Parts of Colin Waters & Naomi Oreskes recent Science review:
The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene
Humans are altering the planet, including long-term global geologic processes, at an increasing rate. Any formal recognition of an Anthropocene epoch in the geological time scale hinges on whether humans have changed the Earth system sufficiently to produce a stratigraphic signature in sediments and ice that is distinct from that of the Holocene epoch .....
Recent anthropogenic deposits contain new minerals and rock types, reflecting rapid global dissemination of novel materials including elemental aluminum, concrete, and plastics that form abundant, rapidly evolving “technofossils...
Detonation of the Trinity atomic device at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July 1945 initiated local nuclear fallout from 1945 to 1951, whereas thermonuclear weapons tests generated a clear global signal from 1952 to 1980, the so-called “bomb spike” of excess ...
Recent anthropogenic deposits, which are the products of mining, waste disposal (landfill), construction, and urbanization (19), contain the greatest expansion of new minerals since the Great Oxygenation Event at 2400 Ma (20) and are accompanied by many new forms of “rock,” in the broad sense of geological materials with the potential for long-term persistence...
Recall a 2014 post here:
Monday, November 24, 2014
PETROLOGY FOR POETS
THE NEW YORK REVIEW
OF POSTMODERN GEOLOGY
Deconstructing the un-natural history of the anthropocene epoch since 2006
The Anthropocene promises to be the first geological interval since the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction in which all rocks get to be famous for 15 minutes. The brave new epoch has already seen the television debut of a ready for prime time gypsum deposit that puts Industrial Light & Magic's best SFX to shame.
The Anthropocene promises to be the first geological interval since the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction in which all rocks get to be famous for 15 minutes. The brave new epoch has already seen the television debut of a ready for prime time gypsum deposit that puts Industrial Light & Magic's best SFX to shame.
The crystal cave's high Nielsen rating has led to a media gold rush as producers prospect for out-of-this-world terrestrial geology, subjecting the few geology libraries to survive the Holocene-Anthropocene Extinction to unaccustomed queues as writers flock to read NYRPG 's annual review of postmodern petrology, which includes:
Macadamite
While most sedimentary strata form extensive landscape-covering horizontal sheets, hydrocarbon rich macadamite occurs only as thin two dimensional stringers or veins that often bear rectangular metallic geode-like structures containing vertibrate fossils.
Interwoven vein masses of macadamite of astonishing extent and complexity have been mapped in Southern California, and form a continuous belt extending atop Cretaceous formations from Maryland to Massachusetts.
Trinitite
The earliest dated rock of the Postmodern epoch is a green-violet, obsidian-like fused lithic
While most sedimentary strata form extensive landscape-covering horizontal sheets, hydrocarbon rich macadamite occurs only as thin two dimensional stringers or veins that often bear rectangular metallic geode-like structures containing vertibrate fossils.
Interwoven vein masses of macadamite of astonishing extent and complexity have been mapped in Southern California, and form a continuous belt extending atop Cretaceous formations from Maryland to Massachusetts.
Saddamite
More mafic than Maccadamite, this high-temperature no-pressure liticc facies results from extreme local warming of holocene tar sands in Kuwait.
Saddamite consists of sand grains in a matrix of carbon black and pyrolized asphaltenes, a petrogenesis that defies explanation. While high nickel and vanadium porphyrin levels suggest an origin in marine cretaceous petroleum, no natural or commercial explanation exists for the infernal thermal fluxes needed to generate pure carbon in such amounts, nor do type specimens show signs of natural catastrophe or nuclear winter weathering.
Trinitite
The earliest dated rock of the Postmodern epoch is a green-violet, obsidian-like fused lithic
The holotype, a thin stratum of un-natural glass emplaced in a shallow anticline in the White Sands of New Mexico. has a tritium age of 6.9 milli-eons, slightly older than deposits in the Terminal Showa formation of southern Japan. Kazakhstan, China's Lop Nor basin, Nevada, India, Pakistan and some islands in French Polynesia.
Tellerite
An ephemeral water-soluble calcian variety of trinitite that resembles popcorn while it lasts. It was briefly reported on some now vanished Pacific coral atolls, but the holotypes disintegrated in the first rains to fall following the H-bomb tests that created them. Highly enriched in transuranic elements, all trinitite species look far older than their years.
Cryabase
The new discipline of meteopetrology focuses on cryabase, the only terrestrial rock consisting enirely of condensed air.
The minerals found in this paragon of geological minimalism include native oxygen and nitrogen, ice II, IIIb & IV crystals , priestlyite (the carbon analog of silica) ,,and minute crystalites of argon, Freon, neon, krypton and radon .
The new discipline of meteopetrology focuses on cryabase, the only terrestrial rock consisting enirely of condensed air.
The minerals found in this paragon of geological minimalism include native oxygen and nitrogen, ice II, IIIb & IV crystals , priestlyite (the carbon analog of silica) ,,and minute crystalites of argon, Freon, neon, krypton and radon .
The type locality at Cape Canaveral features aircicles and frost-like masses surrounding liquid hydrogen tanks, where cryabase avalanches were first noted as a cause of self-inflicted meteor damage to Space Shuttles.
While rare outside the Kuiper Belt, cryabase is expected to become depressingly common in the inner solar system if Senator Inhofe's views on global warming are correct.
Caution should be exercised in collecting cryabase samples, as geologists' picks tend to embrittle severely at frozen air temperatures, and the temptation to lick field samples for a better view of microstructure can lead to severe frostbite of the tongue.
While rare outside the Kuiper Belt, cryabase is expected to become depressingly common in the inner solar system if Senator Inhofe's views on global warming are correct.
Caution should be exercised in collecting cryabase samples, as geologists' picks tend to embrittle severely at frozen air temperatures, and the temptation to lick field samples for a better view of microstructure can lead to severe frostbite of the tongue.
Saganite
Phenomenally cold and dark variety of cryabase. Arbitrarily small amounts in atmosperic suspension can reportedly able to lower global temperatures below freezing for 40 days and 40 nights, but the report published in Science in 1983 seems to have been based on misindentification of the related species, apocryphite, found in many factoid deposits, but lacking the valuable consciuosness raising properties of the material originally published . See Ttaprophyre
Phenomenally cold and dark variety of cryabase. Arbitrarily small amounts in atmosperic suspension can reportedly able to lower global temperatures below freezing for 40 days and 40 nights, but the report published in Science in 1983 seems to have been based on misindentification of the related species, apocryphite, found in many factoid deposits, but lacking the valuable consciuosness raising properties of the material originally published . See Ttaprophyre
Ttaprophyre A geometaphysical phase arising from hermeneutic metamorphism of a factoidite melange during high-pressure deformation professionel. Ttaprophye was discovered by Johnny Carson in 1983 when 'nuclear winter' suddenly outcropped on The Tonight Show during the Cold War. On skeptical examination, Saganite, ( not to be confused with Cosmochlore), proved to be the reified product of a PR campaign, semiotically indistinguishable from the War of the Worlds symplectite repored in 1938 by Welles et al. from near Grovers Mills New Jersey.
The Ground Zero Gneiss
Known only from deposits in lower Manhattan, this so far unique product of political catastophism is a mylonized migmatite containing portlandite and powdery gypsum, asbestos fibers , and enormous laths and corrugated sheets of metallic iron with a grain structure suggesting hot deformation. Some layers contain mica-like sheets of carbonized fossil cellulose with angular markings more legible than graphic granites, many pertaining to world trade.
The Tora Bora Metapeltites
The Tora Bora Metapeltites
Some anthopocene cave deposits in the Hindu Kush and Waziristan syntaxis show signs of shock and awe deformation. Extensive contamination with clasts of lead and depleted uranium frustrated early efforts by petrologists seeking to collect the $50 million reward offered for a specimen lage enough for positive DNA identification of the elusive binladenite phase, later found in a conglomerate structure atop the Abbotttabad greenschists.
Which in turn recycles this 2007 Adamant post, itself a reflection on Paul Crutzen's 2002 Nature essay, The Geology of Mankind
Rock Of Ages
POSTMODERN GEOLOGY 102 A
Petrology for Deconstruction Majors
TrinititeThe first rock to form during the Postmodern epoch.
This violet to green, obsidian-like lithic, fused from the White Sands of southern New Mexico is an un-natural glass emplaced in a shallow anticline , with a tritium age of 6.1 milli-eons, a few weeks older than the Terminal Showa formation of the Hiroshima district in southern Japan.
Younger deposits are known to exist in Kazakhstan ,the Lop basin in China, and synclines in India and Pakistan. A calcian variety has been reported from some recently vanished French atolls. All are highly enriched in transuranic elements and look far older than their years.
Saddamite
More mafic than Maccadamite,this high-temperature no pressure metamorphic rock exists atop the holocene tar sands of Kuwait. Consisting of quartz grains in a matrix of carbon black with fossil impressions of boots on the ground and camel tracks, its petrogenesis defies explanation.
Saddamite
More mafic than Maccadamite,this high-temperature no pressure metamorphic rock exists atop the holocene tar sands of Kuwait. Consisting of quartz grains in a matrix of carbon black with fossil impressions of boots on the ground and camel tracks, its petrogenesis defies explanation.
High nickel porphyrin levels suggest a marine Cretaceous origin , but no natural or commercial explanation exists for the infernal thermal fluxes required to pyrolize so much carbon There are no signs of natural catastrophe or nuclear winter in the vicinity.
Cryabase
Foundation stone of the infant science of neopetrology , cryabase is the only terrestrial rock consisting entirely of condensed air. This paragon of igneous minimalism contains native oxygen and nitrogen, argon snowflakes ,and minute crystals of Freon, neon, and radon.
Cryabase occurs as aircicles and frost-like masses surrounding liquid hydrogen tanks. Much feared by Space Shuttle pilots ,it is difficult to collect as geologists picks embrittle severely at frozen air temperatures. Attempting to lick field samples is highly inadvisable.
Saganite
Phenomenally cold and dark variety of cryabase. A report in Science in 1983 stated minute amounts in atmospheric suspension can lower global temperatures below freezing for 40 days and 40 nights, but the still unpublished type specimen seems to have reverted to apocryphite.
Phenomenally cold and dark variety of cryabase. A report in Science in 1983 stated minute amounts in atmospheric suspension can lower global temperatures below freezing for 40 days and 40 nights, but the still unpublished type specimen seems to have reverted to apocryphite.
Saganite seems structurally related to Inhofite and the War of the Worlds symplectite near Grovers Mills N.J . Immense deposits reportedly exist beneath the Enron gas dome and the Busang Borneo megagold strike, but none has been offered for sale . Distinguishing features : highly refractory at a distance; melts under examination.
The Ground Zero Gneiss
Thus far known only from lower Manhattan and the Pentagon basement, this so unique migmatite exhibits a portlandite matrix with corrugated layers of galvanized iron , asbestos fibers , and exotic single crystal nickel alloy laths showing signs of hot deformation. Zones of heavily mylonized gypsum contain mica-like books of carbonaceous schist with angular markings. Unlike exsolved graphic granites, which resemble garbled cuneiform, the GZG graphitites are highly legible, and appear to pertain to world trade.
The Tora Bora Metapeltite
Cave entrance exposures near the Waziristan syntaxis of the Hindu Kush have yielded fugitive traces of this much sought after product of repeated shock and awe.
Thus far known only from lower Manhattan and the Pentagon basement, this so unique migmatite exhibits a portlandite matrix with corrugated layers of galvanized iron , asbestos fibers , and exotic single crystal nickel alloy laths showing signs of hot deformation. Zones of heavily mylonized gypsum contain mica-like books of carbonaceous schist with angular markings. Unlike exsolved graphic granites, which resemble garbled cuneiform, the GZG graphitites are highly legible, and appear to pertain to world trade.The Tora Bora Metapeltite
Cave entrance exposures near the Waziristan syntaxis of the Hindu Kush have yielded fugitive traces of this much sought after product of repeated shock and awe.
Distinuishing features include seismic deformation and shock cones ending in clasts of lead, depleted uranium & boron carbide. Petrologists are intrigued by the $50 million reward offered for a specimen containing the elusive organic phase binladenite in amounts sufficient for positive DNA identification
