vespaer77

[vespaer77]

I swear to fucking god. I would claw out OneDrive from my computer if I could. I would burn down their servers if I could. I would run down their stocks to the ground if I could. I hope every single one of their workers gets a better offer from a competitor in the next 24 hours. I hope every single one of their light bulbs explodes at the same time. I hope every single carton of milk in their fridge will always be expired.

Stop backing up my fucking files.

Stop asking me to back up my fucking files.

Stop taking my fucking files off my fucking computer.

I don't want a fucking reminder in three fucking days. Let me fucking say no.

Fuckers.

[vespaer77]

“Hello. I’m Gale of Waterdeep.

Apologies. I’m usually better at this.”

[vespaer77]

Wake up honey, a new head canon just dropped

Quick Solas I drew last night. I’m certain he holds his paintbrushes in his mouth like this.

[vespaer77]

my husband 🫶🏻

[vespaer77]

I could use this, yah

Hey writerly friends, wanna do a WIP project in May?

Something like daily words and when you post about it, you'll get a star? What do you think?

Anybody interested?

[vespaer77]

my son (a 45 year old single dad)

he’s ready to commit a war crime and delete the evidence

Pattern is Simplicity S9770

[vespaer77]

Shepard is risen

[vespaer77]

this was mostly an excuse to play with some watercolor brushes i got ages ago and then never did anything with. but it was also a warmup that went too far.

[vespaer77]

can't stop thinking about this

[vespaer77]

I don't want to say my Rook would've dropped trow and helicoptered... but I'm weak.

one last datv thought before i sleep...

i love that part in d'meta's crossing where rook yells at the dragon so much

like

lmao?? bud?? wtf were you going to do??? fucking? die??

what was the plan

i HAVE to know

[vespaer77]

Me at work: So many ideas! Can’t wait to write!

Me at home: *Stares at blank document* Never mind.

[vespaer77]

Dude.

Those of us who have played the Mass Effect trilogy? And have read the codex? And have a passable understanding of what the Mass Effect is and how it works???

Reading this with a healthy dose of skepticism of course because we are sane and rational adults.

But one eyebrow is most certainly raised.

Especially when we get to this paragraph.

This... uh. Is this not? THE mass effect?

[vespaer77]

5 more minutes.....

the semester just started for me so that means back to waking up early. ;w;

[vespaer77]

Paleo-caves in Death Valley

You have probably heard of "caves", or a natural void formed in rock. Caves are formed in a number of ways, but the most familiar are probably those formed in limestone - called karst or karstic. Karst caves are formed by the steady dissolving of limestone rock by naturally acidic groundwater percolating through the ground, often along faults or other natural weak areas.

Death Valley in California is not a hotbed of limestone caves, though evidence of them can be seen in a number of places! Ancient caves, often tens or hundreds of millions of years old, sometimes collapse or fill in with silt/minerals/debris. An ancient cave formation is called "paleokarst", and there are a few areas in Death Valley where you can find it. The easiest to access is in Titus Canyon, a major canyon who's lowest reach carves its way through limestone bedrock, leaving behind towering polished rock walls and revealing the internal structure of the rock.

Titus Canyon's narrow section is carved through the Bonanza King Formation, a Cambrian-age (538 - 485 million years ago) marine sedimentary rock package several kilometers thick. It's found in many areas of Death Valley and the surrounding region. Across its area and thickness, it alternates from dolomite to limestone (dolomite minerals versus calcite minerals). Dolomite doesn't usually dissolve and form caves, but limestone does - and the many fractures in this rock appear to have allowed numerous tiny caves to form somewhere in the distant past. Most of these have since been filled in with calcite minerals, making them paleokarst.

In this image, you can see the void of the cave lined with thinly-layered calcite. It has a flat floor, and these features are characteristic of having formed in a cave. In Titus Canyon, we can find these from a few inches to a few meters across, and as the canyon has been carved into the rock, these voids are exposed. This one below tells an exceptionally clear story:

You don't need to be a geologist to see how this differs from the first example. There's a weird pendant-shaped protrusion hanging from the top, there are layers in the minerals, the bottom half is red… there's a lot going on. Let's get some lines on there and figure out what we can see:

That's better. OK - I've separated out the parts of this outcrop which from my desk look to be distinct. Here's a close-up of part of the left-center area to show how it appears different up close.

OK, so we have the blue-gray limestone bedrock on the right, top, and lower left, then a gray-red area with layers and what looks like gravel or other angular pieces of the limestone. Above that is a finely-layered calcite deposit (remember? that's cave-like!), and above that is a layer of calcite which is rather porous. The top surface of this area is sort of scalloped and curved, which is also characteristic of limestone caves.

Here's the fully interpreted version. Let's go through the sequence of events. First, we have the limestone bedrock of the Bonanza King Formation (BKL). At some time in the distant past, a portion of it dissolved away and formed a cave. Over time, silt and debris filled in the bottom of this cave. Because it is ancient, we call it paleo-fill (OPF). This might have happened at a time when the cave was dry (not containing water), since if it was wet we would expect some amount of calcite to be deposited around its perimeter as is typical in limestone caves.

Above that is a layer of thinly-layered calcite, the cave mineral. This layer contains some reddish silt and the occasional fragment of the limestone, so the cave was probably happily active during the time that was deposited! This is the oldest cave mineralization phase I can discern in this outcrop, so I call it Old Cave Calcite (OCC).

Next, we have a slightly porous, light-colored calcite deposit. The porosity suggests to me that it was deposited faster, but I am not an expert on cave deposits so will not comment further. This unit fills the cave to its top in most places! I call this the Middle-age cave calcite (MAC).

Finally, the youngest unit is another cave-deposited calcite (YCC). As in the first cave picture above, it is a coarser-grained pale yellow color with layers that parallel the sides of the void. Most of the paleo-caves you can find in Titus Canyon are filled with this sort of calcite, and it may be geologically recent (last million years?). It filled the final remnant of this ancient paleo-cave, and is contrasting with the material around it. This visual and textural contrast is what inspired me to write this post in the first place - the best example I've seen in person of paleo-karst and the evolution of a miniature cave system, right in the heart of Death Valley - my favorite place in the world.

[vespaer77]

Paleo-caves in Death Valley

You have probably heard of "caves", or a natural void formed in rock. Caves are formed in a number of ways, but the most familiar are probably those formed in limestone - called karst or karstic. Karst caves are formed by the steady dissolving of limestone rock by naturally acidic groundwater percolating through the ground, often along faults or other natural weak areas.

Death Valley in California is not a hotbed of limestone caves, though evidence of them can be seen in a number of places! Ancient caves, often tens or hundreds of millions of years old, sometimes collapse or fill in with silt/minerals/debris. An ancient cave formation is called "paleokarst", and there are a few areas in Death Valley where you can find it. The easiest to access is in Titus Canyon, a major canyon who's lowest reach carves its way through limestone bedrock, leaving behind towering polished rock walls and revealing the internal structure of the rock.

Titus Canyon's narrow section is carved through the Bonanza King Formation, a Cambrian-age (538 - 485 million years ago) marine sedimentary rock package several kilometers thick. It's found in many areas of Death Valley and the surrounding region. Across its area and thickness, it alternates from dolomite to limestone (dolomite minerals versus calcite minerals). Dolomite doesn't usually dissolve and form caves, but limestone does - and the many fractures in this rock appear to have allowed numerous tiny caves to form somewhere in the distant past. Most of these have since been filled in with calcite minerals, making them paleokarst.

In this image, you can see the void of the cave lined with thinly-layered calcite. It has a flat floor, and these features are characteristic of having formed in a cave. In Titus Canyon, we can find these from a few inches to a few meters across, and as the canyon has been carved into the rock, these voids are exposed. This one below tells an exceptionally clear story:

You don't need to be a geologist to see how this differs from the first example. There's a weird pendant-shaped protrusion hanging from the top, there are layers in the minerals, the bottom half is red… there's a lot going on. Let's get some lines on there and figure out what we can see:

That's better. OK - I've separated out the parts of this outcrop which from my desk look to be distinct. Here's a close-up of part of the left-center area to show how it appears different up close.

OK, so we have the blue-gray limestone bedrock on the right, top, and lower left, then a gray-red area with layers and what looks like gravel or other angular pieces of the limestone. Above that is a finely-layered calcite deposit (remember? that's cave-like!), and above that is a layer of calcite which is rather porous. The top surface of this area is sort of scalloped and curved, which is also characteristic of limestone caves.

Here's the fully interpreted version. Let's go through the sequence of events. First, we have the limestone bedrock of the Bonanza King Formation (BKL). At some time in the distant past, a portion of it dissolved away and formed a cave. Over time, silt and debris filled in the bottom of this cave. Because it is ancient, we call it paleo-fill (OPF). This might have happened at a time when the cave was dry (not containing water), since if it was wet we would expect some amount of calcite to be deposited around its perimeter as is typical in limestone caves.

Above that is a layer of thinly-layered calcite, the cave mineral. This layer contains some reddish silt and the occasional fragment of the limestone, so the cave was probably happily active during the time that was deposited! This is the oldest cave mineralization phase I can discern in this outcrop, so I call it Old Cave Calcite (OCC).

Next, we have a slightly porous, light-colored calcite deposit. The porosity suggests to me that it was deposited faster, but I am not an expert on cave deposits so will not comment further. This unit fills the cave to its top in most places! I call this the Middle-age cave calcite (MAC).

Finally, the youngest unit is another cave-deposited calcite (YCC). As in the first cave picture above, it is a coarser-grained pale yellow color with layers that parallel the sides of the void. Most of the paleo-caves you can find in Titus Canyon are filled with this sort of calcite, and it may be geologically recent (last million years?). It filled the final remnant of this ancient paleo-cave, and is contrasting with the material around it. This visual and textural contrast is what inspired me to write this post in the first place - the best example I've seen in person of paleo-karst and the evolution of a miniature cave system, right in the heart of Death Valley - my favorite place in the world.

[vespaer77]

As a gamer who just got into sourdough baking who also subscribes to ologies on A-Prime... I'm gonna have to go give this a listen.

Scientist bakes sourdough bread with yeast derived from 4500 year old Egyptian pottery

i'm losing my mind @ this thread......historie......

[vespaer77]

The UpDAte 3/25/2025

Hellooooo, Dragon Age Darlings~ ✨! Thought I might try something new? I can't promise that this will happen every week, but I thought it might be helpful to have a summary of what's going on in the DA fandom soon, both 'locally' (smaller events run off of personal blogs) and more widely! Let me know if it's useful, and I'll try to keep up with it, when I can!

Locally

Monday Rook Into Hour is up, and there will be one on Friday, March 28th!

WIP Wednesday Thursday will run on Thursday, March 27th!

@thedissonantverses put another Writing Challenge Weekend up last Friday, and another will go up this week on March 28th!

@biowaredisasterbisexual put up her Sharing Sunday post for last week, and submissions are open for the next one until March 29th!

@becausedragonage has started a fun new game for Tuesdays! I believe she is still taking entries? Reflection Ruesday rules here!

@pixiedurango is still running the Antivan Postal Service! Get a letter from your favorite Crows!

Greater Thedas

Ongoing/Repeating Events

@thedasweekend runs weekly! [Instructions]

@dadrunkwriting is also weekly, on Fridays! [Instructions]

Events in Preparatory Stages

@handers-time is currently open for signups until April 5th!

@arlathanxchange is taking tag nominations until March 30th!

@worldofthedas-vol3 is taking contributor applications until April 11th!

@raraaviszine is taking contributor applications until April 5th!

@dragonageannual has an interest check open until April 6th!

Currently Happening/Beginning This Week

@veilguard-appreciation-week begins March 31st! [Prompts]

@transthedasfest will reveal works on March 31st!

@dragonageterminuszine is open for preorders until March 31st!

And, of course if you want to know the full scope of everything happening in Thedas, dragonagefanevents is your one-stop shop, including instructions for hosting your own event!

Disclaimer that I'm not affiliated with most of these events, and I haven't talked to most of the mods-- just thought it could be useful for people around here to have everything on one place! If YOU do something/are planning to and I missed you, please lmk! (mentions are for ease of nsvigation-- no need to rb, and if you'd rather I not mention your event, please lmk!)