Eyeing Natural Disasters and a Possible Statue Honoring Anning
Mary Anning was a significant figure in the history of paleontology. She made especially important fossil finds in the early 1800s, but she was denied the credit she deserved in her lifetime.
For starters, Mary Anning was a woman in England’s Victorian era. Despite a woman being Queen at the time, women were not given much credence in scientific, political, or other circles. Second, Mary was an amateur, a self-taught woman from the working class who ran a little fossil and shell shop on the Lyme Regis coast of southwest England. She is said to be the woman behind the ditty “she sells seashells by the seashore.” But she did so much more!
Mary made major discoveries of Jurassic Period marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. These were subsequently described in scientific papers by male paleontologists who gave scant credit to the woman behind the finds. Her fossils remain prominently displayed in major museums in the United Kingdom.
Now, at long last, it seems Mary is getting the credit she so richly deserves. Per an article in a recent issue of the journal Science, not only has a movie recently been released describing Mary’s life (Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet), there is a move afoot to raise funds to erect a statue of Mary on England’s so-called Jurassic Coast.
Appropriately enough, the movement has been inspired by another local young woman, Evie Swire, a 13-year-old with vision as bold as Mary herself.
DEADLY NORWEGIAN QUICK CLAY LANDSLIDE DESCRIBED AS “SURREAL”
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg has described it as the biggest landslide to hit her nation in over 125 years. “It hurts to see how the forces of nature have ravaged the area,” she tweeted.
Around 4:00 AM on December 30, 2020, the village of Ask about 15 miles northeast of Oslo was hit by a landslide 2,300 feet long and 1,000 feet wide. It took out a road and several buildings while shifting many others. 1,000 people were immediately evacuated due to fears of continuing slides. Nearly a dozen people were unaccounted for in the immediate aftermath.
The slide was caused by
what is known as quick clay. When overstressed, this type of clay turns into a fluid state, bringing down all sediments atop it. The resulting collapse resulted in four immediately confirmed deaths, and hopes are diminishing for finding 10 people still listed as missing. The exact number of missing was difficult to ascertain given that some residents were away for the New Year’s holiday. At least 10 others were injured, one severely.
Per Toril Hofshagen of the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, “Not since 1893 has there been a quick clay landslide of this dimension in Norway.” One survivor described the scene as “surreal.” Houses teetered on the edge of a deep ravine in which could be seen remains of smashed and battered homes. Geologists were quickly called in from the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute to assess further risk as freezing temperatures and a snowstorm hampered rescue efforts being conducted by helicopters. By January 5, 2021, rescue operators had given up on finding survivors from among the three people still listed as missing. In one glimmer of hope amid the grim carnage, rescuers pulled a small dog alive from the rubble.
Because of quick clay, the area was considered a high-risk zone. In 2005, authorities had urged no development be done here, particularly construction of residential buildings. Those warnings went unheeded.
MULTIPURPOSE LAVA TUBES
Lava tubes form during the eruption of a basaltic lava flow.
A hardened crust forms on the surface of the flow, while beneath that crust, fiery hot liquid lava continues to move in “lava streams.” These sometimes empty out, leaving long cavelike channels underground.
Such lava tubes are fun to explore—after things have cooled down, of course! For instance, not so very far from my own home are ancient lava tubes in the Mojave National Preserve. They offer a cool spot to rest after hiking in the hot desert sun, and they provide great photographic opportunities courtesy of natural skylights sending down shafts of light.
But Ancestral Puebloans apparently used lava tubes for more than fun adventure. Large amounts of ice built up in lava tubes in what is now El Malpais National Monument in New Mexico. Some of that ice is fairly old, which is what attracted the University of South Florida paleoclimatologist Bogdan Onac. He and his team were in search of whatever ancient climate data the ice might hold.
Find that, and they did—along with an intriguing tale of human ingenuity and survival.
As they removed ice cores, they noticed charcoal embedded at different points. Charcoal gave them the perfect instrument to use
radiocarbon dating. It turns out that the ages of charcoal-bearing layers in their core sample coincides with dates suggested by tree rings of major drought events between A.D. 150 and A.D. 950. It is speculated that Ancestral Puebloans were entering the lava tubes with fire to melt ice for life-sustaining water at times of drought in a hot, dry, and unforgiving environment.
TRIO OF NATURAL DISASTERS
Call it Nature’s Revenge? We humans haven’t done an especially good job at minding our Earth as its self-appointed stewards. As 2021 commenced, nature seemed to take notice and sent a few grumbles to remind us who’s truly in charge on this planet we call home!
BIG SUR LOSES A PIECE OF HIGHWAY 1 – AGAIN
When my family moved to California, we initially lived in Monterey County for 15 years. We moved there in the midst of a severe drought, but my, how things soon changed!
An El Nino year dropped tons of rain that flooded rivers all around, essentially making the Monte-rey Peninsula an island. Further down the Coast, the independent-minded folks of Big Sur always looked forward to such rains. As soon as one hit, a section of iconic Highway 1 (a roughly 90-mile stretch of pavement clinging to the sides of steep mountains since 1937) would let loose and slide into the sea, cutting off access for any outsiders to their little slice of heaven.
And now, it’s happened again. A wildfire in August 2020 denuded a stretch of Big Sur about 50 miles south of Monterey, at mile marker 30, an area known as Rat Creek.
Thus, when 16 inches of winter rains hit early this year, on January 29, 2021, rocks, mud, and scorched remains of trees were swiftly carried down to the ocean in a 150-foot chasm that opened along the cliffs precariously hosting Highway 1.
Per a brief in TIME magazine, a spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) noted how this coastline has “historically been a battle between the ocean and the hillside.” Said Caltrans spokesperson Kevin Drabinski, “We built a road on the edge of a continent, and we have the forces of hillside and the ocean always at play.”
Well, score one for the ocean! Huge slabs of what had once been highway were dangling and slid-ing seaward as a result of the latest washout. Back in 2017, it took some 14 months to recover from damage to Highway 1 near the village of
Gorda. This recovery may take even longer given that there are reports of at least 50 to 60 other smaller slides along the highway that are keeping Caltrans well occupied as a new year begins in what some have described as “a Sisyphean task.”
A HUGE EARTHQUAKE STRIKES BENEATH THE SOUTH PACIFIC
A 7.7 earthquake is always news. Such tremendous tremors frequently collapse buildings, destroy roads, and cause scores, if not hundreds or thousands, of injuries. Fortunately, the latest 7.7 quake to hit our planet was centered deep beneath the South Pacific rather than beneath a crowded mega-lopolis like Los Angeles or Tokyo.
This particular quake struck on February 10, 2021, east of Australia and New Caledonia, along the
infamous “Ring of Fire” that circles the Pacific Ocean. Although centered far from highly populated areas, fears were immediately raised that hazardous tsunami waves might sweep as far and wide as Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Guam, American Samoa, and Hawaii. Fortunately, both the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre were soon able to drop and rescind tsunami threat announcements, and it said that Hawaii was never in true danger. While a small tsunami was indeed observed after warnings were issued to avoid beaches and shorelines, recorded wave heights were less than a meter. There were no reports of damage along the affected islands.
The quake is said to have followed three other tremors measuring between 5.7 and 6.2 in the span of just over an hour. And not long after the 7.7 tremor, at least three aftershocks were recorded be-tween magnitude 5.7 and 6.0. While any one of these would have created major havoc on land in highly populated areas, fortunately, the people of Earth dodged a bulle, for now!
GLACIAL COLLAPSE RELEASES A DEADLY WALL OF WATER IN INDIA
Glaciers sometimes create natural dams and hold back large glacial lakes containing immense volumes of water and sediment. On February 9, 2021, just such a glacial dam broke in the Himalayas. It sent a flash flood of water across the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, India.
The disastrous flow instantly destroyed bridges and dams and cut off more than a dozen villages, where inhabitants fled to higher ground upon hearing the rumble of water raging toward them.
The glacial lake was fed by snow and ice from Nanda Devi, the second-highest mountain peak in India. The resulting monster flood swept down the Dhauliganga River.
In the immediate aftermath, 32 were reported dead, and nearly 200 people were listed as missing. Reportedly, dozens of utility workers for the Tapovan Vishnugad hydroelectric project were trapped in a tunnel that was filled with boulders and slush. Soldiers have been called in with bull-dozers and excavators to clear away debris in a desperate attempt to reach survivors while drones survey the area with thermal imaging equipment.
As of this writing, officials are still attempting to determine the cause of the glacial dam collapse. 2019 study noted that, due to global climate warming, Himalayan glaciers are melting twice as fast in our current century as they did in the 1900s. Says Professor Anjal Prakash (Indian School of Business in Hyderabad), the collapse “looks very much like a climate change event…The glaciers are melting due to global warming.”
Whatever the ultimate cause, the effects have been dire while hope remains for rescuing those still trapped due to the disaster.