.

Rae et al (2021) Atmospheric CO2 over the last 66 million years from marine archives. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 49:609-641.

Westerfeld et al (2020) An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years. Science 369: 1383–1387.

Connect with Christina at her blog, on Twitter, and on Mastodon

Support the show on Patreon or make a one-time donation via PayPal.

[tanadrin]

This is a fun paper on the arXiv: Towards the Minimum Inner Edge Distance of the Habitable Zone. In other words, given a Sunlike star, how close can we possibly get a habitable planet while gerrymandering all the other variables in our favor? The answer is about 0.4 AU, which corresponds to around 600% the insolation that the Earth receives. Toasty! You need a very dry planet, though, not only to prevent water vapor acting as a greenhouse gas, but to prevent a runaway moist greenhouse scenario. They even explore very hot atmospheres (with high pressure, to keep what water there is liquid), but note that DNA and amino acids become unstable above about 500 K.

I would have thought you would need a very thin atmosphere to reduce heat retention, but apparently if the atmosphere is too thin (<0.1 bar), the planet loses all its water in about a billion years. If pressure is too high, on the other hand, you don't get a proper water cycle (heat is too evenly distributed for precipitation to occur). But the dominant variable affecting where the inner edge of the CHZ is is really the amount of water in the atmosphere. Humidity would have to be around 1% (Earth averages 70% at sea level), and the albedo would still have to be decently high so that a good portion of solar energy was reflected back out into space. Clouds would help with that--but by the time you got enough moisture in the atmosphere to form clouds, you'd be getting enough to significantly heat the planet from water vapor acting as a greenhouse gas.

They only look at the inner edge of the CHZ because, as they point out in the introduction, in principle the outer edge can extend to infinity--a planet with sufficient internal heating from, say, the decay of radioactive elements, or tidal heating from a gas giant primary, could remain habitable even in deep space, if it had a sufficiently thick hydrogen envelope. You don't get hydrogen atmospheres around Sunlike stars because near a star solar radiation is enough to cause hydrogen to escape the upper atmosphere--which is obviously not an issue for a rogue planet.

I think in practice the hard limit for smaller stars would be further out than this, because of the tidal locking issue--slow rotators seem to be a bad fit for this kind of extremal climate. Maybe if it was a really small star, so the inner edge of the CHZ had one of those single-digit-day orbits? I kind of like that mental image: an enormous blood red sun that occupies like six and a half degrees of sky, thirteen times the size of the Sun in our own. A totally cloudless atmosphere, water confined to small patches here and there, and mostly near the poles. Because there's not enough water to properly hydrate the upper mantle, you have drip-and-plume tectonics with enormous mountainous uplands surrounded by flat sandy plains. Or even massive Mars-like uplands and huge shield volcanoes, heavily weathered by the thicker atmosphere, but still towering over the landscape. Eventually the interior of the planet may get so cold the carbon-silicate cycle stops and the atmosphere slowly leaks away, driven by the stellar wind of the close parent star.

But there are other issues with the habitability of red dwarf systems, so maybe not.

[theothersideofthesolver]

Hello There. And welcome to Murderdrones Tuesday.

Good evening listeners!

The weather on Copper 9 is looking rather unpleasant today: extremely toxic with a heavy dusting of silicate coating all structures in a 3-mile radius in up to a half-inch of fibers. A single cut from the debris could result in particles of silicate jamming the tubes of your body, leading to internal bleeding and miserable death, so I would not recommend venturing outside of your respective bunkers.

The west side of the city is still in a state of utter collapse. I would keep away, if I were you. More than a lethal landscape of tripping hazards, a recent migration of peculiar pack-hunters from the planet’s depths has made a fixation on the west for its broken terrain and many ambush spots.

Have you ever noticed those weird lines on your screen? It may surprise you to know that when it came to Drone creation, JCJenson dredged up an archaic form of technology in the form of Cathode Ray Tubes. That’s right, in an era of superior technology, they chose to forgo the diodes and the liquid-crystals in favor of a technology over a century old.

Those of you that have ever stepped too close to a magnet and experienced display distortion, or those of you that have indulged a bit in the magnetic field are experiencing the results of interference with your internal magnetic components.

Same with the computers at their compounds. All downgrades.

Records would imply a cultural shift occurred somewhere in relatively recent human history. JCJenson merely made some aesthetic comprises to cater to it. Perhaps it was the religious outcry against the ‘singularity.’

Humans out there. You would know.

[inspofromancientworld]

A Lost Civilization Below Lake Huron

Source: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0902785106

During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), many modern-day bodies of water were much lower, perhaps even missing, allowing people to live in places that are now covered in water. One of these is in modern-day Lake Huron, allowing greater connectivity between what is now Michigan and Ontario. When the ice sheets began to melt, these areas became covered with water, some gradually, some in rapid flooding events. This land bridge is known as the Alpena-Amberley Corridor and is now covered by between 65-131 ft/20-40 m of water.

Source: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0902785106

In this area, the Paleo-Indians hunted caribou, an important resource for them. Evidence of this exists in hunting pits, stone piles, and drive lanes for corralling caribou as well as sleeping areas. The largest of these remains is a 1,148 ft/350 m long drive lane. This lane took advantage of naturally occurring features that were modified by people to fill in the gaps to keep animals penned in the lane. These are similar to such blinds found in the arctic. The areas that appear to be for sleeping or camping, which resemble low-walled dwellings, are located more than 656 ft/200 m from the hunting areas, keeping the scents of humans away from the migrating herds, allowing the hunts to be more successful.

By Herb Roe, www.chromesun.com - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10936618

Within this area are also deposits of chert, a type of sedimentary rock made of petrified siliceous ooze that is crystallized in such a way that allows it to be worked into stone tools because of the way it crystallized. It fractures in a way similar to obsidian, allowing for sharp cutting edges. It also creates a spark when struck against iron-bearing surfaces, making it useful for starting fires in a way similar to flint. There is too much weathering and too many muscles to know for sure if these deposits were used.

Source: https://indiandefencereview.com/10000-year-old-civilization-lake-huron/

The area has been explored by rovers to map as many features as possible, allowing larger features to be discovered. This area is also within the range that scuba divers are able to explore the area in an attempt to discover more details from the areas that are obscured by algae and other deposits.

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Monday Musings

Let's talk about macrocrystalline quartz vs microcrystalline quartz. I see sooooo many people argue over these in rockhounding groups that I think it is important to address. First, they are the same chemical formula

Whether it's amethyst or chert this is what it is on an atomic level. So, what makes them different?

Well, a big part is how they are formed. Macrocrystalline quartz grows by adding molecules to the surface, layer by layer. It essentially grows in three different environments:

1.) In silica-rich molten rock during cooling and solidification

2.) in pegmatites, during and following pneumatolytic processes

3.) In hot water solutions of silica under various conditions (usually hydrothermal) The water is between 100 and 450 degrees Celsius and often at high pressures. (underground)

There are no free SiO2 molecules in the solution, instead quartz crystals grow by the addition of dissolved orthosilicic acid (H2SiO4). The four photos above show the process on a very basic level.

In igneous rocks, the formation of quartz is caused by positively and negatively charged ions floating around in the molten rock soup. In fact, these silicate ions cause magmas to become more viscous. SiO4- usually forms long chains in the magma.

When magmas cool rapidly, like at the point of eruption, the chains don't have time to break and new bonds to form so silica-rich magmas often for volcanic glass or pumice.

When magmas cool slowly under the surface, like in granite, crystals of different minerals will in the melt in order of chemical composition. With granite, micas form first, the feldspars, then finally quartz. Because quartz is last, it usually doesn't have great shape since it is filling in all available space.

Quartz in magmas will often have an onion-like internal structure of layers added on top of each other reflecting a gradual change in the residual liquid parts of the solidifying magma.

Okay, now for the microcrystalline quartz: chert and chalcedony (and the bazillion names given to different colored varieties of that).

Chert can form under two different processes: biochemical and and replacement through solution in water.

Biochemical chert is formed when siliceous skeletons of marine plankton are dissolved during diagenesis with silica precipitating out from the resulting solution.

Replacement chert forms when other material is replaced by silica usually by water such as petrified wood.

Chert has the same properties as macrocrystalline quartz i.e. same hardness, fracture, etc.

Chalcedony also forms by precipitation of dissolved silica in water but it is usually formed from watery silica gels which give it the botryoidal look it is well-known for.

It is often deposited in cavities and fractures, spaces too small to form proper quartz crystals, by the release of silica from weathering of other rocks (often volcanic in origin).

Isn't quartz wild?

[corellianhounds]

Tatooine Sandstorm or Daredevil hallway fic?

sO

Tatooine Sandstorm is a series of vignettes about different characters weathering a sandstorm in different conditions. Mando and the kid are caught off guard in the middle of the desert, Cobb Vanth searches for two people missing in the mines, Boba battens down the hatches of the Palace, Fennec is caught in Mos Eisley, and it’s bookended with Mando and the kid again.

Here’s part from the opening scene I’m very satisfied with:

The Mandalorian turned, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

A wall of swirling sand blotted out the suns, the quickly approaching darkness rising like a tide. Rumbling wind started to shake the ground and grow louder as it bore down on the two of them. Mando’s eyes widened before he turned sharply and flicked the dial on the Amban rifle to prime. As it condensed energy into a single charge he swiftly flung out the tarp from the pack upwind of the bike and settled it over their gear, counting down from ten in his head as he hurriedly staked two diagonal eyelets into the dirt. He tacked the stakes down with sharp strike of his boot while fine silicate particles whipped around them, stinging like sparks.

He grabbed the kid, curled him away from the storm, and flicked his wrist for the command to ignite the jetpack: hovering mid-air, he struck the rifle prong-down into the ground and released the charge— An expanse of blue-green plasma rippled from the drop point in a circle of glass, held fast. Mando extinguished his jets, lashed the rope one-handed to the barrel of the rifle as close to the ground as he could, and threaded the closest corner of the tarp with the tail of the rope before sliding beneath it with the kid in tow.

The sand raining down on them before now approached in a rumbling wave, sweeping over an iron rifle held by glass in a raging desert storm.

__

NOW

The RSAU: Daredevil hallway fic takes place in the Role Swap universe where Anakin doesn’t fall to the Dark side and instead raises Leia on Tatooine. I don’t thiiiiiiink this particular scenario/character interaction is going to be part of the ‘canon’ for that universe (which is why I can just spill the beans about it in speculation), but here’s one of the what-if’s;

If Anakin is the hermitic Jedi living on Tatooine, what happens if Darth Maul shows up there in search of Kenobi a few years after Revenge of the Sith?

I thought at first about how realistically Anakin would probably kill him, but THEN I thought “okay but what if he didn’t” because this could be FUN

I don’t want to get lost in the weeds over-explaining things like I usually do, but Anakin manages to get through to Maul because both of their lives were destroyed by Sidious either taking/trying to take them as an apprentice. The two of them end up as weird tenuous allies, Anakin having convinced him that Sidious should be his real target, not Kenobi, and over the next few years they remain in sparse communication, Maul stopping on Tatooine from time to time. Leia knows her father’s friend and knows that, despite his appearance, he’s someone she can trust.

NOW. Like I said, it’s a few years after the end of Revenge of the Sith. The Emperor has been sending out Inquisitors and agents looking Force-sensitive people and children, and for a while Anakin has had no trouble killing or mind-wiping the ones that show up on Tatooine. It’s not just him he’s keeping safe, but his daughter.

But he’s also only one man, and he can’t be everywhere at once. When itty-bitty Leia is kidnapped Anakin is ready to go entirely scorched earth in his rage to get her back (because even though he didn’t fall to the Dark side in this universe, he’s still emotionally volatile and angry with a host of other issues), before he calms down a bit and thinks: Who do I know that is capable, powerful, and dubiously ethical enough they’d be willing to help me get my kid back and cut down anyone standing between us without remorse

WHICH BRINGS US TO: Anakin and Maul’s Awesome Roadtrip Rescue Mission

The Daredevil hallway fic is the story of Anakin and Maul’s search for Leia. Towards the end once they’ve infiltrated whatever stopover base or compound she’s being held in, they get split up, and the story ends with the equivalent of this fight scene from the first season of Daredevil, with Darth Maul absolutely wasting a barrage of enemies without letting up, still being bloodied by the end of it, but composing himself before going into the room where Leia’s being kept, crouching down to her level and beckoning for her to come out of hiding

And again, despite the blood, despite his appearance, Leia knows he’s someone she can trust.

WIP Ask Game

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Study finds that Earth's small asteroid visitor is likely a chunk of moon rock

A near-Earth object was likely ejected into space after an impact thousands of years ago. Now it could contribute new insights to asteroid and lunar science.

The small near-Earth object 2024 PT5 captured the world's attention last year after a telescope discovered it lingering close to—but never orbiting—our planet for several months. The asteroid, which is about 33 feet (10 meters) wide, does not pose a hazard to Earth, but its orbit around the sun closely matches that of our planet, hinting that it may have originated nearby.

As described in a study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers have collected further evidence of 2024 PT5 being of local origin: It appears to be composed of rock broken off from the moon's surface and ejected into space after a large impact.

"We had a general idea that this asteroid may have come from the moon, but the smoking gun was when we found out that it was rich in silicate minerals—not the kind that are seen on asteroids but those that have been found in lunar rock samples," said Teddy Kareta, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, who led the research.

"It looks like it hasn't been in space for very long, maybe just a few thousand years or so, as there's a lack of space weathering that would have caused its spectrum to redden."

The asteroid was first detected on Aug. 7, 2024, by the Sutherland, South Africa telescope of the University of Hawai'i's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). Kareta's team then used observations from the Lowell Discovery Telescope and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawai'i to show that the spectrum of reflected sunlight from the small object's surface didn't match that of any known asteroid type; instead, the reflected light more closely matched rock from the moon.

Not (old) rocket science

A second clue came from observing how the object moves. Along with asteroids, Space Age debris, such as old rockets from historic launches, can also be found in Earth-like orbits.

The difference in their orbits has to do with how each type responds to solar radiation pressure, which comes from the momentum of photons—quantum particles of light from the sun—exerting a tiny force when they hit a solid object in space. This momentum exchange from many photons over time can push an object around ever so slightly, speeding it up or slowing it down. While a human-made object, like a hollow rocket booster, will move like an empty tin can in the wind, a natural object, such as an asteroid, will be much less affected.

To rule out 2024 PT5 being space junk, scientists at NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which is managed by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, analyzed its motion. Their precise calculations of the object's motion under the force of gravity ultimately enabled them to search for additional motion caused by solar radiation pressure. In this case, the effects were found to be too small for the object to be artificial, proving 2024 PT5 is most likely of natural origin.

"Space debris and space rocks move slightly differently in space," said Oscar Fuentes-Muñoz, a study co-author and NASA postdoctoral fellow at JPL working with the CNEOS team. "Human-made debris is usually relatively light and gets pushed around by the pressure of sunlight. That 2024 PT5 doesn't move this way indicates it is much denser than space debris."

Asteroid lunar studies

The discovery of 2024 PT5 doubles the number of known asteroids thought to originate from the moon. Asteroid 469219 Kamo'oalewa was found in 2016 with an Earth-like orbit around the sun, indicating that it may also have been ejected from the lunar surface after a large impact. As telescopes become more sensitive to smaller asteroids, more potential moon boulders will be discovered, creating an exciting opportunity not only for scientists studying a rare population of asteroids, but also for scientists studying the moon.

If a lunar asteroid can be directly linked to a specific impact crater on the moon, studying it could lend insights into cratering processes on the pockmarked lunar surface. Also, material from deep below the lunar surface—in the form of asteroids passing close to Earth—may be accessible to future scientists to study.

"This is a story about the moon as told by asteroid scientists," said Kareta. "It's a rare situation where we've gone out to study an asteroid but then strayed into new territory in terms of the questions we can ask of 2024 PT5."

TOP IMAGE: Typically, asteroids—like the one depicted in this artist's concept—originate from the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but a small population of near-Earth objects may also come from the moon's surface after being ejected into space by an impact. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

LOWER IMAGES: Researchers studying asteroid 2024 PT5 have plotted its looping motion on two graphs. To a trained eye, they show that the object never gets captured by Earth’s gravity but, instead, lingers nearby before continuing its orbit around the sun. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

[asteraceae-blue]

The Theia Impact

Earth is temporarily picking up a second moon this weekend.

I've had this little one-shot sitting for a few months and now seems as good a time as any to post it ✨🌙✨

...............................................................................

Sky Meadows State Park, Virginia

10:06 PM

The only thing to be said for sitting on a car hood in the middle of nowhere an hour west of DC in January was, frankly, there was no one else around. No traffic, no peak season outdoor enthusiasts taking up space, and no one to ask what they were doing parked on the side of the dirt road at ten o’clock at night.

Scully could have done without that last bit. Mild winter weather or not, it was still January in Virginia. Mulder had driven her to the edge of wilderness to meet up with one of his elusive contacts, promises of “undeniable proof” abounding. Whatever that meant. Proof and evidence had become something of a hazy subject for them as the years wore on. Something they grasped at and often gripped too hard until it escaped from between their fingers before it could do them any good. Hard evidence was all well and good until it had to be bartered for a life. Turned over at gunpoint. Lost to fire, to flood, to the wind. 

As the hands on her watch spun into the evening, the sky darkening and the chill settling below her wool peacoat, Scully wondered very seriously if they would ever stop being led around by this invisible leash, jerked to dark alleys and remote hilltops with a nebulous promise of answers. Not any time soon, if Mulder had anything to do with it. She often thought that, deep down, he enjoyed the role of Chosen One, elevated above other mortals to protect the world against the greatest threat to humanity, racing through the night in pursuit of the solution.

The clandestine nature of it all was somewhat ruined by the remains of their fast food dinner sitting on the hood of the car between them, greasy burger wrappers with congealed cheese and ketchup smeared cartons the potent backdrop of their latest endeavor. At least Mulder had bothered to treat; he’d even bought her a vanilla milkshake.

She sipped at the last dregs of the sweet beverage as she looked at her watch. 

Ten fifteen.

“Well Linus, I fear the Great Pumpkin has failed to arise from the pumpkin patch yet again.”

He didn’t even look at her. Just continued to stare straight up at the sky as he reclined on the windshield, hands folded behind his head and legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle with his feet dangling over the edge. 

God, did the lanky idiot ever fit anywhere?

“Sorry, Sally,” he mumbled around the plastic straw he’d been gnawing on.

Scully chuckled and balled up the remains of her burger wrapper, tossing it into the paper bag next to her. 

“I was never a fan of her attitude towards school.”

“I bet you weren’t. Does that make you my security blanket, then?”

“Getting dragged along behind you everywhere you go? Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Not all bad,” he said with a shrug and a gesture at the star spangled night sky. “Full moon. Saw a few shooting stars. Satellite or two.”

“Bonding with the celestial bodies in forty degree weather. What more could a girl ask for?” she said dryly.

The subtle drop in his face made her regret her words. She’d been anticipating a witty response to ‘celestial bodies’ and felt she needed to do damage control.

“Have you, um, have you ever heard of the Theia Impact?” she asked, her face turning upwards.

“The giant-impact hypothesis?” he verified, pulling the straw from between his teeth and holding it between his fingers like a cartoonish cigarette. 

“Yes,” Scully said, not at all surprised that he was familiar. “The idea that, before the Earth was fully formed, our planet collided with another unformed planet, essentially absorbing it. And the resulting collision and expulsion of silicate matter from both planets into Earth’s orbit eventually coalesced to form the moon. The composition of the moon could very well be a perfect blend of Earth and another planet, fused by this random event.”

Mulder hummed with patented calm curiosity.

“Chaos of the universe working to create something we take for granted, could never imagine being different than it is,” he said, looking up at the brilliant full moon casting its glow down on them. “Without that event, would life on Earth have even formed? How different would our existence be if we didn’t have this orb reflecting sunlight at night, giving us reassurance that we aren’t lost in utter darkness every night? Would we lose the tides, the winds humanity has come to rely on over the eons for travel? How does Earth as we know it exist if it never meets its mate, giving birth to the moon? A completely random meeting of giants of the universe, merging at the right time, all to shine light down on us, on a night like tonight, to highlight the fact that we’re sitting here like a couple of suckers, waiting for someone who has less of a chance of showing up than two planets colliding.”

She’d been so wrapped up in the momentary poetry of his words, the lilt of his baritone voice, that she almost missed that final acerbic part of his speech. She watched him sit up, bending a knee and planting his foot on the hood as he balled up his burger wrapper and flung it off into the distance. She made a mental note to make him pick it up before they left, but she was also happy to see his pitching arm healed and back in good form. It had been a week and a half since he’d had it nearly torn off by… well, by what she wasn’t able to fully say. The word ‘zombie’ still stuck in her throat. 

Just like a lot of the words she’d been wanting to say that night as the clock ushered them into a new year and Mulder decided that seven years was a long enough time to wait to land on first base.

Trouble was, they’d seemed to stall there.

She looked around and considered their position for a moment. The remnants of the dinner he bought, the dark shadows of rolling hills and curtain of stars above them. Thought back to her un-birthday baseball lesson. Thought back to Christmas and ghostbusting over a year ago. Thought back to a million other little moments over the past year and started pinning string to each one until they were all connected, every one leading to New Year’s Eve and an unplanned kiss that seemed to her to bring about as many questions as it answered.

“Mulder, can I ask you something?”

“Are my contacts always this reliable? Yes, yes they are, sadly.”

She humored him with a smile.

“Not exactly my question,” she said, leaning forward and bracing her elbows on her knees. She looked down at her clasped hands. Took a breath. “Was this a date?”

A gaping silence followed her question and she knew she had her answer without ever having to hear him speak the words. She turned her head slightly and looked back at him from beneath the curtain of her hair. He was in the same spot, reclined on an elbow. But his eyes had taken on the look of a cornered animal. He’d picked up his soda cup and his hands fiddled with the lid, popping all the little buttons in. Finally, he met her gaze with a guilty air.

She tilted her head, eyebrows raised.

“I’ve had worse dates,” she said easily.

If possible, his gaze became even more pathetic. Her lips pressed together in a smile and she slid off the end of the car hood. His eyes tracked her movement as she walked around to his side and sidled right up to him, hovering just a few inches above him in her heels. The metal of the hood was cold when she pressed her hand down to brace herself on it, a stark contrast to the warmth emanating from his body as she leaned in. She placed a hand over his chest, feeling the reassuring beat of his heart under her palm. When his lips parted, a silent plea offering her an invitation, she curled her fingers into the lapel of his coat and tugged softly. 

His mouth was as warm and welcoming as she remembered from New Years. More so. She felt his fingers slip between the tresses of her hair, his palm a gentle weight against her neck. She let herself be pulled closer, lips parting to taste him, to delve into this new mystery waiting to be unraveled. 

When a natural break for air came, she smiled against his mouth, nuzzling his nose with her own.

“Mulder, take me home. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

“You don’t want to do a little celestial body bonding under the moonlight?”

She grinned at the stupid and fully expected joke.

“No. I want to get warm. Somewhere comfortable.”

“I can definitely think of a few good ways to accomplish that.”

[etherealspacejelly]

Project?

are you asking about my dissertation?

im investigating whether ant secretions increase the rate of rock weathering! it is an area previously pretty unexplored and has interesting implications!

the weathering of silicate rocks is a process that sequesters carbon (removes co2 from the atmosphere) so if we can speed up that process we can slow down climate change!!! ants may hold the key to saving the world, and im gonna be the one to figure it out 😎

(basically, im gonna pour formic acid on a bunch of rocks and see what happens. thats science baby!)

[barstoolblues]

artists do you know how cool clay is? do you know? your pottery is made from the same material that helps fuel dehydration melting of the earths mantle and prevents earthquakes from rupturing subduction zone trenches. many clay minerals form due to silicate weathering of rocks on land, which is the most important control of carbon and climate on the planet. this process is also the source of calcium to the ocean that sea life uses to build shells. another clay mineral, although one that will probably never make it to your pottery wheel, is formed when magma created by diverging plates cools rapidly at the seafloor and forms obsidian, which reacts with seawater to create a layer of clay on its surface. clay particles are so small they can be blown thousands of kilometers offshore and settle in the middle of deep ocean basins, and diagenesis can form new minerals under layers of clay sediments at the seafloor. i love clay ❤️

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

S2.8 is now on YouTube!

Have you ever thought about how dinosaurs lived on a warm, swampy Earth and how we live on one that’s cold enough to keep pretty much the entirety of Greenland and Antarctica buried under kilometers-thick sheets of solid ice and wondered, hmm, how did we get from there to here? The short answer is that it took 50 million years of declining atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and dropping temperatures, not to mention building an ice sheet or two.

For the longer story of the last 50 million years of climate change, including some of the reasons why, catch this episode of our podcast with Dr De La Rocha! You’ll hear about plate tectonics and continental drift, silicate weathering, carbonate sedimentation, and the spectacular effects the growth of Earth’s ice sheets have had on Earth’s climate. There are also lessons here for where anthropogenic global warming is going and whether or not its effects have permanently disrupted the climate system. Fun fact: the total amount of climate change between 50 million years ago and now dwarfs what we’re driving by burning fossil fuels, and yet, what we’re doing is more terrifying, in that it’s unfolding millions of times faster.

Bonus content: If you want to see sketches and plots of the data discussed in this episode, you can do so at our website here!!

Nerd alert!! If you're interested in the primary scientific literature on the subject, these four papers are a great place to start:

Dutkiewicz et al (2019) Sequestration and subduction of deep-sea carbonate in the global ocean since the Early Cretaceous. Geology 47:91-94.

Müller et al (2022) Evolution of Earth’s plate tectonic conveyor belt. Nature 605:629–639.

Rae et al (2021) Atmospheric CO2 over the last 66 million years from marine archives. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 49:609-641.

Westerfeld et al (2020) An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years. Science 369: 1383–1387.

[the-girl-who-didnt-smile]

DID BETSY TOLEDANO WORSHIP HEVIOSO? 

Pictured: Artistic Rendition of Xɛbyoso (Hevioso)

When the priestess Betsy Toledano was arrested in 1850, the police discovered stones (described as “flintstones” and “pebbles”) that were said to control lightning.

“...They found in one of the rooms a kind of chapel fitted up, the walls hung round with colored prints of the saints, etc., and a number of bowls upon the altar, containing stones varying from the size of gravel to the largest “pavers.” Goblets and vases filled with unknown liquids had also their place. A number of colored women were present, who escaped. Betsy Toledano, the chief priestess of the heathen temple, stoutly defended the ceremonies from any wrong construction; said that its signs and symbols were derived from the mother-land, and that the incantations were harmless; that the rocks in question were intended to protect the building from lightning, and that by placing them in water during a storm they acted as non-conductors for the dangerous element. The woman also exhibited a very curiously wrought necklace of shells which had been brought from the western coast of Africa by her grandmother, and which could influence the clerk of the weather to such an extent that he could not resist her application for rain when she insisted upon a genial shower…”

SOURCE: “The Rites of Voudou” The Daily Crescent. (New Orleans, LA) 31 Jul. 1850, p. 3. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82015378/1850-07-31/ed-1/?sp=3

"...Betsy then went on to explain cases of sundry ominous looking vessels containing pebbles, flintstones, shells, horse-hair, curious aprons, colors, banners, &c., &c. Besides these, there were vases filled with a liquid, neither palatable nor of the odor of sanctity. And then Betsy had a necklace of strange shells and rainbow-tinted beads, which was not without its use in the craft of Voudouism. The necklace was all-potent in calling rain down on the parched earth, in seasons of drought, and the flint and pebble-stones, were for taming and turning aside the fiery shafts of "Heaven's artillery."…”

SOURCE: “Voudouism Unveiled” The Daily Delta  New Orleans, Louisiana •  Wed, Jul 31, 1850 Page 2. Retrieved from: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-delta-voudouism-unveiled/40979649/ 

The flintstones seem similar to sokpe - stones or flint implements associated with the lightning vodún Hevioso (Khebioso):

“On the Slave Coast, as is generally the case elsewhere, flint implements of the Stone Age are believed to be thunderbolts, and are consequently called so-kpe, (kpe = stone) . After a building has been struck by lightning, the priests of Khebioso, who at once run to the spot to demand that the inmates should make amends for the evident offence they have given their god, almost invariably produce a flint arrowhead, or axe, which they of course bring with them, but pretend to have found in or near the building. As Dr. Tylor says, the fact that siliceous stones actually produce a flash when struck, gives a key to the widespread belief that flint implements are thunderbolts.”

SOURCE: Ellis, Alfred Burdon. The Eʻwe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa: Their Religion, Manners, Customs, Laws, Languages, &c. United Kingdom, Chapman and Hall, limited, 1890. pp. 37-38. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_E%CA%BBwe_speaking_Peoples_of_the_Slave/ll-BAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 

The “pebbles” may or may not have also been sokpe. 

MUCH doubt exists as to the origin and use of the curious circular stones with holes bored through them which are well known to people living in the southern districts of the Gold Coast and Togoland. Geologically, they may be described as consisting of quartzite – usually an altered sandstone which is very common throughout the districts mentioned. That the hole found running through the two flat sides of each stone has been artificially made is obvious, but the precise manner in which this has been effected is as puzzle. As the holes are circular some form of boring has, apparently, been employed – each hole having been commenced from either side, and usually in the centre of the slightly flattened stone, and rapidly narrowing down the further the stone is penetrated until, in some cases, it is so small at the point where it meets the hole bored from the opposite side that a pin-head could not pass through it.

An examination of over 300 such stones shows that the average diameter is about 1 ⅗ inches, while that of the largest stone was found to be 2 ⅓ inches and of the smallest 1 ½ inches. Some of these stones have 3, 4, 5, or even 6-cornered edges but, in general, they are slightly flattened with smooth sides and a rounded edge. When two such stones are struck together they give a dull glow at the point of impact, but no sparks are emitted as in the case with flint….

East of the Volta River the stone is connected with one fetish only, viz., the So (or Hebieso, or Hevieso), the god of thunderstorms. Here the stone is called “Sokpe,” lit. stone of the god So– “kpe” meaning “stone” in the Eve language. This fetish is one of the four which, together, constitute the Yeve or Vodu cult which has spread to the Addah and Ouittah districts of the Gold Coast, and to southern Togoland from its original home in Dahomey. The uses to which the peoples of these countries now put the stones are as follows: – 

They are used medicinally for the cure of any illness. The stone is put into water and the patient may then, at once, wash therewith. This he must do on seven consecutive days, after which a cure should be effected. In the case of religious ceremonies connected with the Yeve cult a candidate for admission to the secrets of the faith is shown a pot of consecrated water, and then a number of articles of symbolic import to the members of the sect, including a “sokpe.” These articles are placed in the water and the “sokpe” is then taken out by a Yeve priest who addresses the candidate, explaining his obligations to the fetish, and after drawing the “sokpe” up the candidates back to the crown of his head, concludes by saying, “If you become faithless to Yeve, or betray his secrets to someone who is not a servant of Yeve, then Yeve will kill you in this manner”; the meaning intended to be conveyed being that Yeve will appear in the course of a thunderstorm and hurl a thunderbolt as his faithless protege, splitting him asunder.

SOURCE: Newlands, H. S. "An archaeological puzzle from West Africa." Journal of the Royal African Society (1919): 40-43. Retrieved from:

As the vodún Gu is derived from the orisa Ogun, the vodún Hevioso is derived from the orisa Shango. 

In Haiti, Hevioso became the lwa Kebyesou Danle, part of Rit DANWONMEN.

SEE: Hebblethwaite, Benjamin. A transatlantic history of Haitian Vodou: rasin figuier, rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2021.

[echinoid-fossils-on-the-rocks]

Chain corals wet vs dry in colors.

Chain corals of hyliasite found by me.

Correction are still allowed to told, ready for accurate fossil id of genus, rock etc additions.

The contrast from wet to dry is an added bonus to view some fossils, like any coral sponge or echinoids in their appearance of their mineral struckture. Silicate likes to be shiny wet. ✨

In the summer months, i have casually an bottle of water by my side, to wet the rocks or searching after rain, now on the colder weather cleaning the rocks will be after the trip mostly.

[celestialvisionsai]

Planet XJ-317, colloquially known as "Diamond Sands," is a mesmerizing celestial body nestled in the far reaches of the galaxy. Viewed from space, the planet emanates a captivating aura with its modest size akin to Earth, draped in a pale blue hue reminiscent of sapphires. Its thin, wispy atmosphere shimmers with hints of nitrogen and traces of oxygen, offering a tantalizing promise of discovery.

As one descends upon the surface of Diamond Sands, a breathtaking vista unfolds. The landscape is dominated by vast stretches of glistening sand dunes, each grain resembling a tiny diamond under the planet's gentle sun. The grains of sand are not silicate-based like those on Earth but are composed of crystalline structures formed from silicon and carbon compounds, creating a surreal and otherworldly terrain.

The planet's weather is as unpredictable as it is harsh. Powerful dust devils dance across the dunes, their spiraling motion carrying sparkling particles high into the atmosphere, creating a spectacle akin to a cosmic ballet. Occasionally, violent yet stunning diamond storms sweep through the landscape, their winds polishing the dunes to an even more brilliant luster.

Despite the extreme conditions, life on Diamond Sands thrives in unexpected ways. Unique silicon-based organisms have adapted to the harsh environment, their crystalline forms reflecting the planet's dazzling nature. These lifeforms have developed intricate symbiotic relationships with the environment, forming delicate ecosystems that harmonize with the planet's ethereal beauty.

Exploration of Diamond Sands continues to unveil its mysteries, with researchers marveling at the interplay of light and shadow on the crystal dunes. The planet's exquisite beauty and unforgiving environment pose a fascinating paradox, inviting further study and contemplation. Diamond Sands stands as a testament to the boundless wonders of the cosmos, a jewel in the tapestry of the universe waiting to be discovered and cherished for generations to come.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Silver-silica composite catalyst inspired by geochemical cycling exhibits reversible local pH control

A research team led by Dr. Hyung-Suk Oh and Dr. Woong Hee Lee at the Clean Energy Research Center at Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has developed a silver-silica composite catalyst capable of reversible local pH control through a silica-hydroxide cycle, inspired by Earth's natural cycles. The research is published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science. This research draws inspiration from the carbonate-silicate cycle, known as the Earth's inorganic carbon cycle, where carbon dioxide (CO₂) maintains balance. CO2 is removed from the atmosphere as it is stored in weathered minerals, then released back into the atmosphere through volcanic activity.

Read more.

[prasemvanguardgerman]

Today finally after weeks of calls and planings, i was with my younger Cousine on the fossil trip together. We had both time for the day.

An good meeting to show some fossils and let my info dump of some common fossils to looking for up on her with an cup of coffee & Cookies before the trip.

Then we went for hours to the pile location with the most amount of stones, new pieles and moved ones in the area.

She was the lucky micro silicate crystals in shell finder.

We hat good sunny weather and chances to find some cool rocks, flints and some echinoids with flint shards of tiny mussel imprints, one with tiny crystals in it’s mold.

I picked a lot of pebble sponges and one big shattered flint sponge fossil of an Aulaxinia!!!

And found tracks of crinoid in chert 🥹

Will post parallel about it on my sideblog.