Little crawly creepies of the early Cambrian

I think I'll switch gears for a moment. One of the things I often do is create illustrations - either for my own research, or for things like museum exhibits. When I worked at the UW-Madison Geology Museum, I put together several drawings for our burgess shale materials:

Molaria is a rather unassuming arthropod.

The fancy trilobite, Ogogygopsis, which has more "g's" in its name than most animals. It's also a fairly demure (by trilobite standards) specimen.

Hyoliths are just strange. I find them all over the Upper Cambrian here in Wisconsin - although some of the cones might be conulariids - stay tuned.

One of the more flamboyant, but recognizable trilobite relatives is Marella.


Another relatively unassuming arthropod is Burgessia, but what's cool about this critter is that many of them leave behind a dark stain on the shale in the shape of their gill structures.

One thing that natural history reconstruction is good for is that it takes a 2-dimensional smear and "re-inflates" it for people to see. And many of these things are an inch or two long, so it's useful for those that can't get close to the display case.

Update:
Given the "outreach" potential of blogs, here are two other threads that may interest folks:
Young-Earthers and GSA
Little snails in the Midwest

Happy Birthday!

I was reminded by Callan over at NOVA geoblog that today, October 23rd, is the date at which Archbishop James Ussher arrived at by backtracking all of the biblical "begats." How he traced the "pre-begat" time before Adam and Eve isn't quite clear, nor did he provide a correction factor to address the uncertainty related to the wives of Cain and Abel. But I digress...

If you read it literally, the Earth took physical form a mere 4,004 years BCE (before "common" era - whose era it is common to, I'm not sure). That's a whole lotta geology to fit into a short time. I guess it's up to researchers like the ones mentioned in my last post to fit all of that change into a catastrophic model. How a frictionless fault system also leaves large gouges and striations in the rock is beyond my understanding, however.

Young-Earth Creationism at GSA

It is not a little ironic that the 2009 national meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) provided the option to spend an entire day talking about Darwin's contributions to geology and a chance to spend a day on Mount St. Helens with a young-Earth creationist. I wonder how many people on that field trip were "in on the take." And how many were completely clueless? I know that without the connectivity of social networking, I would have been completely duped. Here, I intend to sketch my thoughts regarding what is going on with the young-Earth movement and suggest how we, as geologists, might deal with this apparent rise in anti-science.

I can imagine the dilemma the GSA field trip committee found themselves in. Here was a field trip proposal submitted by one of the strongest supporters of a young-Earth and flood geology, Dr. Steven Austin. On one hand, it is clear to anyone who follows the actions of politically motivated groups such as the Institute for Creation Research that this would be used as a badge, a sort of hallmark of acceptance of their ideas. If GSA allowed this field trip, it would certainly spell future trouble for all the sciences. However, to deny this trip - which on the objective analysis of the submitted trip description - would spell certain troubles of its own. In the end, GSA allowed the trip, and, while I am positive it is going to spell trouble at some later point, this trouble would have been far worse (and longer-lasting) had they disallowed the trip.

The description for field trip #425: The Dynamic Landscape of Mount St. Helens reads harmless enough. While the description does not sound scientifically rigorous, it does appear to be based on geologic concepts of landscape evolution. However, it contained neither. It followed the classic creationist methodology of reporting facts, but ignoring/omitting any discussion of causal mechanisms (or by stating things in a meaningless and hopelessly confusing fashion - see my fourth entry on this topic). By focusing on specific events and their "time-stamps," Austin et al. steered clear of some controversial statements and positions. This "stenography" also served to sever any connection between Mount St. Helens and the rest of the Earth. There was no discussion of plate tectonics, or volcano monitoring, or even how changes in stream power and sediment load can affect the behavior of the landscape. Nope, it was just a series of isomorphous declarative statements, "at this time this happened, etc."

That appears to be the limit of what a geologist does. In Austin's mind, geologists are merely God's Stenographers. Dutifully reporting what layers are there, but steering clear of any possibility that they can inform the observer about environment of deposition, or some larger scale function of the Earth's systems. For that is the realm of God, and unknowable/undefinable. When I first learned of the background for the guide on our trip, I went through a miniature version of the grieving process: denial, anger, sadness and then acceptance. At least I accepted the fact that I was on a trip with a man who's behavior is anathema to geology and I could take this opportunity to observe firsthand the young-Earth movement.

I began by studying Austin's essay on K-Ar dating of the Mount St. Helens dacite, and Dr. Kevin Henke's excellent rebuttal. I also looked up the histories behind the other listed field trip leaders. Dr. Kurt Wise is well-known and doesn't need a link. He also was not on the trip. The number of co-leaders fluctuated, but the people introduced to us as group leaders included:

• Dr. Timothy Clary, Delta College


• Dr. John Whitmore, Cedarville University


• Dennis Bokorov, co-founder of Creation Encounter, LLC


• Dr. Marcus Ross, Liberty University


• Raymond Strom, Calgary Rock and Materials Services

I won't bother with a series of web links - suffice to say they have well-documented ties to creationist and young-Earth/flood geology projects. They have also contributed a large number of GSA abstracts in the last few years.

John Whitmore (with student co-authors) has several abstracts that focus on the Coconino Sandstone

2009:

• CHARACTERIZATION OF SAND IN THE NEBRASKA SANDHILLS


• OCCURRENCE OF DOLOMITE BEDS, CLASTS, OOIDS AND UNIDENTIFIED MICROFOSSILS IN THE COCONINO SANDSTONE, NORTHERN ARIZONA


• PETROGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF THE COCONINO SANDSTONE, NORTHERN AND CENTRAL ARIZONA


2005:

• SANDSTONE CLAST BRECCIAS, HOMOGENIZED SAND, AND SAND INTRUSIONS: EVIDENCE OF SUBSTRATAL LIQUFACTION IN THE BASAL COCONINO SANDSTONE (PERMIAN), GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA


• SANDSTONE CLAST BRECCIAS, HOMOGENIZED SAND, AND SAND INTRUSIONS: EVIDENCE OF SUBSTRATAL LIQUFACTION IN THE BASAL COCONINO SANDSTONE (PERMIAN), GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA


2004:

• AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE MUD CRACK ORIGIN FOR SAND-FILLED CRACKS AT THE BASE OF THE COCONINO SANDSTONE, GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA

The common theme within all of these abstracts are clearly pointing to 1) that the Coconino was deposited rapidly and 2) within a marine, not Eolian setting. The field and lab methods employed are simple, and often misused. For example, grain-size distributions were plotted as a standard distribution about a mean, the mineralogy was used as a reason to question eolian deposition, yet no systematic point counts of grains were done. Some analyses were spread over a broad area, while the stratigraphic constraint on most samples was either non-existant, or limited to thin carbonate-rich horizons interbedded within huge cross-bedded, arenitic to feldspathic sandstones.

One poster displayed a section of these thin carbonate-rich horizons (widely interpreted by most geologists to be inter-dune deposits) that was labeled as "0-12 m" although when asked, it was actually 1.2 m. The interpretation of thin sections included identification of recrystallized carbonates and ooids, plus some mica and other non-quartz minerals. The emphasis of Cheung et al. (2009) was to argue against eolian deposition of these particular layers, and, by association, the entire Coconino Sandstone. This is akin to a meteorologist going outside at dawn and sunset to observe the sky. The meteorologist sees the sky is red, pink, and orange. Ah ha! They say: these colors are not blue: therefore, the statement "the sky is blue" is clearly false [therefore, all of your atmospheric physics must be wrong]. Classic creationist logic - select only some data (which may or may not be systematically collected), then use this small specific example to falsify a generalization (often an over-generalization) and call into doubt the entire system of understanding.

Dr. Timothy Clarey

2009:

• TIMING RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SOUTH FORK AND HEART MOUNTAIN FAULT SYSTEMS WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR EMPLACEMENT, WYOMING, USA


2008:

• The Break-Away Point of the South Fork Superfault: A Catastrophic Gravity Slide, Wyoming, USA

The treatment of these large fault systems as catastrophic - where rate of movement was in excess of 100 km/hr (Clarey, 2009), lubricated by a saturated water/anhydrite slurry within the Gypsum Springs Formation. While not explicitly stated, the implication is for rapid, sudden creation of the entire structural framework of the Rocky Mountains, enabled by catastrophic loading and near-frictionless lubrication via hydrostatic pressures. While his analysis and mapping of particular faults may have been reasonably accurate in his particular study region, he ignores a wide body of existing knowledge about this (and ALL) fault systems. His assertion that the Heart Mountain and South Fork Faults were superfaults, moving along a frictionless surface at over 100 km/hr is curious. Especially because of his additional statements regarding the stratigraphically younger Paleozoic carbonates experiencing ductile deformation during faulting (at least, that's how I read his abstract and talk statements - he may have assumed ductile deformation before or after faulting). This still begs an important question of how one can achieve brittle deformation within a clay-rich mudstone formation (which are very susceptible to ductile deformation), yet experience ductile deformation within a much more rigid limestone unit (limestone is typically more susceptible to brittle behavior - at least at low T/P).

For a geologist, the faulty (pun intended) reasoning behind all of these abstracts boggles the mind. All of these abstracts display a selective acceptance or rejection of the scientific method (methodological naturalism). In a larger sense, these authors have, at least to me, displayed (through informal questions and discussion) a complete lack of ability or desire to apply their findings beyond a report of their "research." This lack of application is illustrated by the fact they make no attempt to explain previous, unwitnessed events (which could point to an underlying physical mechanism for the behavior of the Earth system), nor extrapolate their observations into the future. The one small exception to this last statement is when Austin was asked about future eruptions of St. Helens - he mentioned historical eruptions being about 150 years apart, thus the next big eruption would be in about 120 years. Note that the only reason he made that prediction was because of past behavior - NOT because of an understanding of some underlying mechanism such as plate tectonics and igneous rock mechanics.

The work typified by the above abstracts can be characterized as Risky Thinking. By denying an underlying physical mechanism, there becomes no possibility of predicting the behavior of the resulting features (e.g.earthquakes or volcanoes). Without an underlying theoretical framework, the scientist is relegated to the role of stenographer, mindlessly reporting on what they observe. Darwin made a comment about the fruitlessness of this pursuit when he talked about "counting all the pebbles" in a gravel pit. There would be no point. Without an underlying theoretical framework predicting the hazardous behavior of earth systems is impossible - therefore preemptively evacuating people from a volcano, or prohibiting certain activities in areas prone to landslides and earthquake is impossible. This places the scientist, and community at large at great financial and personal risk. This is not only bad science ("cargo cult science" of the worst kind), but it is very risky behavior.

So what do we, as geologists do? Clearly,we can't make them go away - either by ignoring them, or by prohibiting them from speaking publicly. But we can, and must, refute their assertions with vigor. I think that their participation in GSA meetings has some benefit. Firstly, it provides an opportunity for the students of these young-Earth professors to experience the wide diversity of real science (even if for brief moments). It also provides a direct way to ask questions and learn what the young-Earth community is thinking and up to. Forewarned is forearmed, so to speak.

This brings up an important point about social networks. The conference at GSA held a special session on the use of social networks in teaching and research. I think the use of social networking tools such as blogs, tweets, and facebooks is vital to help make the geologic community aware of what's going on. Without it, I would not have been able to be aware of the nature of the field trip: both in its implications, but also in terms of its "science" content. In addition, I might not have pursued the background research and stumbled upon these abstracts. The activities of the young-Earth community clearly are part of a larger strategy to gain "scientific merit" for their views (this is related to the "Wedge" strategy as described by the Institute for Creation Research Discovery Institute [edit: wrong group]). Without social networking, this behavior might not have been discovered until later - at a point where response and criticism would be more complicated.

As geologists, we ignore people like Steve Austin, John Witmore, and Timothy Clarey at our peril. However, our response must be both thorough and united. Social networking can provide the first line of notification. I want to thank Jessica at "Magma Cum Laude" for her first note: without it, I - and others - would have been duped.

You can read the rest of the story here:
Part Four
Part Three
Part Two
Part One

Update (10/27): I fixed a couple of errors in the text.

Quick Update

I'm waiting for my flight out of PDX. They have free wireless, so I figure I'll add a quick update:

The meeting was very successful. I made some new professional connections, and strengthened existing ones. I got a bunch of cool swag (which deserves its own post). I attended a very helpful scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) workshop, which I should also share with my audience. An audience that seems to have grown a bit thanks to the Geoblogger get-together and the blogroll feed on the GSA website. Kudos to GSA for being proactive about embracing blogs (and technology in general) for sharing geoscience info.

In case you've missed it, I've been providing a series of reports on my experiences with the young-Earth creationist, Steve Austin. I unwittingly signed up for a tour led by him to Mount St. Helens. It was informative, to say the least. I didn't learn anything about geology, but I did learn a lot about what the young-Earth movement is up to.

The story so far:
Part Four
Part Three
Part Two
Part One

I'm leaving in about 45 minutes, so I should probably get to my gate. For some reason, the cheapest ticket has me traveling from Portland to Minneapolis via Phoenix. Very strange. At least I get a window seat, and perchance a view of the Grand Canyon. That would be a fitting postscript for this journey.

Update: A brief discussion about young-Earthism at GSA

Down the Rabbit Hole, fourth verse.

Introduction

First, let me talk about what this post is not:
It is not a discussion of Dr. Steven Austin's character as a person. In fact, I found him to be very cheerful and enthusiastic despite the poor weather. The same could be said of all the people on the trip; people were generally quite upbeat and positive even if our boots still have not dried out completely.

It is not a discussion/rant about religion - I find the parts of religious teachings that say we should be nicer to each other rather spiffy. There are plenty of other places to attempt some kind of cost/benefit analysis of belief/non-belief in any particular deity.

My intention with this post is to describe the trip in terms of how it was laid out, where we went, what we saw, and what was said by the trip leaders as it pertained to the field trip. I will save posts related to implications of the trip and discussion of some of the abstracts submitted by other authors who were on the trip for the future.

The Trip

We boarded the bus at the convention center and started up I-5 towards MSH. Along the way, Steven described the general purpose for the trip and handed out a reprint of the Guidebook [published as part of the GSA meeting field trip guidebook - more on this later]. It appeared that at least half of the people on the trip were familiar with the leader or co-leaders [I am still not sure how many actual "co-leaders" there were - at least four]. One of my friends from grad school was also on the trip, but I did not know any one else aside from the background research I had done to familiarize myself with the writings of those involved in planning the trip.

While we were making our way north, Steven described scuba diving in Spirit Lake, some of the work he had done for his dissertation at Penn State, and mentioned several times how the people attending this trip could learn from it and lead their own tours in the future. He described the eruption as a seven or eight step sequence of events from initial quake and landslide, to steam explosion and ashfall, finally ending with the breach of the new spirit lake and rapid outlet of the Toutle River once it overtopped the debris damming the valley two years later. A great deal of emphasis was put on the time of each event and the quantity of material removed from the mountain and depth of erosion from the Toutle River. Oddly, he described the basal movement of the mountain side as "laminar flow."

He spent some time describing "long-runout landslides" and the various mechanisms by which they can travel [there was nothing that seemed obviously wrong with his summary of primary concepts - although I have not double checked his reference yet]. He also spent some time describing hyperconcentrated mudflows along the Cowlitz River, which he described as turbulent, making bedforms. Traditional mudflows, he stated, had laminar flow and left massive, lacking bedforms/structures [which was confusing, since turbulence is largely a function of flow thickness, velocity, and bed interference, and even laminar flow can form sedimentary structures].

He made some comment about these landforms being a result of "self-organized criticality," but I'm still not sure to what he was exactly referring [the eruption, the landslide, the breaching of the dammed material?] We got out at JRO to spend some time in the center to look at the displays and look at the [really cool] topographic model of the area with fiber optic lights to show the extent and pattern of eruptive events on the mountain. [I should really talk about JRO and MSH itself in a separate post].

The group was split into groups of four [to help ease congestion on the trail and stops]. We then proceeded to wind our way down Truman Trail and into the valley. That's when it started to rain. Not a sprinkle or even a simple cloudburst, but sideways and nonstop for about four hours. This driving rain forced the trip leaders to postpone the first stop (on the ridge) to the return trip, so we continued on our trip. Down into the debris field, with Spirit Lake visible to the East, and the base of MSH occasionally visible. However, we didn't have much opportunity to gaze at the vista, since it was raining so hard [very few photos, either, since I wanted to keep my lenses dry for a while].

We continued down the trail, eventually reaching the bottom of the valley, where we veered off the trail and toward the new channel canyon. Steven had obtained an off-trail permit for our group, and we plodded through the rain-soaked clay, ash, and volcanic rock debris towards the overlook. I kept my hood over my face to try and keep the rain from draining down the inside of my jacket. By this time my pants, boots, and socks had become completely saturated. Because I was moving, I wasn't feeling cold, however, and the rest of the group also appeared to take the weather in stride.

Our arrival at the "breached-dam overlook" allowed us to see some of the more prominent erosional features of the Toutle River Valley. Here Steven picked up his narration, describing the landforms as a result of specific processes that had occurred at specific "moments" in time [my wording].

After his description of the various landforms [basically: 1) debris hummocks, 2) ash-fall, and 3) erosional valleys], Steven mentioned again, that this landscape was a result of "self-organized criticality" [his wording]. There were some questions and comments from the attendees regarding past volcanic events and landscape processes, even a statement about something that happened "100 million years ago" to which Steven did not react or criticize. But then he left us with some oddly phrased question about how much of this landscape was a result of "catastrophic" change versus "gradual" change. To which another person [I do not know if they were co-leading or attending] added that "both types have occurred. I was still trying to parse his catastrophism comments, so I only asked one question about this particular landscape in the future: "what would you expect to see in this landscape in the distant future?" I don't think he quite understood what I was asking, but he did address the fact that this particular landscape was anthropogenically altered, therefore some changes would not take place [which was entirely correct]. But as a summary, his statement was "more erosion." Nothing about changes in stream power, or sediment load, or base-level fluctuations. Just "erosion."

Because of the rain, his stop was likely cut short. As a parting comment about future eruptions, he made some comment about a similar 1980-style event unlikely [I'm not sure if he was talking about never again, or just in the relatively short-term]. But he made some passing comment about eruptions occurring as a result of the interaction between water, crystallization of magmas [my impression was he thought crystallization was near-instantaneous], and "self-organized criticality" allowing for this pressure to be released [his wording again]. I didn't have a chance to follow-up on that and ask him what he meant, since everyone had started to hike back to the ridge [I still need to do that].

When we got up towards the ridge, the rain let up and I concentrated on taking photographs. Most of the group had started to spread out, such that I only saw the same four or five people at any given time. Arriving back at JRO, the overlook stop had apparently been cancelled, so I stood on the observation deck and took lots and lots of pictures.

The return trip to the Convention Center was unremarkable, except that when we got off the bus, they handed a nice 60" wide panoramic photo of MSH to each of the attendees [this was pretty cool].

So...

Ultimately, the trip was not as embarassing or intelectually painful as I had feared. If a GSA member had signed up for the trip, they may not have realized that the trip leader was a YEC [my grad school friend didn't know about Steve Austin until I mentioned something on the bus when we left for MSH]. The people sympathetic to his views were obviously happy. I took away some nice photos and memories of the volcano itself along with a clearer picture of what these YEC-ers are up to and what they are thinking.

I want to thank Steven Austin and his colleagues for taking the time and effort to organize the trip. I have some concerns, but these are more appropriate for a letter to the GSA Field Trip Committee Chairperson.

I also want to commend GSA for their decision. It wasn't was a tough one, and understandably, there was a great deal of internal discussion related to the trip and whether to allow it [what a difference a contraction makes -Ed.]. As written, the description of the trip makes no statements regarding a "Young Earth" or other sentiments anathema to the GSA mission. In addition, to deny a proposal on the "possibility" of something coming up is a big step down the slippery slope of guilt by association.

Yes, the YEC crowd will put this as a shining feather in their caps [ironic, since they claim all of our work is wrong yet they view interaction with us as "proof" that their ideas have merit]. But, there are always unintended consequences. Thanks to the hard work of Jessica at Magma Cum Laude, I was aware of the situation prior to the event, and I've been able to share my experiences with sufficient prior knowledge to report on the event. I also have gained valuable insight into the YEC community, and a new lesson plan to teach about deep time - using Austin's work to show why it's completely wrong.

Also, catch up on the series with the following links:
Part Three
Part Two
Part One

Update: A brief discussion about young-Earthism at GSA

GSA

Another busy day at GSA. I didn't go to as many talks today, but I did a lot of networking related to my own research, and chatting with fellow geologizers. I'm still drafting a review of my MSH trip, which will be up shortly. But, I'll leave you with two thoughts:

1) The NASA booth is handing out research satellite cookie-cutters. A different one each day. How fun is that?

2) How can you discuss geology with a person who rejects as false, the physical laws that define the mechanisms by which dirt fills in a hole?