Geosonnet 70

 

Geosonnet 70

Amusement parks of resurrected beasts
Traditionally lie on offshore isles.
But dinosaurs, volcanoes now extinct
Might be preserved in sediment’ry piles.
Eroding mountains shed their clastics west
Until they rest in Eromanga seas.
The sand where Muttaburrasauri rest
Has zircons from unknown localities.
Cretaceous rifting pushed the arc offshore.
This thinning crust by newborn ocean drowned.
The Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise may store
Jurassic arcs where source rocks may be found.
   The dinosaurs and arcs are gone today
   But just like life, the zircon finds a way.

Geology 49 1391 

 

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Geosonnet 69

An accidental drilling in the deeps
Reveals a sleeper agent- felsic melt
Invisible to seismic, magma sleeps
Until basaltic trigger card is dealt.
Diffraction limits fuzz the chamber’s sides
Viscosity impedes acoustic tests
A covert, dried out dacite simply hides
Above basaltic plumbing, long at rest.
Three hundred years, this hidden magma sleeps
Until it’s poked by hydrothermal drill.
Old pumice, cuttings from the drilled-out deeps
Show magma lurking, poised to blast and kill.
Basaltic dykes wake sleepers from their doze
Do not ignore the hazard this can pose!

 

Geology 49 521

 

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Geosonnet 68

A hickory, a dickory, a dock
Diffusion rate of mice when timing’s known
But atoms, unlike rodents, have a clock
Which contradicts the others, all alone.

“A thousand Years,” says fat man Barium.
M-g squeaks, “Nah mate, more like less than one.”
T-i says, “Where’s my honorarium?
I can’t work here, diffusion’s not begun.”
He’s right! The two plus profiles haven’t moved.
The curves are melt dilution marks instead
The timescale’s not millennia, it’s proved
It’s more like months, and barium misled.
   Basalt melts felsic crystal mush so fast
   A season’s all you get before the blast.

Geology 43 695

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Geosonnet 67

 When Hansel, sister Gretel mark their way,

They leave a trail of breadcrumbs to define

The path they’ve tread, retraced at end of day.

Their wish to scamper home demands the line.

But breadcrumbs made of stone tell diff’rent tales.

Dropped from volcanic vents, they lead not home.

Broadcast when glowing edifice exhales,

When they detached from rhyolitic foam.

And as the bubbles grew, they stretched and cracked

Brittle and ductile, like a crusty bun

Rheology of glowing glass intact

They log the speed of their eruptive run.

When ashfall buries house of gingerbread

The breadcrust bubbles mark only the dead.

Geology 48 1205

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Geosonnet 66

A Solo smuggler must hide his freight.
Hidden compartments store his shady wares.
So when a mineral conceals hydrate
There must be secret structure which ensnares
The water slipping through the MOHO line.
A fugitive from oceanic law.
How does an olivine the H confine
And store in crystal structure lattice flaw?
The brucite sidekicks are forsterite’s foils
Magnesium, low silica create
Tetragonal sites vacant, H embroils
This nominally dry mantle substrate
    Hot hydrogen won’t change the warring stars
    And yet it could distinguish us from Mars.

Geology 46 571

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Geosonnet 65

Speed dating is a scattershot affair
Which blasts the hearts of river zircon grains
No magic mirror can discern the fair
And youngest zircon sediment contains.
If dating based on chemistry is used
The youngest grain is easier to find.
But chemistry is tedious! Abused
Statistics can be questioned and refined.
The youngest kernel density’s a crone
The youngest single grain is way too young,
Statistical young grouping’s in the zone
Though less exacting than the dates Tims’s brung
So settle down, this zircon dating’s docile
Until you try to match it with a fossil.

Geology 47 1044

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Geosonnet 64

When Perseus, Medusa’s head in hand,

Returned triumphant from the Gorgon’s isle,

He sold himself as hero of the land,

No stony witnesses could cramp his style.

When older larger monsters were destroyed,

No Greek boast twisted dinosaurs’ last stand.

To know the source of mammals’ schadenfreude,

Interrogate the Gorgon Island’s sand.

A spherule bed is present in the rock

Old microtektites still containing glass

The argon age is Chicxulub’s great shock,

American ejecta cumulates en masse.

   Thus impact-based extinction we construe.

   With mythic monsters vanquished, ferns regrew.

Geology 46 547

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Geosonnet 63

 

The Tragomys, like Creagh a desert rat,

Evolving on the hamster wheel of time

Scampered across the desert habitat

Of arid climates close to maritime.

But though they like to sunbathe, they don’t swim.

A beach bum never venturing to sea

Won’t paddle to an island on a whim;

Mallorca Strait stops them assuredly.

But when Mediterranean dries up

By isolation from the global seas

Then rodents which can’t swim can walk or jump

Populating peninsula with ease.

The hamsters, gerbils both confirm the tale

Messinian evaporates regale.

Geology 46 527

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