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By Katie Kish, March 6, 2008 9:43 pm

I’ve started a number of posts in the past couple of days… the furthest I got was on one called “Earth’s Earliest Life”… but I didn’t get very far. (I’ll post what I got done at the end of this… because I don’t think I’m ever going to finish it.)

You know how in that Dr. Seuss book he’s like “sometimes you’ll be in a slump, and when you’re in a slump you’re not in for much fun unslumping yourself is not easily done.” …Yeah, that’s how I’m feeling right now – blog slump. It’s not for a lack of topics, but a lack of enthusiasm. I spend more time writing stories (that I will never let the public see, because they’re scary bad) and doodling on things…. or just screwing around with my music. So… I apologize! But… I’m just not feeling it.

Here is what I had done of that other post……. I was going to get into the oxygen revolution and dating really old organic material – but… I just didn’t make it.

“Fossils are usually made out of hard parts of an animal or a plant such as a bone, shell, tree trunk… etc. Sometimes even these hard bits can be chemically altered during burial or even dissolved away completely leaving only their impression in the rock. Rarely you can get a whole animal, such as a fly stuck in tree sap but most of the time you just get a piece of the animal – such as it’s footprint.

There are a million different factors that can destroy a fossil before its even found. The soft parts of an organism decay or are eaten and thus the hard part is scattered or shattered. It can be broken by animals, water, and weather – whatever. The remains, if any survive, may be damaged during burial under sand, mud or gravel. They can then be crushed beyond any sort of recognition by the tonnes upon tonnes of pressure that is put on top of them. And they may also be broken by the simple process of erosion. Suffice to say – it’s pretty rare that a really decent fossil is found – the animal would have had to been buried with it’s hard bits and buried immediately after death.

It is because of this that we have very little clues or ideas about early life. Microscopic and soft-bodied animals have practically no chance of being fossilized. The collection of fossils we do have – although it is quite large – is totally misleading in regards to how incredibly vast the fossil record actually is. What we do have is probably less than 2% of all hard bodied animals that ever lived – suffice to say the fact that we can even make a fraction of the fossil record is pretty remarkable.

The older the rock, the more time there has been for it, and thus the fossil contain in it, to be altered, this is yet another reason why we’re missing so many.

The age of rocks is determined by measuring the amount of radioactive decay of various atoms included in minerals when the rock was formed. For example, rubidium 87 decays to strontium 87 at a rate such that half the rubidium has converted 50 billion years. Nothing that we are currently aware of can change this rate, so that careful and accurate measurements of the ratio rubidium 87 and strontium 87 can give an accurate date for the age of the rock, provided that nothing detrimental has happened to the minerals in the meantime (such as remelting the crystals, or dissolving out the strontium).

There are, however, far more reliable methods used in rock dating. The potassium-argon method and the uranium-lead method are quite similar to the method I just explained. They work best on igneous rocks, and gives the dating within a 5 percentage of error. These methods can tell us when the crystals in the rock were formed, however within metamorphic rock, this isn’t the case because the rocks are heated, melted and alter again and again and again. However – even if we can find the dates of these rocks, it irrelevant to the date of fossils because they appear almost exclusively in sedimentary.

It’s not very often that sand and gravel will have minerals in them for which we can test the time by radiometric methods. It is thus hard to date sedimentary rocks, and fossils, in more absolute terms. It is because of this that geologists work in terms of relative times such as “A is older than B” rather than “A is 3 billion years old”.”

Exciting? I know. My mind is full of really boring facts. Such is life.

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By Katie Kish, February 20, 2008 5:34 pm

La geolgie, est par definition, la science de la Terre.

Most of what I’ve read in geology and paleontology in the past three – six months has either been in French or been really old. (Hutton’s book is almost impossible to read. All of his “s”s are “f”s and all of his “g”s are “p”s. It petf fliphtly irritatinp.

Anyway, the purpose of me coming here today was to look into the look at the estimate with regards to the time of the Earth, to look into a question or two about climate that were given to me yesterday and for interests sake read about the changes for which the Earth has undergone and in what time frame. In the middle of my perusing through the shelves of geology books I came to the “fossil record and evolution” section – much to my delight as it’s been a topic that I’ve been talking about with a few people the past little while. Not much to my delight there was someone else at the books, reading and scoffing.

“What’s the problem?” I asked stupidly.

“I can’t believe this is in this section.” The 20 something year old said to me.

“What section would you suggest the geology books would be in, besides the geology section?”

“The religion and culture section.” He suggested.

“Maybe we should sit down for this.” I suggested.

We found a table, introduced ourselves – I learned his name is Everest (like the mountain) and that he was in the library for the same reason as I am – something to do. So we both knew we weren’t keeping each other from productive work. I let him make his case first.

“Well, geology is just like a religion. It’s mind blowing that it’s considered to be one of the hard sciences. Geology proposes to explain life the universe and everything. Can you even give scientific examples of WHY the earth remains in the constant states of motion that it does?

It is almost exactly like the bible and Christianity. It is cosmically oriented. The whole story of geological history explains how humans have gained power, and how it cases human productivity. It is a simple story of cause and relation creating a story, a fictional story, that people try to use as real “evidence” for the world.”

First of all, geology isn’t a hard science, here is why:

So it’s not a hard science. I am sure there are people out there who would like to call it a hard science, but it’s just not. It’s a mixed science. Some people do the hard science side of it, others do the presumptive and social work of it – but all together it’s not a hard science.

As for explaining everything – it’s almost entirely impossible… obviously, so why would any sane person propose that their subject defines everything? Every geologist I know admits that there are gaps in things, and still questions being asked. If there weren’t, why would bother studying it? But yes, we can explain why the earth remains in the constant states of motion that it stays in.

The land we rest on is not simple and original, but it is a composition and has been formed by the operation of second causes. There are 2 fundamental processes.

1. Convection – the Earth is hot, so hot that it’s not stable. The condition of stability is explained by this equation:

(ςT/ςP)_s = αT/ρC_p
Where T and P represent temperature and pressure, S is constant entropy, α is the coefficient of the thermal expansion, ρ is density and C_p is heat capacity at constant pressure. This is the driving force for plate tectonics. They are in constant motion as heat changes, and don’t stop. One of our constant states of motion.

2. Radial Compositional Differentiation – in short … Gravity. Elements or ionic groups with low density rise, denser elements sink. The redistribution lowers the potential energy of the earth and stabilizes it. Now – most of this happened in the original “formation” or the earth – which is why we have a Fe-Ni core, but it is a constant process, just not as hardcore as when the earth started forming.

As for the geology being cosmically oriented? … It’s just not. It’s not a story or origin or a greater creator. It is a history of casual relations that create what is under our feet today. The fossil record just happens to explain a lot of what life is. Hutton’s theory of uniformitarianism is the same idea that Darwin used to create his theory of evolution. … Things happen as a process, and a slow one at that. Coupled with biology, sure geology explains a lot of where life came from, but not in the same way as a religion.

Comparing geology to a religion because it tells a story is just silly.

A quote by Hobbes popped into my mind “For what is the heart but a spring, and the nerves but so many strings, and the joints but so many wheels giving motion to the whole body”

But Everest’s definition of geology as a religion, biology has also just fallen in because it explains the human body, where we get our “power”, how we adapt and change over time to optimize our bodies… etc.

“No, biology is not a religion because it uses proof that is here right now to back up what it is doing. Geology just uses history to create a story and to write hypothesis on how the world may have started. Just like in the bible there are gaps in how people are made. What is there Precambrian that gives us any proof of life? That backs up any of a geologist’s claims for evolution? Nothing! The whole scale of how life evolved just doesn’t flow together. I have never seen a chart in which you can show a non-nucleus organism linked to humans. Yet geologists say their “fossil record” indeed shows this.”

Well, Everest, it does. A while ago I made this “tree of life”…(yeah, that’s what I do in my spare time) It doesn’t go back as far as non-nuclei but pre what I have on that photo there was asexual bacteria with no nucleus… They were tiny little cells that obtained energy by either fermentation, photosynthesis or chemosynthesis (aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration and lithotrophy aka the one I always forget.) We there were prokaryotes, primitive eukaryots and then fungi and yadda yadda… eventually making a frog – and the rest is history.

Everest had to go, but it was one of the strangest conversations I have ever had with someone. The theory of geology being a religion is not one I had ever heard. But it did give me my mental run for the day, which was nice. Any opportunity I can have to run my mouth for a while on geology is fine by me. Sadly – this isn’t “my area”. Mine is rocks. Current day rocks. …Like… classification. I know – I have no future.

I hate the library. People type too loud, or they talk in quite areas, or they keep sniffing instead of blowing their noise, or they try to eat quietly and fail, or they listen to bad music too loudly on their headphones, or they are wearing too much stink or not enough, or they stare at you… I always forget why I don’t come here.

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By Katie Kish, February 4, 2008 10:54 pm

This pole didn’t surprise me. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t find it hilarious. … on godtube.com the most supported candidate is Mike Huckabee. Oh creationism. How fun you are.

(The quote… I Heart Huckabees… ? Yeah. Love it. Also the reason I used the “You rock, rock” subject tag… Also from I Heart Huckabees. Seriously people. Learn my cultural references. Christian H, if you’re reading this, I know you got it. It’s okay.)

Seriously – I love this guy.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=n-BFEhkIujA[/youtube]

Why on EARTH would a president be asked about evolution? Does he have to write an 8th grade science book???? Thank God the president doesn’t. I especially love his MLK Jr. quote.

Why else do I love him?

He is Chuck Norris approved.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8&feature=related[/youtube]

When Chuck Norris does a push up, he’s not pushing himself up, he’s pushing the earth down.

Seriously, how can you not LOVE Mike Huckabee? Never ever in my life have I seen a presidential (or prime minster) candidate that is so freaking hilarious and knows he isn’t going to win so he has a good laugh with it. And look how far it’s gotten him! With the Colbert Bump he actually became a runner that was worth watching. … HILARIOUS. Too bad he won’t actually win and make Colbert Vice Pres. Too bad indeed.

In all honest – I heart Obama. Woo!

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By Katie Kish, May 21, 2007 1:29 am

Samie and I took a trip down to Hilton Falls on Sunday. The area is part of Conservation Halton a community and area that is based on environmental agency. This helps protect and restore the Halton area of the Escarpment. The forest that we were in is currently the largest natural forest in all of Ontario, which was very cool.

More specifically, the people who run the Halton Conservation area are devoted to having a healty watershed, which reaches out to strong, clean and natural streams forests and green space.

Here is a map of the area that we were in:

We got a few pictures, but they’re all on my camera…. and I didn’t bring my camera cord here to Sam’s to get the pictures off of it, so you’ll have to wait until I get home for those pictures to be up. Here is a picture that someone else took of the actual waterfall…

It wasn’t all that big, but the walk there and back was so quiet and beautiful that it was worth the trip just for the trails. It really made me miss BC. The Niagara Escarpment is pretty much the closest thing we have out this way to mountains and BC like scenery.

It is the logest escarpment in the US and Canada running for New York up to through Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. It was formed by unequal erosion in the Silurian age and is mostly dolostone, shale and granite. The Bruce Trial runs along the escarpment from the Niagara Peninsual up to the Bruce Beninsula up in Tobermory… something I would most definitely like to hike one day. I had a geography teacher back in grade 11 who had hiked it, he said it was really amazing and makes you appreciate the geography, topography and landscape of Ontario a lot more… Maybe some day.

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By Katie Kish, May 13, 2007 2:12 am

I have a pretty packed week this week. Im taking off to copious different places to visit various people and to play fun music at different places. …In short – I won’t really have a lot of time to blog, and I’m not even sure if the laptop is going to make it on the trips. Soooo I have written up a few posts that will get put up automatically… the crappy comments *the spam* will probably build up, so I apologize, and if you comment isn’t approved for whatever reason – sorry about that too. Just don’t put a lot of links in it or words like Viagra. Gordo will be around once in a while to post a thing or two because he’s just so fabulous like that. Hopefully Sam will pop in once or twice as well. I should be back … Friday to check in and such.

I heart you all. Stay clean and lovely.

and ps – 6 new songs have been added to the playlist widget! check em.