Stories in Slate: Touring an Underground Mine

By Marie Powell (Photos by L. L. Melton)

A tour of an underground mine offered a hands-on science opportunity during a recent trip to the Braich Goch slate mine in North Wales.

We spent more than two hours in the mine tunnels with our expert guide Mark of Corris Mine Explorers. During that time, we explored the abandoned caverns, learned a little mining history, and examined original artifacts used in this once-prosperous slate mine.

The underground tunnels date to 1836, and by 1878 the mine employed about 250 workers producing 7000 tons of slab and roofing slate. In its heyday, families negotiated for mining rights to the chambers, which were known as "bargains," Mark told us. Men and boys aged 10-35 worked the mine in near darkness, hoarding the tallow candles made from sheep fat that provided their only light source. They used clay to carry the candle with them and fix it to the slate walls of the mine as they worked

We had a chance to see several original artifacts used in the mine and left there. These tools date back to the 1860s, Mark said. Using the mallet, a worker would strike the rod three times, then turn and strike three more, for a total of nine strikes. Black powder was packed into the hole. They used copper and brass rods because they don't spark, he added.

Since the mine is full of ledges and drops, and candles were scarce, it was important to have a reliable method of finding their way around the mine in almost total darkness, he said. They used a form of echo-location, orienting themselves to the sounds of dripping water in the cave, or to their own singing.

Most of the time we were able to walk upright, but at times there was barely enough room for a person to crouch. At one point Mark tied us to a rope and let us look out over a drop in the mine to a level below. Staring down at the eerily echoing caverns far below us, we were glad of our headlamps and gear, and hyper-aware of the danger the miners faced every day.

Artifacts lined the mine at strategic locations. Mark pointed out the expected ones, such as a detonation box, explosives, and a "bugle" of black powder. Among the artifacts we saw a 19th Century example of recycling: a jar for W P Hartley's marmalade, probably re-used for drippings from sheep fat, since bread and drippings were a staple of the miner's diet.

These historical artifacts also show the effects of rust, which occurs when water and oxygen goes to work on iron, especially cast iron as would have been the case in the late 1800s.

The walls themselves are a study in stratification, or the layers of rock that form over time. We stopped more than once to examine them.

Mushrooms were visible in several places as well, and Mark pointed out that these fungi can act as agents of erosion on some artifacts, such as this oxidizing nail covered in what looked like red-orange fuzz.

The ochre coloration, generally from iron oxides or limonite, gave the walls of the mine a striking look in places as well.

The geological processes we could clearly see at work in this underground environment made it well worth the trip, and having a knowledgeable guide willing to let us explore at our own pace was invaluable.

Marie Powell is the author of seven books for children, including Dragonflies are Amazing (Scholastic Canada) and a six-book Word Families series (Amicus Publishing). 


http://sci-why.blogspot.ca/2014/01/stories-in-slate-touring-underground.html

Evolution At Work, on Australia’s West Coast

By Margriet Ruurs

Everyone knows of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, on the east coast. The west coast, however, has quietly been harbouring a secret: the Ningaloo Reef and Shark Bay World Heritage areas, some 700 km north of Perth, the capital city of the state of Western Australia, are world class attractions but much less visited.

We drive thousands of kilometres through dry, red-soil desert dotted with shrubs, north from Sydney, then west across the Outback. Apart from the odd kangaroo, wallabee or emu, we don’t see many signs of wildlife. And even fewer signs of other people. So it comes as a surprise to find out that some 100,000 visitors per year visit Shark Bay World Heritage Drive. But once you reach this road of global significance, there is plenty to see.

Our first stop, after turning off the North West Coastal Highway, is Hamelin Pool. I had read about this area in Bill Bryson’s In A Sunburned Country. Reading his description of stromatolites left me curious. Would there be brilliant colors? Would it look gory?

Stromatolites are living fossils that contain microbes similar to those found in rocks dating back some 3,500 million years. They are, in fact, the earliest record of life on earth. If stromatolites had not developed, releasing oxygen into the atmosphere, you and I might never have come into existence. So we owe a lot to these early life forms and I was curious to see them.

To my untrained eye, they resemble lava formations. Not much taller than two feet, the pillars of rock sit in aqua salt water at the edge of the ocean. Nice, but not spectacular. As if emphasizing the fact that looks can be deceiving, you’d never suspect the significance of these rounded gray and black rocks. But these stromatolites are found in only two places on earth, earning them enough credit to receive special UNESCO status.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) only grants this special recognition to areas of outstanding universal value, and only when they meet specific criteria. Shark Bay earns its recognition by being outstanding in four areas: natural beauty, history of the earth, ecological processes and biological diversity. The World Heritage area covers over two million hectares, protecting unique landscapes as well as many endangered species of animals. Other areas in the world of the same calibre include the Galapagos Island and the Grand Canyon. In comparison, Grand Canyon National Park encompasses just shy of 500,000 hectares and receives some five million visitors per year!

The World Heritage Drive continues north-west onto the Shark Bay peninsula.

Our next stop is Shell Beach. The waters of Shark Bay are home to billions of tiny coquina bivalve shells. High salinity has resulted in the accumulation of millions of these shells along the shore. The shellfish have existed here, in huge numbers, for thousands of years, before being washed ashore, ground up into fine white particles. The 60-km-long stretch known as Shell Beach reaches a depth of some 7 to 10 metres of pure white shells. The effect is brilliant; a long, snow-white beach bordered by aqua-blue ocean waters.

The road ends at Monkey Mia. This reserve is among the best known attractions Australia has to offer. It is here that wild dolphins have been coming to interact with people for over 40 years. I had heard many stories, most people telling me that I should have gone there years ago. “It has really changed,” people told me, “You can’t touch the dolphins anymore... It’s very regulated.” So my expectations were not high and I feared an economic exploitation of a natural phenomena.

My visit to Monkey Mia, however, was fun! I was skeptical of how wild these dolphins would be. And to some extent they have, of course, been conditioned by feedings. But this does not take away from the fact that no one knows if or when the dolphins will show up.

Under the jurisdiction of the Department of Parks and Wildlife of the government of Western Australia, rangers greet several hundred visitors from all over the world around 8:00 each morning. They explain basic guidelines, such as no touching and no sunscreen on your legs, before giving information on the local pod. Nicky has been visiting this beach since the seventies. She brings her children who, in turn, come and visit as they grow older. Anywhere from 2 to 26 dolphins might show up at any given morning.

“We can only have five dolphins in our interaction program,” the ranger explains. And these five are always females who have been proven to be good hunters and good mothers. Thus they will not teach bad habits or neglect their offspring. Of course, using only females ensures the continuation of a program on which an entire resort now is built.

But the rangers talk extensively to the visitors, giving everyone a chance to observe, take photos and ask questions. There’s no rush, no feeding frenzy. When the dolphins feel that they have waited long enough, they are fed a few fish before they disappear into the ocean again.

For lots of information and even a virtual tour, go to the Shark Bay website.

All photos by Margriet Ruurs.

Pub Science

For fun and wonder today, the science we're exploring is... the history of London's oldest Pub! Um. Pubs don't sound very scientific. (For those who haven't heard the word, a pub is a British or Canadian bar that's one genteel step nicer than an ordinary bar.) History might not seem very scientific to those who are thinking of rocket ships or particle physics or chemistry. Where are the lasers, the chalkboards covered with equations, the vats of bubbling chemicals? Well, at least the bubbling vats are part of the story. For most of this pub's story, beer was brewed right on site.

And the history of this particular pub from 1476 to the present was investigated thoroughly in archives of records, in old maps, and in old books of fiction and non-fiction. That kind of investigation involves the serious use of library science by an expert. So, instead of a mad scientist peering into telescopes or zapping electric sparks, the expert telling our story is... Pete Brown. A writer. So dedicated to his research that he spent hour after hour in pubs and libraries all over London. And Brown really is an expert on writing about pubs, based on his earlier books titled Hops And Glory, Three Sheets To The Wind, and Man Walks Into A Pub: A Sociable History of Beer. That kind of experience makes Brown well-suited to write Shakespeare's Pub: A Barstool History of London as Seen Through the Windows of Its Oldest Pub – The George Inn.

This photo of the George's innyard appeared at a British website's review of the book.

Putting aside any joking about beer, this book is actually an interesting read. Brown shows us the architecture of the George's old building changing through the centuries of fires and rebuilding. His sociological description of the Inn's location at one end of London Bridge has the reader seeing the heads of traitors impaled on spikes, and a steady traffic of small boats crossing the Thames river loaded with goods and people. And the people are the real story: fascinating people who owned and managed the George Inn or popped round for a pint of beer and a bite to eat, and the highwaymen who robbed them. “So before we get to the pistols, paintwork and heaving bosoms, I need to attempt something I don't think anyone has done before,” writes Brown on page 182. “I need to try to make the history of road transport sound interesting to a mainstream, balanced audience.” 

If highwaymen and publicans aren't to your taste, you might not read this book from cover to cover as I did, including the Timeline and Bibliography. I found it a rollicking good read! The photographs and illustrations are appealing, with useful captions. Anyone writing a history paper on London would do well to read a chapter or two of Shakespeare's Pub – or if you're writing about English pubs or British history or the writers Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, and of course, William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's Pub

A Barstool History of London as Seen Through the Windows of Its Oldest Pub – The George Inn

Pete Brown

St Martin's Press, New York 2013 

352 pages

An End... And a Beginning

From all of us at Sci/Why, may 2014 be full of fascinating science, and many other good things.

And here's a little end-of-2013 present - some of our favourite recent science stories on the web: 

New Zealand's Antarctic Heritage Trust found some very old negatives in an expedition hut from Capt. Robert Falcon Scott's failed 1912 quest to become the first man to reach the South Pole. The photos were taken during Ernest Shackleton's 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, another failed exploration whose members were forced to live in Scott's hut after their ship blew out to sea. The CNN story has more information.

There are tiny organisms living deep below Earth's surface. A lot of them! They may make up 6 percent of all life on Earth, but scientists still don't know how they survive down there.

Four animals previously unknown to science have been discovered in deep water off Scotland. New species of large sea snail, clam and marine worm were found during surveys by Marine Scotland.

And finally, from the BBC, here's a gallery of award-winning microscope pictures - a reminder of the unseen wonder all around us.

Enjoy!

Origami Citizen Science

How can someone help in the medical search for a treatment for AIDS, without being a research scientist in a lab or a doctor in a hospital? There's a new way now to be part of medical research, and it includes people who have no medical training at all. This kind of citizen science requires access to a computer, and an interest in playing games.

This picture from Foldit is a model of a streptococcus molecule.

The game used to help in the search for an AIDS treatment is called Foldit -- click here to go to their website and learn how this game shows different ways that proteins can be folded. To put it simply, proteins are long molecules that aren't just straight like beads in a necklace. Proteins are folded into crooked shapes. Some proteins are useful when folded in a certain way, but not useful when folded a different way.

This picture from Foldit shows the same model, unfolded.

Medical researchers study the shapes of proteins, sometimes using nuclear magnetic resonance to see these tiny shapes. Sometimes a computer program is used to make models of all the possible ways to fold a protein. It's a bit like the Japanese art of origami - if a piece of paper is folded one way, a cup is made. Fold the same piece of paper another way to make a toy bird. (Here's a link to a website about origami.)

There's an article by Ed Yong describing how the game Foldit was used to solve the shape of a particular protein. It turns out that no matter how good a computer program is at folding shapes, people are still better than computer programs at picking the right places to try small changes. People playing Foldit took three weeks to solve a question about one particular protein that AIDS researchers have been studying for years.


Citizen science is getting to be pretty popular these days. There are many ways for ordinary citizens to assist trained scientists in the gathering of data, such as the volunteers who assist in bird-banding programs. An international website allows people to report finding a bird with a band around its leg. There are other programs such as Neptune, where people can log in to observe a few minutes of video (or hours, if you prefer) recorded at the bottom of the ocean near Vancouver Island, and alert the researchers about anything interesting that happens at particular points of the video. At Sci/Why, we wrote about a teenager who made a discovery on Neptune video.

For origami fans, there are other scientific discoveries about this art of folding. One recent invention is a sheet of plastic that can fold itself into two different forms -- check out this article from Scientific American magazine! Another article in Scientific American notes that other kinds of plastic origami might be useful for shaping cells into tiny containers for future medical uses.

Holiday Baubles, Peruvian Style

Posted by Helaine Becker

Ok, I admit it. Despite the fact that I've written a popular Christmas book (A Porcupine in a Pine Tree), December is not my favourite time of year. I hate cold weather - my fingers turn blue and my toes---let's not even mention my toes.

So I tend to head to warmer climes in December and get my Ho Ho Hos at Hot Springs and the like.

Earlier this month, I visited northern Peru. I was delighted to find the Amazonian basin decorated to the hilt for the holidays! Of course, it's always decorated to the hilt - with incredible butterflies, hummingbirds, orchids and more.

The remote Chachapoyas area is one of the most interesting and diverse ecosystems on Earth. Tropical cloud forests drape the Andes mountains, which break up the region into zillions of distinct microclimates. Hundreds of separate habitats  are home to unique species that have arisen in isolation.

Among the living ornaments we spotted on our holiday journey, these were my faves:

The rare clearwing butterfly has absolutely transparent wings. In these species, the scales that gives butterflies their colours are confined  mostly to their wing veins. The glassy wing makes the insect a spectacular sight when perched on a leaf or flower; it's virtually invisible in flight. 

And by the way, don't eat these fluttery gems. They're highly toxic. Unlike other poisonous butterflies that tank up on toxins as caterpillars, clearwings obtain their poison as adults. They drink nectar from flowers containing toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids for a powerful defense against hungry birds. 

The Spatuletail Hummingbird is one of the rarest hummingbirds in the world. It lives only in Peru, and only on the east bank of the Rio Utcubamba. According to Bird-life International, there are fewer than 1000 of these remarkable creatures left in the wild; they are on the "Red List" of endangered birds.

The Spatuletail is only one of the incredible hummingbirds and other birds we saw in Peru. If you're a birder, rush to Northern Peru ASAP to have your mind blown. If you're an orchid enthusiast too, you'll really go nuts. The eastern slopes of the Andes are home to countless species of stunning orchids including this one:

Unlike most orchids, this stunning species is terrestrial, and grows only on rock. You can't remove it from its substrate either; if you wanted to transplant it, you'd have to take the rock too! 

The final ornament in this post brings us to yet another microclimate and mini-habitat: the lowland "jungle" around the Huallaga River. Here's where you find the iconic Three-Lined Poison Dart Frog. Beautiful  but deadly so do not touch!!!!

My idea of a happy holiday is basking in the warmth and beauty of the Amazon. I've enjoyed sharing these rainforest gifts with you, and hope you all enjoy a happy holiday too, wherever you find yourself. 

Best wishes for a wonderful 2014,

Helaine

...And Eight Tiny Reindeer

By Claire Eamer



Zeus Box Studio image

Reindeer feature prominently in the media at this time of year -- especially that very rare subspecies of reindeer that flies through the air and pulls a sled carrying a fellow in a red suit.
But more about that them later.

Most reindeer roam the forest and tundra of Scandinavia and Russia and other parts of northern Europe and Asia, as far east as eastern Siberia and northern China. There’s even a small herd of reindeer on a mountain in Scotland.

In the same kind of habitat in northern North America, you find caribou. They look like reindeer and behave pretty much like reindeer. So what’s the difference?

Essentially none, says Don Russell, a Yukon caribou biologist and founding coordinator of the CircumArctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment Network (CARMA), an international organization concerned with the state of the Arctic's wild caribou and reindeer.

"The reindeer is just an Old World caribou. They are the same species, Rangifer tarandus," he says. And they're the dominant large herbivore, or plant-eater, in the circumpolar ecosystem. In fact, in most parts of the North, they're the only large herbivore.

That’s not to say that all reindeer and caribou are identical. There are quite a few variations in body shape and appearance, but those variations depend more on the kind of habitat the caribou and reindeer live in than what continent they come from.

There are three general groupings of reindeer and three matching groupings of caribou. Marine reindeer and the very similar Peary caribou of northern Canada live on Arctic islands or near the Arctic coast. Tundra reindeer and barrenground caribou tend to gather in large herds and migrate across vast swaths of territory, mainly north of the boreal forest. Forest reindeer and woodland caribou live in the northern regions of the boreal forest itself, usually in smaller herds than the tundra animals.



Looks can be deceiving. These reindeer, grazing peacefully in the middle of
town on the Norwegian islands of Svalbard, are actually wild animals.
Claire Eamer photo

We tend to think of reindeer as domestic animals, but that's not always the case. True, people in Scandinavia and Russia have been keeping domesticated reindeer for thousands of years. However, one of the world’s largest herds of wild Rangifer tarandus is the Taimyr reindeer herd, which lives on the Taimyr Peninsula in central Siberia and numbers many hundreds of thousands of animals.

The caribou of North America have never been domesticated, but not because they are genetically different from reindeer. The aboriginal peoples of North America simply never felt the need to domesticate caribou. Instead, they adapted their lifestyle to fit the seasonal wanderings of the wild herds.

Perhaps the oddest member of the Rangifer tarandus tribe is the Svalbard reindeer. Russell calls it the Shetland pony of the reindeer world. Svalbard is Norwegian territory, a small group of rocky islands about halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. Isolated by hundreds of kilometres of ocean from any other land, Svalbard is home to a distinct population of reindeer, small, with short legs, snubbed muzzles, and chubby, barrel-shaped bodies.


Caribou biologist Don Russell calls Svalbard reindeer the Shetland ponies
of the Rangifer world. Their short legs and chubby bodies serve them well
on the islands of the remote Svalbard archipelago.
Claire Eamer photo

Svalbard reindeer aren't designed for speed, but they don't need to be. The only large predators on Svalbard are polar bears, and they're rarely interested in reindeer. On the other hand, those chubby bodies are important. Svalbard is a tough place to be a reindeer.

In winter, Svalbard reindeer have to eat whatever they can find. Most other Rangifer eat lichens, which are available in winter under the snow. On Svalbard, however, there are few lichens. Svalbard reindeer eat the first green shoots of sedges emerging in the spring. Through the summer, they work their way through lush tundra plants, packing on as much fat as possible. The fat has to last them through the lean times of winter when they go on a crash diet, often losing almost half their autumn weight by spring.

Meanwhile, about those flying reindeer. They seem chubby enough, but science has remarkably little to say about them. Perhaps it's the shortage of confirmed sightings. Nevertheless, given their unusual reported characteristics (flying, occasional appearance of a glowing red nose), they clearly deserve more research.

If you want to know more about wild caribou and reindeer, explore the CARMA website.

To hear from the people who depend on caribou and reindeer -- in their own words -- watch some of the videos at Voices of the Caribou People. It's a great resource for teachers and students studying life in the Arctic.

About those seasonal reindeer.... Here's a site devoted to the history of Santa Claus and his flying Rangifer team.

And the one with the unusual nose? That'd be Rudolph, eh?

Finally, remember those reindeer on a mountain in Scotland? Here they are, the Cairngorm reindeer.