Friday Natural History Blogging
Death, hate, war, debt, pestilence, taxes, greed, hypocrisy, corruption – some days it’s all a little bit too much. So today let’s sit back for a moment in the warm anticipation of a coming weekend and try to take a longterm, geological view of things.
There’s a great article about the Afar Depression in the Guardian today. This area of Ethiopia’s the most active rift zone in the world, where a massive chunk of Africa’s North-East Coast is splitting (see above) away from the continent and you can actually see it happening in real time.
This year teams from the UK, France, Italy and the US mounted expeditions to Afar, a region described by the British explorer Wilfred Thesiger as a “veritable land of death”.
From above you can see vast black tongues of lava lapping at the desert sands, and rust-coloured volcanos with their lids long blown off.
There are so many fissures and faults where the ground has opened and slipped that the Earth’s skin looks like elephant hide.
The lunar geography reflects what lies beneath. Afar stands at the junction of three tectonic plates, which form the outer shell of the Earth and meet at unstable fault lines. The Nubian and Somali plates run along the Great Rift Valley, which spreads south from Afar. Branching out like a funnel to the north is the Arabian plate.
What wouldn’t I’ve given to’ve been on one of those expeditions. I’ve been fascinated for quite some time with Great Rift Valley geology ever since I first saw a satellite photo at school, back when satellite pictures were new. That continuing interest has led to my recent posts on things like the formation of grabens and associated phenomena like salt glaciers , so I’m always avid for rift valley news.
The Guardian article adds little particularly new, but it’s a great introduction to an intriguing subject. The real meat is found in some of the scientific research results posted online, particularly those obtained by satellite mapping.
This has resulted in some incredible images. Look, stretch marks!
“3D view of satellite radar measurements of how the ground moved in September 2005. Over about 3 weeks, the crust on either side of the rift moved apart by as much as 6 metres, with molten rock filling the crack between the plates. Satellite radar data is from the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite. Figure was prepared by Tim Wright, University of Oxford/Leeds using Google Earth. Images can be viewed in Google Earth by following the instructions here.”
Because I’ve always thought geology is the only science in which contains all the others within it I’m really enjoying Dr Ian Stewart‘s Open University documentary series , currently on BBC 2. Geology takes biology, physics and chemistry and puts them into context but Stewart goes further and places geology in its proper anthropological and cultural frame, stressing the importance of geological knowledge to the development of Mediterranean and Near-East civilisations. Stewart’s now Senior Lecturer at my old university. Go Plymouth!
It’s a bumper season for lovers of natural history lately, with a second series of Coast already on and a new series of David Attenborough’s wonderful Planet Earth starting this weekend.
Our history as a species so far has depended largely on geological luck; a major geological event can wipe out a whole planet-worth of evolution in an instant. There’ve been mass extinctions before and there ill be again; unfortunately it looks like, rather than wait for that to happen, we’ve decided to do it to ourselves. . We’re facing the biggest of all existential threats right now, the destruction of the conditions that allow life to thrive on this planet. Or rather, we’re not.
Which brings me right back again to my first paragraph.
Because facing up to the destruction of all you hold dear is not easy – most of us are inwardly singing “lalalala, I’m not listening”, putting our heads down and getting on with it. Or looking at pretty pictures of rocks. Out of sight, out of mind. This is no more a rational response than to deny outright that it climate change isn’t happening, despite the evidence, as the odious Peter Hitchens, brother of well-known expat inebriate-about-town Christopher, did on Question Time last night (video podcast here).
But what is a rational response to the knowledge that this is all ending? How can we deal with this level of foreknowledge without collapsing under the emotional weight? No other generations on earth have ever had such a warning.
What’s best? Optimism, pessimism or something in between? But some have been trying to formulate a response, a way to live with the constant looming dread. Dave Pollard at How To Save The World wrote this last year, but it’s still just as valid:
Making Peace With the End of Civilization
The Idea: The author waxes philosophical about how he can be so pessimistic and so happy at the same time, and why he works so hard when he sees no perpetuity to what he does
[…]
Me: If we’re going to be gone in a century, why not live in the moment, use every minute to do what gives your life purpose and meaning and pleasure right now? For me that means learning something new every day, it means helping others, it means getting back in touch with my animal nature: reconnecting to the Earth and all its life and spending time just being, opening up all my senses, feeling, being happy to be alive and healthy and right here right now, and trusting my instincts.
RS: So you believe man is on the verge of exterminating himself and much of the life of the planet, but you’re not going to do anything about it?
Me: On the contrary, I’m going to do everything I can, short of murder or suicide, to try to help avert it, and to reduce the horrific suffering that civilization is inflicting on all life on our planet. I’m just philosophical about the fact that nothing I do or anyone else does has significant likelihood of changing the endgame, so I’m not going to beat myself up about failure, and I’m not going to feel guilty about just living in the moment and being happy.
One thing I will invest considerable time in is talking with my two granddaughters so they have an idea what they are facing, since they are more likely than we are to face the brunt of civilization’s collapse in their lifetime. I will try to be a role model for them, so that they too will try to do their best to alleviate suffering and avert the end of man, and in the meantime they will live full, passionate, informed, guilt-free and open lives. I hope they will love themselves and many other people without limit or condition or restraint, and that they will come to love learning as much as I do. And hopefully they will not blame anyone for the fact that, as EO Wilson put it, with man, “Darwin’s dice have rolled badly for Earth”.
Exactly.
There’ll not be much blogging from me tomorrow and Sunday, I’m taking the weekend off. I’m hoping to go see Borat and laugh till I wet myself, evil viruses permitting.
Have a nice weekend. Be excellent to each other.
Read more: Friday non-lifeform blogging, Environment, Natural sciences, Geology, Ethiopia, Afar depression, Rifting, Climate change, TV science.
