Geosonnet 11

For fifty million years, ‘tis understood

A vanished forest froze in permafrost.

The isotopes of carbon in the wood

Tell secrets of the climate we have lost.

Then brackish duckpond, now a frozen sea,

Ex-crocodiles where Franklin did maroon.

Those Rains of Castamere, we can’t agree:

Cold drizzle or a tropical monsoon?

Extinct sequoia yearns for rain no more

Yet in its fossil rings it has preserved

A dryad’s weather journal, yielding lore

of summer rain and winter drought observed

  The Arctic Ocean’s lost half of its ice

  What happens when it’s gone? We need advice.

Geology 40 523

 

Other geosonnets: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64  65 66

Geopoetry disclaimers

 A few notes on the Geosonnet series

I will try to keep them going on Wednesdays as long as I can manage, but I have some travel coming up, so they might be a few misses if my queue runs down.

Selection of a paper for poetry does not constitute an endorsement of the methodology, or agreement of the conclusions; basically, it means that the paper caught my eye and I read it (Reading and understanding the paper is generally the biggest timesink here).

I mentioned in the science week poetry wrap-up post that I can take several approaches to the sonnets- explaining the geology, explaining why the methodology was cool, or just waxing poetic about the broader impacts. I’ll continue to pick whichever approach takes my fancy at the time I write them. I generally blog from the paper copies, so don’t expect to see anything from online previews straight away.

Please feel free to comment.  It is fantastic that some people have been commenting in verse, but don’t feel compelled to do so if you can better express your thoughts in prose comments.

They can all be found under the label of "Rheologic Rhymes" (because they are strained).

Geosonnet 10

The Ediacaran saw creatures grow

Diversify as animals evolved.

But Cambrian descendants do not show

A lineage, preserved or else dissolved.

A missing fossil yearns to be dug up.

The flinders ranges burn to tell their tale

Trace fossils, both a spicule and a cup

Mean evolutionary theories can prevail.

Coronacollina was once a sponge

With opaline supports to hold it flat

Choia’s ancestor, before the plunge

Into the Cambrian destroyed the mat

  On which it lived, before it then evolved.

  Another fossil puzzle has been solved

Geology 40 307

Other geosonnets: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Geosonnet 9

The vast caldera of the Yellowstone

Erupts siliceous ash from time to time.

It’s far from the Cascade subduction zone

Therefore, a mantle plume’s the suspect prime.

But magma conducts electricity

Conductors in the mantle lie out west

The tomographic maps are very pretty

But show no melt where theory would suggest

A plume, with mantle source below the crust

Should yield a seismic and conductive trace.

Because we can’t detect deep melt we must

Explain resistance far below this place.

   A pulsed hotspot, or plate-related stall?

   Or maybe plumes do not exist at all.

Geology 40 447

Other geosonnets: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64  65 66

Spring!

Effect of impact energy on SIMS U–Pb zircon geochronology

I have a paper out in pre-publication online availability. The basic gist of it is that we are investigating exactly why SHRIMP is so good at geochronology.  It is a short format conference proceedings paper, so there isn't that much to it.  Basically, we investigated the oxide formation used to calibrate relative U/Pb ionization yields by bombarding natural zircon with a primary ion beam made of ¹⁸O₂^- ions.  This way, all the molecular oxide ions were isotopically labeled- ¹⁶O if the oxygen originated in the sample, ¹⁸O if it was from the primary beam.  We then varied the ion impact energy to see what effect this had on the overall collection efficiency.

One of the other different things about this paper is that I co-wrote it with my dad.  He doesn't know any geology, but since I was about five he has been using SIMS (not SHRIMP, other brands) analysing semiconductors.  He still lives in America, so I don't get to see him much any more, and he's not getting any younger.  So it was nice to have a structured activity to work on together.  The middle author, Jim Ferris, did the atomic force microscopy. Unfortunately due to the short format, we didn't have space for any of his pictures, but he measured the sputter crater volumes, which we needed to calculated useful yields.



Magee C. Jr., Ferris J. and Magee C. Sr. (2014), Effect of impact energy on SIMS U–Pb zircon geochronology, Surface and Interface Analysis, DOI: 10.1002/sia.5629

Geosonnet 8

The sunset lion, as Britannia aged

Survived, with every man, the frigid waste.

Industrial hostility upstaged

The sanctity of souls, their wreck encased

In icy seas and grinding floes made cold

By deep Antarctic circumpolar flow.

Dark isolation froze this land, how old

Are continental glaciers, ceaseless snow?

Six desp'rate heroes sailed the Scotia Sea

Dead arc, live backarc ridge beneath their keel

Tectonic forces pulled their goal to lea,

Deflected currents, begat their ordeal.

  Endurance sank, endurance overcame

  Asylum, dawn, and cause were all the same.

Geology 41 947

Geology 42 299

Other geosonnets: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63