Science – Stone Fig

Return for the Swifts

Two years ago (Fire Swifts, 3 July 2020) I wrote about enjoying the flight of Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) while I sat on my back patio. In summer mornings and evenings I could see a flight of ten to twenty Swifts gliding above my house and over the close-at-hand stand of trees as they sought and caught flying insects that lived in the trees, under the leaves, on the branches and trunks. The Swifts also gobbled up the mosquitoes that liked to breed in the ponds along the stream beneath the trees.

But now the Swifts are mostly gone. Sometimes when I am working in my yard I might hear twittering in he sky. I look up and might see three to five Swifts overhead.

Have I noticed a change in the number of insects I have to swat or other troublesome flying insects? Not so much, but maybe there are more gnats this year than in others.

Where did the Swifts go? I have no idea. But I hope they found a place to their liking and have not just become part of the 5 billion songbirds that we lost since 1970. That comes to a false number average of 60 million birds lost in each of those years. If we were to think of birds as people that is Nine Times the population of the United States lost each year. Now it sounds like a big number.

There are numerous factors that are leading to a decline in the number of songbirds in the United States. These factors include: tall buildings – birds crash into them during their migrations; feral cats – put out of the house at night kill millions of song birds each year; diseases – some of which are suspected of becoming more prevalent due to the warming climate; and habitat destruction – when our towns and cities and suburbs are changed to accommodate our expanding population.

I believe the main reason that I do not see my Chimney Swifts wheeling overhead in the early morning and at twilight is because of habitat destruction.

Was there some forest that was cut down in my neighborhood? No; the last large tract of timbered grazing area in my town was destroyed and filled with houses in the 1990s. Swifts might live in hollowed out trees that happened to stand in an old forest.

Audubon tells a story of when we was cataloguing and painting the birds of North America of finding a tall, hollowed out sycamore tree in Kentucky. He stepped inside and found it filled with Chimney Swifts which had made nests on the interior walls of their “chimney”.

My Swifts had no such palatial home as I believe they nested in an old brick chimney of a boiler/heater for a small hotel on the highway near my house. When the motel was torn down to make way for a gas station and store, the chimney was torn down. This was the same time that my Swifts disappeared. I have made the assumption that the Swifts nested in the old chimney.

Is there a way to bring the Swifts back to the area of my neighborhood?

I think there is.

A quick search of the internet (searching “Swift Tower”) turns up initiatives by individuals, groups and communities to maintain a healthy and helpful population of the insect-eating Swifts. The individuals and groups do not build free standing brick chimneys. They build stand alone “Swift Towers”. Several State Audubon societies have articles on building Swift Towers on both private and public lands. There are links on these pages to other organizations as well, including designs for the towers. As one article states, if you are asked what you are building, just tell them it’s a bird house.

And what of my small population of Swifts. I will approach the company that is building the gas station, and tell them the story of my neighborhood Swifts. And I will ask them if they would build a Swift Tower to replace the old chimney.

And for my City I plan to attend a council meeting and ask that they consider requesting that any companies that are tearing down old establishments that have chimneys to replace that chimney with a Swift Tower.

I think the twittering I hear in the mornings and evenings is worth that little bit of effort.

Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania (ASWP) is supporting Chimney Swift protection through a variety of approaches. We have installed nearly 150 Chimney Swift towers to provide breeding habitats for these birds. Audubon’s Chimney Swift Tower Program | Audubon Society of Western PA (aswp.org)

John James Audubon’s experience in visiting a large dead sycamore tree filled with the nests of Chimney Swifts is provided at American Swift | John James Audubon’s Birds of America. He estimated their number to be 9,000.

To read more information about the decline of our songbird population see the 2019 study as published in Science magazine. It may be found at – Nearly 3 Billion Birds Gone | Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Where Have the Songbirds Gone? | NASA Applied Sciences

Fighting Climate Change

“Give me a fast ship, because I intend to go into harm’s way.” John Paul Jones

In this decade, the nations of the world must come together to protect our Earth from the effects of our industries of the last several hundred years.

Our vessel must be worthy, if it is not, we will not succeed.

The 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be the starting point of these Stone Fig Climate Change postings. The IPCC is a body of the United Nations tasked to assess the science related to climate change. Created in 1988, the objective of the IPCC is to provide all levels of government with scientific information that can be utilized in developing climate policy.

Its website may be found at IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC not only provides information to the nations of the world but to each of us as well. It is appropriate that we should understand the reports by the IPCC. Our nation and other nations will use this 2021 Report, and the reports that follow, to establish climate change policy and regulations.

To support our country, we the people, must have a basic understanding of the chemical and physical processes within our Earth’s climate. We should be able to understand and have a reasoned opinion on the actions developed to combat climate change. The basic principles and ideas of climate processes can be easily found, and refreshed through numerous sites on the internet.

When we read the reports and the proposed laws and regulations it is appropriate for us to use our personal skills of critical thinking to determine whether the proposed regulations are supported by the science. The regulations passed and the support we give to the enforcement of those regulations will determine whether we have a “worthy vessel” and whether or not we will, in the end, succeed.

I will focus my Climate Change postings on reading the documents published by the IPCC. I will start with the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) from the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Report. The SPM may be found at IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM_final.pdf.

The SPM begins with an assessment of “The Current State of the Climate”. In this assessment reference is made to “AR5” which is the IPCC 5^th Assessment Report (AR5). The SPM states that since AR5 was released in 2013 improvements have been made in recording the geologic records of ancient paleoclimate. These ancient records are reached by taking core samples of glaciers, tree rings, and sediments from the ocean floors. These core samples can provide us with climate records that reach back long before the early industrial age of the 1700s and 1800s. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) the study of Paleoclimate provides an essential perspective for assessing the potential impacts of future climate on “natural systems and the people who rely on them”. Scientists use the geologic evidence of past climate changes to understand the rates and patterns of Earth systems’ responses to a broad range of climate and landscape changes. When integrated into climate models these paleoclimate data provide a means to improve our understanding of the impacts of climate change.

When we review just the last 100 years, we can see the beginning of a significant increase in average global temperature. This is shown in Figure SPM.1 of the SPM. The graph is shown below.

In my view, after the Second World War (1945) the nations of the world, led by historically industrialized nations and nations with the resources to become industrialized nations, began a significant increase in activity These activities reinforced the change from farm-based/agrarian activities as primary human-activity to that of industrial-labor activities which had begun in the 1800s. To support these industrial-labor activities our collective power requirements for light, energy, transport, and transportation increased apace with this change.

This increase can be seen in the graph above.

It can be seen from the graph that in the last 50 years the average global surface temperature has increased at a average rate of 0.018 degrees Celsius (C) per year. This is an increase of 0.9 degrees C in 50 years. The upward angle of the graph will likely continue to rise if something is not done. What is “something”? It is action by each person, by every nation, to reduce the effect of human-activities that contribute to the increases in average global temperature.

To borrow a phrase from the movie Jaws, “We are going to need a bigger boat.”

We are in need of a revolution against our own past.

I am not saying the past was wrong or evil. Those activities built a standard of living for the people of the industrialized world who should now help raise the standard of living in the non-industrialized world.

We are on the threshold of a new age. We will step through; but what will we find?

If we do not address the rising global temperature and the changes to the climate it is causing, the poorer will suffer even more, and the rich will become poor and suffer as well. If we address the issues of climate change we can likely maintain a standard of living and can raise up those who do not yet have it.

In the pictures below of heroes of the American Revolution we see the spirit of the men and women who chose to fight to bring change to their way of government. Would they be ruled, or would they govern themselves?

We have to fight again, but this time against ourselves. We must use our individual critical skills to determine what actions each of us can take and should take. Then we must act!

The future does not belong to the timid.

We are all called. These pictures of John Paul Jones and Molly Pitcher (Mary Hays/McCauly) call to mind the fight that is ahead and the determination with which we must face it.

Their fight was for a new nation in a new world. Our fight is one to save the world for ourselves, for our descendants, and for all of life on the planet.

Picture “Captain John Paul Jones” 1938, by N.C.Wyeth

Figure SPM.1 copied from Summary for Policy Makers, 2021 United Nations Climate Change Report

Picture “Molly Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth ” 1912, by C. Y. Turner

Birds Range of the Home

In 2017 I was conducting bird surveys as a volunteer at the Manassas Battlefield National Park. I was helping to catalogue the presence of two species, The Northern Bob White Quail and the Henslow’s Sparrow. The Park Wildlife Management personnel and I were interested in seeking out the birds in selected areas of the Park

I would go out to the Bob White areas in the early morning hours so I could be there in time for sunrise. I usually went out earlier than necessary, and I walked well-known paths to be at the listening point while it was still dark. I would pack-out a folding chair and a thermos of coffee. When I got the listening point, I would sit and watch the stars in their motion across the night sky and see them fade as night turned into Dawn. At Dawn I opened my coffee thermos, and poured a cup, and toasted the new day.

The survey was conducted in the Spring and we would listen for the daybreak calls of the coveys of quail we hope to hear. There were twenty of these sites scattered around the Park. The Park personnel and I divided the sites up so we could cover all of them during scope of the annual survey.

The sky might be clear when I went out in the early morning before dawn, but on the ground it was dark. If I had not had several decades of experience in walking the Park, I might have gotten turned around. I wrote about my experience in an article titled Frosty Morning and published on this site on 15 November 2018.

The Park personnel and I would often talk about the birds of the Park and how we thought that they would be affected by climate change, especially as the average temperatures warmed in the more northern parts of the species’ range.

In order to develop a better understanding of the potential impact of climate change on bird species, I searched for related articles. A good one I found regarding bird species and changes in their range due to climate changes, was based on surveys of numerous species in Finland between 1974 and 2010.

The results are basically that yes, the ranges do change due to changes in climate. The ranges of the various bird species change with an expansion at the northern/top/cold edge. But the southern edge is not moving northward/poleward. Part of this is that a species would have to lose their niche, basically become extinct, in the southern regions in order to say that they are no longer using the southern/warm edge.

I had initially thought of a bird’s range as a box that would move north as the climate warmed. However, that does not appear to be the case. As it turns out the box stretches and gets bigger as the range extends to the North. The range expands northward with the increasing temperature and the birds take advantage of more range.

Climate change may affect a bird species physiologically in that its old range may become too hot or too wet for the bird species to thrive. They have to change or move. But these conditions, even if they do not directly affect the birds, may cause a portion of the bird’s range to become unusable at the level of the current population if a food source dies out due to the change in the overall climate, or if the food source moves out to a more acceptable range, or if the food source becomes unavailable at a time that it is need for the bird’s reproduction and life cycle. An example of this latter was published in Science New in 2006.

The first article I read about the impact of climate change on bird species was a 2006 article in Science News concerning the timing of the arrival of the European Pied Flycatcher in their nesting area. The article pointed out that the birds migrate based on the length of daylight in their wintering area in Africa. But the appearance of the caterpillars, the major food source at their nesting area for feeding their chicks, was based on temperature. With the northern temperatures warming earlier, by the time the birds arrived, the caterpillars had reached the next stage in their life cycle and are no longer available for the birds and their nesting brood. The numbers of the Flycatchers in some of their historic breeding areas had fallen by 90%. The study found “a correlation between declining Flycatcher numbers and the timing of the peak food for their chicks.”

I recently ran across a journal article concerning birds of China and the effect of climate change on their range. The article pointed out that the extension of a bird’s range may meet an obstacle that it cannot pass through. This might be a range of high mountains or an open ocean. The birds at that point have reached the limit of their range. The birds may well have to make a change in their diet or risk being unable to maintain the new range that they have colonized. For the birds to succeed in the new region they must find fruiting plants or insect or other food stuff available in an abundance on which the species colonizing the area can survive. This is especially hard if the new range is populated by a species that already relies on a limited supply of that food. The picture at the top of this article is a version of some of the charts from the article showing potential movement of species.

What about the Quail and Henslow’s Sparrow at Manassas? Will they have to move? So much of a bird’s ability to use a region is predicated on their ability to find suitable habitat. Destruction of habitat will force out a population. However, as the climate grows hotter and more humid over the next several decades these bird’s ranges may expand, but it is different for each species. The southern edge of the Quail’s range is well below us, extending into Mexico. I do not believe we will see a change in the population of Quail due to climate change. However, for Henslow’s Sparrow, here in the Mid-Atlantic region, we are between the breeding (northern) and the non-breeding (southern) range. We may lose our small, but for me dynamic, local population. There may be issues for the Henslow’s Sparrows in the southern reaches of their breeding range where we are located. as it becomes hotter and wetter. Only time will tell.

Article regarding study in Finland, The breeding ranges of Central European and Arctic bird species move poleward. may be found at: http://europepmc.org/article/PMC/3447813

Science News article (only available to subscribers to Science News) on European Pied Flycatcher may be found at: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/no-early-birds-migrators-cant-catch-advancing-caterpillars.

Article regarding range shift of Chinese birds under the potential of climate change: (PDF) Shifts in bird ranges and conservation priorities in China under climate change (researchgate.net)

Forbidden Planet

I remember the flashing lights on the screen of the darkened movie theater and the actors’ screams that I did not understand.

But yesterday when I happened to see on my television the movie that had so frightened me as a child, it was like seeing an old friend.

I was four years old when I went with my older brother to see The Forbidden Planet, a science-fiction movie that he and all his friends wanted to see. I had probably begged to go along with him, and since it was a rainy day my father decided that he would come as well. The three of us, who more often were found on an Autumn afternoon out hiking along the seashore or playing ball in the yard, were walking into the only movie theatre in town.

When I got scared my father had to walk me out and let me sit in the lobby. He watched the end of the movie through the door to the theatre. I had nightmares after the movie, and I did not like to have the lights turned out in the room I shared with my brother.

I have always remembered going to that movie and my reactions later at home. But I have always cherished the memory. When I pass the theater, which is still in operation in downtown Newport, RI, I think to myself of the time that I went there with my father and my brother, now both gone. And I smile. I smile not because of my childhood fears, but because I was with my father and my brother and they looked out for me. So my adult memories of the movie are happy memories.

But what about the movie itself?

As I watched it the other day, I recalled the scenes of the underground civilization, of “Robbie the Robot”, and the encampment of the space men outside their ship. But I also saw other things that I could not have seen then. I saw the amazing color of the old film, now digitally restored. I saw scenes that I recognized as being repeated in Star Trek and Star Wars. I watched a plot unfold, not of discovery, but of finding terror inside one’s self.

The premise of the movie is that twenty years prior the spaceship Bellerophon had left Earth to explore the fourth planet orbiting the star Altair. Altair is the 12th brightest star in the night sky. It is part of the Constellation Aquilla, the Eagle. The star is also part of an astronomical asterism (pattern of stars) known as the Summer Triangle. The other stars in the triangle are the star Deneb (19th brightest in the night sky) in the constellation Deneb (the Swan), and the star Vega (5th brightest star in the night sky) in the constellation Lyra (the Lyre).

In the plot there had been no signals from the planet for twenty years. The United Planets Cruiser “C57-D” was sent out to Altair to determine if there were any survivors. As it turned out there were two survivors, Dr. Morbius and his daughter, Altaira, played by Walter Pigeon and Anne Francis. The Commander of the C57-D, J.J. Adams, was played by Leslie Neilson.

Millions of year ago the planet had been the home of an advanced race, the Krell. They had developed their science and technologies to the point that the negative thoughts of their subconscious had taken the shape of a beast. The Best ravished their civilization and killed all Krell. All the scientists and crew of the Bellerophon, except Dr. Morbius and his daughter, were also killed by this electrostatic, but invisible, beast.

Dr. Mobius has not yet determined the cause of the beast, which returns as his thoughts turn against the crew of the C57-D and his daughter, who plans to leave with them.

So much of science fiction is about the initial exploration of space, and exploration and exploitation of the planets and civilizations that are discovered. The movie is an exploration of the human mind and how it can become lost in its prejudices and dislikes. His thoughts became a beast that destroys all.

If there is a moral to this story, it is that dwelling on the negative will be destructive. Forgiveness may provide a way out of unbearable troubles. If Morbius had not distrusted the crew of the arriving space cruiser, would the beast have reappeared and destroyed him?

This was a film that forecasts future developments in the science fiction genre. Its premise and its questions are echoed in the Star Wars trilogy, as are its flowing introductory script and some of the visual aspects of the Krell’s home world.

In the night, the beast we hear is often of our own making.

All pictures and images are taken from MGM stills and posters related to the movie, Forbidden Planet.

The IMDb site related to the movie Forbidden Plant may be found at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049223/ .

Petroglyph Trail

It was 1993. We went out west to see the land and the National Parks. We traveled in the arc of the states of the Four Corners; New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona.

Our first stop was Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. We wanted to see the magnificent remains of the cliff houses built by Native Americans centuries before.

But 700 years after they built the cliff house, they left them. The community was not destroyed by fire or earthquake, but something happened, and the People left. Other People known as the Pueblo Indians came hundreds of years after the original inhabitants had left. The Pueblo Indians called the builders of the cliff houses the Ancient Ones, the Anasazi.

The Anasazi had lived on these mesas for nearly a thousand years, from approximately 600 C.E. (Common Era, after the birth of Christ) to 1300 C.E.). Then, suddenly, they had left their homes, their places of ceremony, their work, their pottery, and they had gone. It is surmised that perhaps the cause was a change in the climate that made the crops fail. Several theories have arisen, but it is generally felt that their descendants are the modern day Pueblo Indians.

When we visited the ruins of the cliff houses, we had a fascinating experience. We were able to tour some of the ancient homes and see their construction. We climbed ladders. We entered rebuilt pit houses. We hiked trails. But it always seemed that we were with a rather sizable group. And we did not see much in the way of wildlife. I would see some Mule Deer when I would go out in the early morning for a walk at sunrise. But other than that and the occasional bird heard up in the trees, it seemed as if we humans were alone on Mesa Verde.

My son, a young outdoorsman, felt the same way. He and I wanted to get on a trail that was not so heavily traveled so we might see what we might see. His interest lay in snakes. Mine did not.

We stopped at the Visitors’ Center and asked the Ranger where we might go for a hike where it was not so crowded. We thought perhaps in the forests along the rim of the mesa. We were told that at that time of day the Petroglyph Trail was usually not crowded.

We made sure we had water with us. And as always, I carried a trail map so we would know where we were. And we set off.

We quickly moved from the trail head into the pine forest that then covered much of the park. It was a well-marked trail. There were some tight spaces and steep climbs up hewn stone steps, but it was very enjoyable. The trail was about 700 feet above the canyon floor.

The trail wandered along the side of the mesa about 100 feet below its top. From our map I could tell that we had covered a good part of the trail and were approaching an area that looked out over the lower portions of the park. Near the end of the mesa, the canyon widened to meet another canyon. We would have a good view out across the canyons.

The trail had been rocky, and as we neared this point I was focused on the trail in front of me. If it hadn’t been for the sign, we might have walked right past the petroglyph panel. The sign said, “Do Not Touch”.

Touch what I thought? But it caused me to stop and look up. The petroglyphs we were looking for were high above the sign, well above the level of my head. The Petroglyphs were inscribed in the sheet of stone that formed the side of the mesa. The Petroglyphs were in good condition.

The height of the inscribed figures above the trail has doubtlessly protected the panel from damage as they are out of the reach of curious hands. The Petroglyphs were plain to see and included animals, hand prints, human shapes, and geometric designs. However, their meaning, implied by the ancient carvers, is lost in time. One circle did catch my eye as the possible cycle of the moon with the new moon hidden from view behind a mesa jutting high into the night sky.

As we walked back, we talked of the possible meaning of the glyphs and why and when they might have been carved. We talked of how some of the mysterious glyphs may have been carved by an ancient man who walked out to the point of the mesa with his son to read the messages left from before his time. Perhaps they carved a message of their own.

Our return trail crossed the top of the mesa. Before we reached the trailhead, we saw a whip-tail lizard dart across the surface of the rocks. Perhaps he was looking a bug for his dinner. He was in a hurry, so he did not become dinner for a watchful hawk.

And on this hike, no snakes.

Information on Mesa Verde National Park including trail maps can be found at https://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm .

UPDate – Sails from Sweden

This article is an update on modern wind-propelled ocean-going ships. This was previously discussed in the article, Cylindrical Sails, posted October 1, 2018.

Naval architects and marine engineers are continually working to make ocean transport of cargo more environmentally sustainable. The vast majority of the world’s cargo whether it is manufactured goods (farm machinery or transistors/semiconductors), raw material (food stuff or metal ore), or consumer products (small appliances or clothes) are transported from point of origin to buyer by ships.

The map above is a screen shot on a summer day in the Northern Hemisphere. The number of ships traveling between ports can be seen crowding the favored shipping lanes. Other areas of the ocean are nearly empty in comparison. These shipping lanes are crowded because they are the most direct routes between ports of call. The most famous route being the Great Circle Route.

I remember as a boy seeing the ship I was traveling on being marked on its daily passage with a magnetic ship on a wall size map of the oceans. When I asked why the ship was moving up towards the North rather than going straight across the ocean, I was told that we were on the shortest route, the Great Circle Route.

This route is the shortest distance across the globe of the Earth. By taking the shortest route the ship takes less time in its crossing, thereby saving expenses and fuel costs.

The graceful arc of a Pacific Great Circle Route is shown as a black arc between Asia and North America (California). The congestion of this route can be easily seen. These routes can be made between any two ports on an ocean. Although they become more flattened near the equator and form an upside-down arc in the Southern Hemisphere.

In the last half of the 20^th century people began to realize the damage to the atmosphere due to the amount of fossil fuel being burned. This included ocean shipping which at the time burned “bunker oil,” a fossil fuel whose use and emission added tons of pollution to the atmosphere and to the sea each year.

Modern vessels use diesel generators and more efficient power plants to generate electricity that is use to drive the propellers that push these ships. The trend has been from direct drive systems for propulsion (a boiler generates steam to turn a geared shaft on which is mounted the propeller), to an indirect-drive (a diesel generator produces electricity which runs an electric motor to turn the shaft on which is mounted the propeller).

All of these systems use fossil fuels for their main power. Over the years the fuel efficiency of the ships and their engines has greatly improved. This was brought about through improved design of the vessels and their power plants. The results have been reduced operating costs as well as reductions in environmental contamination. At the same time the number of ships transporting cargo has greatly increased. The cargo tonnage offloaded in the Port of Los Angeles, California has significantly increased in the recent years. From 2000 to 2019 the general cargo off-loaded in the Port of Los Angeles more than doubled. It rose from approximately 82 million metric tons to more than 190 million metric tons. All of these goods were transferred by ships burning fossil fuel.

In order to reduce the effect of fossil fuel on the world’s atmosphere and oceans, a consortium being led by Wallenius Marine and including the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden and SSPA, a marine consultancy, have designed and tested models of the hull design for a modern sailing ship. These tests have been on the open water and in a testing basin.

The modern sailing vessel they are designing is a wind Propelled Car Carrier (wPCC). Wallenius Marine is leading the design of the wPCC. This type of vessel is used to transport manufactured cars and trucks. It is often referred to as a roll-on roll-off (RORO) vessel.

While the sail mentioned in the previous article was a spinning cylinder, the wPCC sails resemble the rigid sails of modern racing yachts. They are expected the propel the Car Carrier across the oceans and achieve a reduction in emissions is 90%. However it is noted that the vessel is slower than a standard RORO.

The sails have yet to come to a final design. These rigid sails will rise up from within the ship. They can also be lowered when the ship is under the control of tugs while in port.

And although I might think that I cannot wait another moment for my new Volvo to arrive, knowing that its transportation had a significantly reduced carbon foot-print is worth the small delay before I have the keys in my hand.

The initial article I read on this was from TNW (The Next Web) and can be found at https://thenextweb.com/shift/2020/09/10/swedes-boat-powered-by-wind-sailboat-ship-cargo-transatlantic/ .

A fact sheet on the wPCC may be found at https://www.sspa.se/sites/www.sspa.se/files/field_page_files/wpcc_fact_sheet_may_2020_v_1.0.pdf .

The map at the top is a screen shot of a maritime information map found at https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-12.0/centery:24.8/zoom:2 . It is noted that there is an agreement associated with the use of material on this web site.

Tonnage statistics for the Port of Los Angeles may be found at https://www.portoflosangeles.org/business/statistics/tonnage-statistics .

Titan Dino Egg

When I first read the news article on the Titanosaur/Sauropod egg and the embryo inside, I was completely fascinated. When I read further about the findings from the study of the egg, I was amazed both at the methods of investigation and in what the authors of the study presented about the embryo.

The egg is believed to have been a Titanosaur, several types of Sauropod which that lived in the area where the egg was discovered in what is now Argentina. A cast/fossil of one of these Sauropods, Maximo the Titanosaur, is now on display in the Field Museum in Chicago. It has taken the place on the main floor of where Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex) skeleton ever found use to stand. Sue is now in the second-floor dinosaur exhibit of the Field Museum.

A comparison of the completeness of the two fossils, Maximo and Sue, is interesting. The bones comprising Sue’s fossil (it is named for the discoverer of the fossil; the sex of the dinosaur is unknown) compromise approximately 90% of the mass of a complete T-Rex skeleton. By contrast, the skeleton of Maximo the Titanosaur is made from casts of fossilized bone found at several sites, and of some sculpted bones where no reference bone is available. There were about 130 fossilized bones found, not just from one Titanosaur but from six different individuals.

The initial scientific article in Current Biology on the egg and its investigation, examines several interesting aspects of the dinosaur’s life. The embryo was approximately 80% of its in ovo, inside the egg, development before it was ready to hatch out. The examination of the embryonic fossil indicates that the tiny dinosaur had what is commonly known as an “egg-tooth.” An egg-tooth is used by a young bird as it hatches to break open the shell of the egg in which it is enclosed and protected. The egg tooth later falls off once the young bird is out of its eggshell.

Another finding of the study can be understood by picturing a rabbit. A rabbit’s skull is quite narrow, and its eyes are situated well back on the sides of its skull. The rabbit is preyed on by many other animals including mammals, large birds, and snakes. The position of the rabbit’s eyes gives it the ability to have a field of vision well beyond the field of vision of a human. While our human peripheral vision from the side of our eyes allows us to see approximately to the line of our shoulder, the placement of a rabbit’s eyes allow it a field of vision well past its shoulder. The rabbit’s field of vision reaches beyond 45 degrees past its shoulders on each side. This allows them to see a predator sneaking up on them from the sides and from their rear. This is similar to what is known about the placement of eyes sockets on adult Sauropod skeletons. They also had predators that they had to watch out for.

In the study it was found that the embryo’s eye placement was more forward giving it more of a three-dimensional vision to the front. It’s not that these tiny creatures did not have predators. I imagine the predation of the new hatchlings was very high. But when they first emerged from their egg, their eyes were forward looking. Perhaps this helped them to be better able to learn to stand and walk in a straight line and to see food such as a blade of grass or a seedling tree right in front of them. But as time went on and as their body and their skull expanded, their eyes moved to the side of their skull which created a field of vision more like that of a rabbit.

The growth of the Titanosaurs was amazing. In the art at the beginning of this article, I have tried to capture a size comparison of the adult Titanosaurs to a modern human and to the fossilized egg shown as the round ball next to the human figure.

In this study the fossilized egg was approximately 10 inches in diameter. I postulate that an embryo was likely about twelve inches long when it emerged from its egg. When compared, a modern ostrich egg is more egg-shaped, the dinosaur egg being studied was more spherical. A modern Ostrich egg is approximately 10 inches long and 5 to 7 inches in diameter. The hatchling Ostrich is generally the size of a chicken. It will grow to be upwards of 8 feet tall.

The hatchling Titanosaur by contrast is assumed to be 10 to 12 inches tall at the shoulder. It would have grown to be 20 times that high at the shoulder. It will also grow to be over 120 feet long and weigh 140,000 pounds (70 tons).

The last bit of the story also speaks to the truth of modern science. At one time fossils were stolen in the field from one team of paleontologists by another team representing a different museum or university. Fossils were sometimes destroyed in the field to keep rival museums from retrieving them. Today museums and landowners and discoverers often work together to improve our knowledge of these ancient beasts and the world they lived in. There may be court cases to determine ownership or partial rights of ownership to a fossil. This allows the courts to decide the question of ownership and the fossil can be recovered and displayed and studied and enjoyed. In the case of the fossilized egg and its embryo, the fossil had been removed from Argentina illegally. When this became known to the research team, the fossil was returned to Argentina. The fossil is now housed at the museum, Museo Municipal “Carmen Funes,” in Plaza Huincul, Neuquén Province, Argentina.

Fascinating.

The picture of the herd of titanosaur sauropod Argentinosaurus is by artist Miguel Angel Amorin Fernandez. It is copied from a page in “palenontologyworld_com”, it may be found at https://www.instagram.com/p/B00DxYblpOd/?igshid=dbe23rmt94sf .

The picture of the embryo of the Titanosaur sauropod inside its egg is copied from the article, “Specialized Craniofacial Anatomy of a Titanosaurian Embryo from Argentina”, Martin Kundrat et al, published August 27, 2020 in the journal Current Biology.

The pictured size comparison of the human (at 5 feet 6inches) and the sauropod Argentinosaurus (shoulder height 20 feet) is based on the scale presented in the article “Titanosaur” that may be found at https://www.britannica.com/animal/titanosaur.

The initial news article I read on this fascinating subject was an online article in CNN. It may be found at https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/world/sauropod-dinosaur-embryonic-skull-scn-trnd/index.html . The pictured comparison of the size of a titanosaur egg (approximately 8 inches in diameter) is based on the comparison to an Ostrich egg in that article.

The article about Sue the T-Rex may be found on the website of the Field Museum of Chicago at https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/sue-t-rex .

The difference between the complete skeleton of Sue, and the mostly Cast skeleton of Maximo the Titanosaur is discussed in an article on the website of the Field Museum of Chicago may be found at https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/which-dinosaur-bones-are-real .

The website for the museum Museo Municipal “Carmen Funes,” Plaza Huincul, Neuquén Province, Argentina may be found at https://www.interpatagonia.com/cutralco-huincul/carmen-funes-municipal-museum.html .

Tea Break

Several years ago my son and his wife gave me a new camp stove for Christmas. The one I had was getting old. I had used it for a good number of years, including camping on the smaller islands of the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. It attached to the top of a small propane bottle, which also had to be packed out. Its design was lacking and I had to devise a small wind screen that attached to the sides of the burner. My water pots had a hard time coming to a boil if there was a breeze up.

I would drive down after work and launch my kayak at the ferry landing and paddle out to the island in my ancient canvas Fold-Boat. When I reached the island, I would haul the boat up and then hike two to three miles to a good camping spot.

Those miles could be long. The hike across the island was over the dunes and through soft sand, followed by a mile or more on hard packed sand. Reducing the weight of my backpack was always on my mind. Even on these short distances a light pack was a better pack. I was also carrying two days of water as there was no potable water on the island.

It was always best to carry lighter supplies. A light camp stove was a dream.

I would cook my supper on my stove and then wash up at the tide-line. I used the sand to scour everything. I also rinsed it all with boiling water.

As the sun went down, I’d boil water for a cup of coffee. But I was never satisfied with the flavor of the instant coffee I carried. It might have been easy to pack in, but its flavor left a lot to be desired. Eventually I changed over to a dark tea.

After sunset I’d lounge at the base of a sand dune and look out over the Atlantic from a deserted beach. I was usually on the island by myself.

Years later I no longer packed out for a two-night camp on the beach like I had before. There were camping trips to campgrounds in the mountains. I would reminisce about those nights on the beach, and talk about my old camp stove.

A surprise at Christmas was welcome. It was my new white gas camp stove. It reopened possibilities, and I wanted to try it out. It was a sunny day in mid-Winter when I set out for the open fields of the Virginia Piedmont. I packed my new stove and my water kettle.

Other items had changed as well. I no longer carried my water in my World War II Marine surplus canteen. Those were heavy on the hips and did not fit well with the modern packs with waist belts. I now used slim, stainless steel water bottles that fit into the sides of my backpack.

With my gear packed for a day hike, I drove out to the trailhead. After a good hour on the trail, I stopped and set up my new stove at a place where I had a bit of a view of the countryside and a view up and down the trail.

The new stove worked easily, and it had its own integral wind screen. Soon I was pouring hot tea into my cup and settling down on one of the larger rocks to enjoy the afternoon sky.

It was pleasant, and although I missed the ocean and its crashing waves, a trail through the trees with a view out onto the pastures and fields in the valley below is very nice.

I watched an American Kestrel hover and dive to catch a grasshopper. And I let my eyes close as I enjoyed the flavor of my tea as the sun set and an evening chill began to creep up the mountain.

South Works

I took this picture in the early 1970s when I worked for a friend of mine as a Cargo Surveyor in the ports around Chicago, Illinois.

It was long days and hard work. But I was able to be outside most of the time. If I was not outside, on the deck of a ship, climbing up or down the 90-foot ladders that led to and from the ship’s holds, or walking the huge outdoor storage lots confirming off-loading of the giant rolls of steel, I might be inside a steel manufacturing facility, or a cheese importer in one of the Chicago suburbs, or in a warehouse full of imported items. It didn’t matter if it was hard work; it was fun and fascinating work. The ships on which we oversaw the unloading were from nations around the world.

We were up early and on the ships watching the longshoremen and the huge cranes unloading the rolls of sheet steel, bundles of steel beams, or railroad wheels, or 40-foot containers filled with wine or cheese or beef hides or any number of amazing products that were being imported into the Chicago from around the world. These good would be transported for sale in the Chicago area or to other locations in the Midwest.

We worked while the Great Lakes were open for shipping. We worked in the heat of summer and the frigid days of early winter with ice on the decks and snow in the air. The only weather that we did not work in was the rain. When it rained the owners would close the massive steel covers over the ship’s holds so the cargo would not get wet. Steel rusts. Cardboard falls apart. Food stuffs spoil. All of this had to be taken into account as we oversaw the work and inspected the cargoes, usually working for the owners of the shipping line.

The Great Lakes are open for international ocean cargo shipping as long as the locks along the Saint Lawrence River Seaway are ice free. The locks are the portal for ocean going shipping on the Great Lakes. The locks were scheduled to close before they iced up. That was the day by which all ships that had other places to go, had to be off the Great Lakes. For example in 2019 the Locks and the Great Lakes were opened to ocean traffic on March 29, 2019. The season was closed on December 31, 2019, and ships could no longer transit out of the Great Lakes.

It can easily be imagined that the closing weeks of the season were busy weeks as no shipping company would want their cargo vessel trapped in the Great Lakes for three months while the locks are closed.

On this morning I had arrived just at sunrise. The ship we were unloading was docked near the mouth of the Calumet River. The Calumet River stretches from Lake Michigan down into the industrial areas south of Chicago. The entire length of the river was wharves and turning basins, for the ships to tie up, unload, and maneuver back out to Lake Michigan. To the west the Calumet River joins the Des Plaines River via the Cal-Sag (Calumet-Saganashkee Channel) Canal, which carried barges from the Mississippi into this same maze of wharves in the industrial area.

I could not be further from the forests surrounding Chicago than standing on the deck of that ship on the Calumet River. When I turned to the North and looked to the other bank of the river, I could see the decrepit US Steel South Works. Its furnaces and mills were shut down, but the steel assets still stood against the rising sun of that morning.

It was odd, this behemoth of American industry shut down due to foreign competition from more modern facilities in Asia and in Europe, and the products of those foreign mills traveled to their buyers by landing on the wharves and docks along the Calumet River, and by first passing the US Steel South Works, the ancient and ruined guardian of the Lake shore.

The wind was blowing from the North. As it blew across the old South Works, it picked up dust and particles of steel. I could see the flecks of metal catching a glint of the morning sun as they floated in the air around me while I stood watching the cargo being unloaded on that cold winter morning.

Boats and Clouds

Several decades ago I had an opportunity to go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). I saw places that I had not seen before, and I talked to people about all types of things. I was even asked if I had any Blue Jeans to sell. It was funny. The guy who asked me that was an American who at that time was working for the CIA. Now I think he is in jail.

We were there for three weeks and started in Moscow and the area around it. I was profoundly moved by the World War II memorials. The USSR lost more than 20 million people, some died in internal struggles, others died fighting the Nazis.

As part of the trip we also traveled out to Odessa in the Ukraine and then north to Lithuania. Both were part of the USSR at that time. Lithuania became an independent republic in 1990, heralding the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Ukraine followed and became independent in 1991.

Lithuania is a truly beautiful place. We stayed in the city of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The country’s northern climate supports vast forest of conifers and hardwoods. These forests include Larch, Spruce, Birch, and Aspen. The geography supports many stream and lakes, many of which flow north towards the Baltic Sea. It was Fall when we were there, so it was too cold for swimming. And even in summer, I can say from experience, the Baltic Sea is cold on the best of days.

One day we traveled out from Vilnius and visited the Lake area near the historic town of Trakai. The lake shores were ablaze with late Fall color. The Latitude of Trakai (54^o37’N) is approximately the same as the south end of Hudson Bay in Canada. We wrapped up against the Fall chill and walked out into the forest that lined the lake shore. The paths were narrow and wound back into the forest.

On the lake I had hoped we might see an over-wintering Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena). If there were any wintering birds, we did not see.

The isolation and depth of the forest assured me that in their season they are full of the songs of Lithuania’s native birds. And I was sure that the lakes teamed with ducks on their migration to the far North, or perhaps to this very spot.

There was a lake house. And there were row boats. Being fond of rowing in any season, I asked if there was time to go out onto the lake for a bit of a row. Our host apologized and said we would need to stick to our schedule. I am certain he was sorry that we did not have time. Sticking to the schedule during the times of the Soviet regime was important. I accepted it and apologized to our hosts to relieve him of the burden of not being able to allow such a small excursion.

A heavily traded commodity of the region from pre-Roman and into modern times is Amber, the fossilized resin/sap of ancient conifer trees. Amber is an organic near-gem quality stone. It has a rare warmth of color and can be polished to brilliance. Some Amber, when polished, and if clear, may be seen to contain an ancient beetle or ant. The Amber of the Baltic region is from the Eocene epoch and was deposited about 40 million years ago. Any bugs found in Baltic Amber would not have been the gadfly of the dinosaurs. Deposits of that type were laid down over 66 million years ago and are not found in the Baltic region.

In my visit to this region of frost and magical lakes I received a set of cuff links made from Amber.

The Amber of my cufflinks is clouded from the minerals and tiny air bubbles trapped in the flowing tree sap. The face of the polished Amber shows streamers of milky white. It is a cloud of ancient air and minerals trapped in a scene of golden earth tones. The outside surface of the Amber, the “rind”, is just as fascinating with its deep browns and reds from reactions of the ancient resin to the overburden soils that held the raw Amber. The rind is also deeply pitted from its burial for millions of years.

To touch Amber is to touch earth, sky, and water.

The pictures were taken by me or other members of our group and are under our personal Copyright.