Time’s Spiral in Arrow Canyon

On an autumn afternoon, Earl Wadsworth climbed up to the top of a ledge in a remote slot canyon in Nevada.  With a knife or a nail or some other tool Earl scratched a large cursive “E” into the limestone wall.  After some consideration the graffiti-artist gave up on the formal script and printed his full name across the rock.

Just below he added the date: “November, 14th 1920.”

Eighty-six years later, to the day, I found myself on the same ledge admiring Wadsworth’s handiwork. 

To think: i spen’t much of the summer in a Sudan equideme

Treasure Heap

The blogohedron (i’m already beginning to overuse this) sports an unquantifiable galaxy of glinting facets, let’s take three for examples:

Cabinet of Wonders - which reminds us that the wunderkammer of the web is still pretty stale compared to the worldwide absurdity of the actual material world

and,

Camera Trap Codger - the best of California paparazzi plus thoughtful exegetic explorations of the feudal German worldview, and stuff

and also,

Strange Maps - which I just discovered today and you already knew about for, like, ever, but anyway post 312 is providing some serious effing perspective.

Golden State Blues

Neil Freeman once hated on the unfortunate appearance of my homely homeland: [paraphrasing] ‘those stupid yellow hills are just so ugly.’ I’m sure I weakly defended the honor of golden state, but honestly, he had a point.

Upon reflection though, it’s odd to realize that the annual grasses that define the iconic summer landscape of California are strangers on the land. Native perennial bunchgrasses are to be found here and there, mostly in Apollonian grids amidst freeway interchanges and Central Valley campus faux-topographies.

[note to "restoration" minded state-funded landscape architects: ditch the quincunx already. seriously.]

The mystery then, enwarping twin enigmas, is, why should these two Central Valley natives be so perfectly camouflaged against an exotic flora? Also, name both species for a gajillion points. It shouldn’t be too hard. For bonus points, what’s going on with those berms in the top photo?

Wave Bye-Bye to the Polymath…

Well, calling Charles Willson Peale a polymath may be rather generous. Then again, if I had run a failed saddle shop, painted some bossy white dudes, and created the first American Natural History Museum, I think I’d probably feel pretty worthy of the title. Anyway, when was the last time you went to a glass harmonica concert or whatever? [well, knowing microecos readers, it was probably last weekend]

At any rate, before we tossed his geriatric remains from the bell jar, I figured it was worth giving the bloke a proper post. Exhumation of the Mastadon [sic] (1806) (pictured above) remains probably the best American painting to date, though some of Richard Estes’ stuff comes close. That is, of course, ol’ Pealey himself in the jacket and slacks. Much, much more Peale info here.

microecos is a rotting peaty wreck.

Who Is Buried in Lincoln’s Tomb?

On February 12th, 1809, two visionaries emerged on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Both were cautious, erudite, soft-spoken men who were destined to transform the world in their own way.

In a letter to Asa Gray Darwin, a self-proclaimed supporter of the Union endorsed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation:

Well, your President has issued his fiat against Slavery—God grant it may have some effect.

I don’t know if Lincoln ever picked up the Origin.

I suppose he was rather busy in the sixties. He is reported to have read (and enjoyed) Robert Chambers’ Vestiges. While this proto-evolutionary text was widely derided by the scientific community (including Darwin himself), it did mark a sincere effort to develop a rational history of life that accorded with the fossil record.

Growing up in Kentucky, it’s almost impossible that a young Abe didn’t encounter some of the abundant Paleozoic fossils that litter the state. And, in keeping with my previous rant about our fossilferous infrastructure, the stone which surrounds Lincoln’s tomb is packed with coral and brachiopod fossils.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Lincoln’s most famous address, delivered amongst fields tilled with fallen soldiers, begins with a declaration of historical context. History helps us to make sense of chaos and savagery of modern life. This is also where Karl Marx and L. R. Hubbard fit in.

But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln how was the play?

Tu es Petrus

Students find purchase atop a glacial erratic in Central Park NYC.

Waiting in the lobby of the Austin Hilton, I glanced at my feet. I noticed that I was standing square atop a beautifully sectioned and polished Turritella embedded in the floor tile. Suddenly, the “pop-out”effect clicked in, an experience familiar to anyone who has searched for fossils, foraged for mushrooms or read Martin Hanford. Snail fossils began leaping out of the floor tiles left and right.

In an entire hotel full of paleontologists¹, how many realized that every time they went for a free refill from Starbucks were trodding across fossilferous strata? Well, one at least.

We are creatures of the crust, not just elements upon it. Our ancestors, immediate and ancient, have been tilled into the lithosphere, the lucky ones, and their remainders poke out here and there. We dwell in mud and gypsum pockets, build cities of marble and granite, aggregate and lime. We drive down ribbons asphalt impregnated river gravels, burning vintage carbohydrates cooked up in Tethyan lagoons. We draw wires and hone tools, set foundations and fire vessels. We exchange bits of metal for goods, labor, love and status. We place them with great speed into the cells and organs of our livestock and adversaries. We eat Total.

Look up. Chances are good that some mineral veneer hovers over your head. Nummulitic limestone, spun glass, reinforced concrete…it won’t hang forever.

Some 530 million years ago, give or take, organisms began to make shells like nobody’s business. Brachiopods in their crenulated valves and molluscs their tortured cones, arthropods in chitinous armor, corals and bryozoans in whatever condominimal style that suited. Echinoderms with pentameral beauty and, and of course, vertebrates with chunks of apatite scattered amidst the myomeres.

Like the Parthenon and Chichen Itza, the Great Wall and Gizeh, evolutionary monuments linger long after their utility has passed. Crinoids litter the ground. We found our creation musuems atop Paleozoic mausoleums and call it good.

Every step hits a grave, a million lives, five billion years, a living, dying planet. Where will you settle?

¹ - Granted, they were vertebrate paleontologists and most couldn’t have given a multituberculate’s ass about some snail shells.

EPILOGUE:

Funny how things resonate.  Nigel Hughes popped up this photo during a talk about Himalayan stratigraphy and noted that Mallory was “clinging to the Cambrian.” He said that a search of the rocks around the corpse would probably turn up ample trilobites.  An “old English dead” freeze-dried amongst petrified Cambrian seafood at the roof of the world.  How poetic?

That, my child, Was Where I Ditched You…

last summer’s footprints are walkin’
walkin’ dove walkin’ dove walkin’ dove
through last summer’s sand
a dove walkin’ dove walkin’ dove
and where the footprints end
where the footprints end
what happened then?

– “Footprints“, Bill Callahan

I stepped into wet paint at the Hartman gardens, Lorin said “Dude you just stepped in the man’s paint.” You only get one shot (give or take) to get your body into the fossil record. There’s ample opportunity to leave your mark in other ways however.

Photo: Simon Sharville

As we traipse and course across the planet we frict against various materials. Most are outside the goldilocks zone, either too resilient or too ephemeral to mark our passing. In the urban environment wet paint and wet cement serve as tremendous media for tracking a few short hours in the life of a city.

Photo: Mr. Bullitt

Naturally occuring regolith can perform much the same function although the Earth’s surface is a dynamic place and these traces generally have a short lifespan. As with body fossils however, with untold billions of organisms dragging their selves hither and yon across the greater part of the planet it’s hardly a surprise that some of these tracks find their way into the rock record.

Ichnology is the study of second-hand structures that record the passing of a living organism. This encompasses borings, burrows, trails and crap. For all the appeal of coprolites, the most familiar vertebrate ichnofossils are surely trackways, footprints left in a soft substrate preserved by some accident of sedimentary history.

Fossil footprints have been in the news lately with not one but three important fossil footprint discoveries announced in recent weeks. To treat each with appropriate nuance would guarantee fatal miring, so with only cursorial commentary here they are:

Tyrannosaurus rex footprint? Snap! Here’s the National Geographic story. Actually, eff the footprint, one wants to get down on hands and knees and look for mammal teeth right? (I’m so over dinosaurs btw).

Unfortunately, I missed the SVP talk concerning Australian theropod tracks, but like we said: “eh, theropods. Who cares?” They probably had parkas. Brian does a better job with it.

Okay, now this is really interesting: pictured at top are 315 million year old tracks probably made by some of the earliest amniotes. And, apparently they’re greedy to get their paws on some sweet Canadian dollars.