A Letter to Governor Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature...About Serpentine!?!

I seriously can't believe that with all the crap going on in the California state legislature over the budget, which does in fact have a direct bearing on my employment, my school and my town, that I'm spending time on an issue that shouldn't have come up in the first place, but there it is: a group of people want to remove the designation of serpentine as our state rock. I understand their feelings about asbestos, but they are aiming for the wrong target. Serpentinite is a rock that sometimes has chrysotile asbestos in it. But not always. And chrysotile, while dangerous if it gets into the lungs as small particles, is not the most dangerous form of asbestos fibers. Those from the amphibole group are far more worse. And there are possible legal ramifications in this bill, which I am not qualified to discuss. But I find myself wondering why lawyers are on record supporting this "non-controversial" bill.

In any case, I have been trying for the last week to distill the arguments concerning this bill into a concise narrative that I can convey to the Assembly and to the governor. Yesterday's diary at Daily Kos was getting closer. The senate already passed the bill without a single dissenting vote a few weeks ago (UPDATE 7/10: this gets weirder and weirder. The Senate passed the bill last year, not a few weeks ago, but the bill they passed was about anaerobic compost. Then the entire language of the bill was swapped out in favor of the serpentine business. This is getting so fishy; Dan Walters at the Sacramento Bee is on the issue now, and I think he nails it). The bill is now in front of the Assembly and apparently to be voted on in the next few weeks. If you agree that this is a bad course of action, I would hope that you might consider getting involved. If you are on Twitter, try the hashtag #CAserpentine to see what others are doing. Or check out the geoblogosphere for recent news. I don't want to sound hopeless, but I wonder if these people even care what geologists and educators actually think. We aren't a very large or rich constituency. I guess there is the one way to find out. Here's my argument that I will be sending on paper (??!) this week:

To the Members of the California Senate and Assembly, and Governor Schwarzenegger:

The California legislature is about to strike an unfortunate blow at education. Senate Bill 624 would remove serpentine as the state rock of California, and furthermore would declare the rock to be dangerous to the health of state residents. I am a geology professor at a California community college, and a past president of the Far West Section of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT), and I strongly disagree with this legislative effort (the opinions presented below are my own, however, and not of my employer or the NAGT).

The bill and its analysis, contains several factual errors, and instead of being "noncontroversial" as one assemblyperson put it, may open up the state and residents to litigation, although I cannot speak to that issue with any legal expertise. Serpentine is not a “deadly” rock, at least not in the sense of being poisonous. It sometimes contains the fibrous mineral form called chrysotile asbestos, but chrysotile is just one of six different forms of asbestos. It is asbestos derived from the amphibole family of minerals that is proven to cause mesothelioma and lung cancer. Chrysotile may be implicated in some forms of cancer, but the link is not as clear-cut. Many other rocks and minerals can cause serious problems when inhaled as small fragments, including quartz and coal (dangers to the miners of these rocks are well-recognized). State laws have been crafted that deal with exposure to most of these materials. I am concerned that the legislature is making a statement of fact in this legislation without proper review by knowledgeable authorities and experts.

From an educational point of view, serpentine (or more properly, serpentinite) was an excellent choice for the state rock. It is relatively rare across the United States, but quite common in California. The original intent of the designation was to promote asbestos mining, and serpentine sometimes is a host rock for the fibrous mineral. But the educational value of the rock lies elsewhere

The source of the rock is deep in the earth's mantle, beneath the 15-25 mile thick crust, and its presence all over the state of California is a revelation and acknowledgement of the incredible forces that have shaped the state. California has the incredible scenery that it does because of forces of movements along plate boundaries, whether the lateral movements along the San Andreas fault, the vertical churning that occurs along convergent boundaries, where ocean crust is driven underneath the edge of the continent, or the splitting that occurs at the divergent boundary in the far south of the state.

The rock is also quite pretty, to this geologist's eye. It ranges in color from black to intense jade-green. The journey from deep in the crust to the surface along fault zones usually leaves beautiful polished surfaces on the rock.

When ultramafic rocks like serpentine are brought to the surface of the earth, they are far out of chemical equilibrium with the ambient conditions, which means they are easily attacked by oxygen, water and organic acids. Clay is a common product of this process, as well as red or yellow iron oxides. The surface layer resulting from this weathering process is of course soil. We tend to think of soil as a rich surface layer that supports plant life, but some soils lack the necessary nutrients for most kinds of plant growth. This is definitely the case for soils developed on serpentine, which lack nitrates, phosphorus, and potassium. To make things worse, chrome and nickel are actually toxins. Hence, only specialized species can thrive on these rocks. In California, there are many endemic species on serpentine soils found nowhere else on the planet.

These ultramafic rocks are fairly rich in a number of unusual metal ores, including platinum, nickel, magnesium and mercury. One of the most important ores is chromite, which is the only significant source we have for chromium, the metal that puts the "stainless" in stainless steel. We import most of the chromium that we need from foreign sources, but in wartime (especially the two World Wars), the ores were mined domestically, and a number of operations were present in California.

The bill was promoted by cancer and mesothelioma awareness groups. So far as I can tell, no one involved with the bill ever consulted with geologists or teachers.

I do not want to belittle the problem of asbestos, lung cancer, and mesothelioma. These are serious issues, but going after serpentine is misguided, and I believe it will actually hurt the effort to raise awareness of any links between the mineral and disease. The fracas going on today will be over, and in another month no one will remember the issue. But any child studying the state symbols over the coming decades will discover an interesting rock, but also the connection to asbestos and disease.

State Senator Gloria Romero, defending her sponsorship of a bill, was quoted as saying: "This bill is about raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. Serpentine contains asbestos, a known carcinogen. Toxic materials have no place serving as emblems for the State." This statement is not really logical. Consider some analogies:

California Poppies, our state flower, contain some morphine and codeine, the raw materials for making heroin, an illegal drug. We might as well get rid of poppies as our state flower.

Gold miners, breathing the dust of quartz in the milling and crushing of gold ores, died by the score in the mines during the Gold Rush, the event that led to the establishment of the state. Native American groups could very well argue that the Gold Rush destroyed dozens of cultures and the celebration of gold as the state mineral is an insult to them. We might as well eliminate gold as our state mineral. And the ghost towns of Bodie and Calico should not be celebrated as the official ghost towns of the state, because many people died in the mines, by the logic presented above.

Grizzly bears killed hundreds and hundreds of Native Californians and Mexican-Americans in the early history of the state. We might as well remove the bear as our state mammal. It is extinct anyway.

State symbols are a means for promotion of state interests, and a tool for educating our students. Cancer support groups should be seeing the use of serpentine as our state rock as an opportunity to educate the public about the possible dangers of asbestos.

The state legislature is contemplating throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I strongly urge the State Assembly to reject Senate Bill 624. I urge Governor Schwarzenegger to veto the bill if it is passed.

Respectfully,

Garry F. Hayes
Professor of Geology

Theropods in the Backyard: Dinosaurian Drama on my Porch

Apologies to Harper Lee, but if she had come to have known the mockingbird in my backyard, she would have called her classic story "To Kill a Yellow Finch". Or, she would have written a totally different story under the original name, a horror novel that Alfred Hitchcock would have been comfortable making a movie from.

I don't want to make light of Lee's novel. I watched the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" the other night, and was reminded again of its great emotional impact. In this day when bigots are once again feeling free to spew their hatred on the right-wing airwaves, it was a reminder of what a fragile thing justice and equality is in our society, and how easily we could lose it.

On the other hand, that mockingbird in our backyard is more reminiscent of the velociraptors in "Jurassic Park". No hauntingly lyrical song from this one; it's a screech that would put cold fear into anything small enough to be hunted. It has a bravado that has to be seen to be believed. It's attacked our cats, our dog, my wife, and my son. I think I'm the only one big enough to make it think twice.

On the other hand, there's the T-rex or Allosaur of today's dinosaurian world, the hawk. This juvenile Redtail (?) was hanging out in my mom's backyard these last few weeks. It still begs for food from momma, just like any teenager, but is getting better and better at flying, and soon will be striking fear into the local rodent population, just as its ancestors have been doing for 200 million years.

5.4 Earthquake in Southern California: Not an aftershock this time

A magnitude 5.4 quake has struck in southern California, but in this instance, I don't think this is an aftershock to the Easter Sunday El Mayor-Cucapah quake earlier this year. The quake took place on a different fault system, probably the Coyote Creek or San Jacinto fault. The constant aftershock activity from the El Mayor quake may very well have had a role in destabilizing the fault that moved today. As always, moderate quakes like this serve as a reminder that California is earthquake country, and of all natural disasters, these are the most unexpected. We can't predict them, so we have to be ready for them, and understand the faults and their history the best way we can. I am repeating a description of the San Jacinto fault that I wrote in February after an earthquake swarm in the Redlands area along the same fault system....

From February 19, 2010:

"A lot of people, when they hear of quakes in California, think San Andreas Fault. Many California residents who have lived here all their lives cannot think of the name of another fault in the state, but our landscape is literally crisscrossed by active faults (look at the map above; most of the brown lines are active faults). Most earthquakes in CA happen on faults other than the San Andreas, and this week's swarm is no exception. It appears to be taking place on one what is arguably the most active fault in the state, the San Jacinto fault.

The San Jacinto fault is certainly part of the San Andreas system. It splits off from the San Andreas at the east end of the San Gabriel Mountains, and runs roughly parallel to the San Andreas for 140 miles south into the Imperial Valley. It has the same type of motion, right lateral (features on the opposite side of the fault have been shifted to the observer's right). Since it began moving a few million years ago, something like 15 miles of lateral motion has taken place.

The San Andreas fault is justly famous for several devastating earthquakes, including the 1906 San Francisco event that killed 3,000 people, and the 1989 Loma Prieta quake (the World Series quake). It also produced a magnitude 8 event in southern California in 1857. But most of the time the fault is quiet (in a menacing way; it is storing up stress). Compare this with the history of the San Jacinto system (courtesy of Wikipedia):

1890 - Magnitude 6.5 that occurred in the "San Jacinto or Elsinore Fault region".

1892 - Another magnitude 6.5 occurred in the same region as the 1890 earthquake.

1899 San Jacinto Earthquake - Magnitude 6.4 earthquake destroys San Jacinto and Hemet.

1918 San Jacinto Earthquake - Magnitude 6.9 earthquake strikes the same area that was damaged by an earthquake 19 years earlier, with an epicenter roughly 10 mi NW of the previous earthquake.

1923 North San Jacinto Fault Earthquake - Magnitude 6.3 earthquake damaged the San Bernardino and Redlands area. Last time the fault, which runs under the I-215/I-10 interchange, ruptured in this area.

1937 Terwilliger Valley Earthquake - Magnitude 6.0

1942 Fish Creek Mountains Earthquake - Magnitude 6.3

1954 Arroyo Salada Earthquake - Magnitude 6.2

1968 Borrego Mountain Earthquake - Magnitude 6.5

1987 Superstition Hills Earthquake - Magnitude 6.6 (Note: some consider it to have occurred on a fault completely unrelated to the San Jacinto Fault Zone)

These quakes are considerably smaller than the 1906 event, by a factor of 32 or more (it takes the energy of 32 magnitude six quakes to equal the energy of a single magnitude 7 quake; a magnitude 8 quake is 32 times more powerful than a magnitude 7 quake and more than a thousand times more powerful than a six). But they clearly happen more often . The message is clear: to live in California, we must be prepared not just for the BIG, HUGE ONE, but also lots of lesser BIG ONES."

The picture above is a linear valley along the San Jacinto fault near the mountain town of Idylwild in the San Jacinto Mountains. I was there four days ago. As usual I missed the quake.

Fear and Ignorance winning out over Education and Knowledge: Serpentine Bill Sailing on through Legislature

Source: Rex Babin at the Sacramento Bee

It is a real shame that nobody ever thought to ask geologists and teachers what they thought about this under-the-radar attack on a state symbol that is fully appropriate for California. Besides being the subject of a great deal of misinformation about asbestos, serpentine is a unique and beautiful rock which has also been a source for chromium, magnesium, mercury, and nickel, some of which are quite rare in most circumstances. It is one of the few direct clues we have about the nature of the earth's mantle. And there are dozens of plants that grow on serpentine soils that grow nowhere else in the world. But what we are left with in this legislation is a legal tactic to get the state to declare serpentine to be unsafe, perhaps officially opening the door to even more litigation, and a the loss of an educational tool. And as far as I know, no legislator in the senate or assembly cares enough to listen. They are describing the bill as "uncontroversial".

And to State Senator Gloria Romero, who sponsored this useless piece of legislation, I wonder why you were so involved in the declaration of two ghost towns as the "official" ghost towns of the state of California? Have you any idea of how many miners died in those mines? Or the fact that the tailings from those mines continue to contaminate the drinking water of our state to this day? Toxic materials, in your own words, "have no place serving as emblems for the State".

Yes, I'm angry about this. I have a lot of sympathy for the families of anyone who died from lung cancer or mesothelioma. It quite probably affected my own family. But serpentine is the wrong target. Asbestos producers who knew of the dangers, they are the target. Serpentine is "just a rock" (a mineral association, really) that sometimes contains a single form of asbestos, one whose dangers are less clear than the asbestos from the amphibole family (yes, I've read the websites and their claims).

The current status of the bill is here. The Vug.com seems to have the best collection of responses on this issue from geologists and educators (see the links under July 6th). A twitter movement can be accessed at #CASerpentine, if you have a Twitter account. It may be worth your time to contact your assemblyperson, but they don't seem to think this issue is at all worth their attention. If there is to be any chance of stopping this bill it probably is best to contact the governor's office. What bothers me the most is that no geologist or educator was consulted in the crafting of this bill, but lawyers were. And the media outlets seem mostly amused about the issue. Something is wrong here. Please spread the word.

Ten Overrated Places to See Before You Die...Part Two

The sacred cows must be slain...we continue an exploration of the overrated places to see before you die. Let's get right to it:

6. The Grand Canyon (the South Rim):
I can hear the howls already. How can I, a blogger who spent literally months extolling the wonders of the Grand Canyon and other parts of the Colorado Plateau put the incredible gorge on a list of overrated places? Well, there's a subtle distinction here: I define it as the rim. If you take a tour of the canyon, say with a bus company, or heavens forbid, a geology class, you could conceivably end up driving from one road pullout to another. Amidst the diesel fumes and crowds of tourists, you walk the short distance to the rim, snap a series of wonderfully well-planned and executed digital photos and video panoramas, get back in the vehicle and go to the next overlook, and think to yourself "I took this picture and this video at the last overlook". Yeah, it's colorful and all, and looks pretty deep, but after about four of those stops, you are starting to think about the coffee at Bright Angel Lodge.

Need more evidence? Think about what happens when you offer to show your pictures to your friends? The hemming and hawing...

What's the problem? We are so geared to looking at scenery in only two dimensions, such as on a television or computer monitor, that we end up being isolated from the full width and depth of the canyon. We have no perspective (as I put it in a previous post, "The vastness of the scene has been shrunk to a single image in the back of my eye, and my ego makes me much larger in relation to the canyon in front of me"). We are spectators set apart from the geography, and have no sense of scale with which to compare the panorama we gaze at. Truth be told, the Spaniards who "discovered" the canyon in the 1500's had the same problem: they thought the gorge only a few thousand feet deep, and the Colorado River only six feet across.

How to solve this problem and turn the Grand Canyon into the stunning place it actually is? One thing you can do is what the Spaniards did: try climbing in. It took almost no time for them to realize they were in a truly huge hole, an unprecedented gash cut through the earth's crust. It doesn't take much, a few hundred yards, maybe to base of the Kaibab Limestone. When you've walked through one layer, you start to appreciate that there are many such layers in the canyon, and your mind will start to provide the scale you need.

One other trick is to escape the tour mentality; escape from the crowds (it is possible: walk a rim trail, or even better, head for the North Rim, an utterly different experience). Spend time, and watch the canyon change moods over the course of a day. Walk out at night, especially a moonlit night.

And finally, learn the story of the layers. If you do this, you will won't see a two-dimensional color pallet, you will be reading a novel of the Earth. It's a fascinating story.

I said "ten" didn't I? Yeah, there are ten, but this took longer than I thought. More soon!

Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: The Serpentine Issue in California

State senator Gloria Romero, defending her sponsorship of a bill (SB 624) to remove serpentine as the state rock of California, was quoted as saying: " “This bill is about raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. Serpentine contains asbestos, a known carcinogen. Toxic materials have no place serving as emblems for the State.”
Consider some analogies: California Poppies, our state flower, contain some morphine and codeine, the raw materials for making heroin, an illegal drug. Therefore “This bill is about raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. California Poppies contain morphine and codeine, illegal drugs. Illegal materials have no place serving as emblems for the State.” Let's get rid of poppies as our state flower.

Gold miners, breathing the dust of quartz in the milling and crushing of gold ores, died by the score in the mines during the Gold Rush, the event that led to the establishment of the state (gold mining also pretty much ended dozens of Native American cultures through direct violence and disease). So... “This bill is about raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. Gold ore contains quartz, a known cause of silicosis. Toxic materials have no place serving as emblems for the State.” Let's eliminate gold as our state symbol.

Grizzly bears killed hundreds and hundreds of Native Californians and Mexican-Americans in the early history of the state. So... “This bill is about raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. Grizzly bears contain teeth and claws, known killers of people. Toxic animals have no place serving as emblems for the State.” Let's eliminate the California Grizzly Bear as our state mammal. Oh, wait. We did one better: we eliminated the California Grizzly Bear instead. The last one was shot in the 1920's.

I've been on this topic for a week now (see here and here), and Silver Fox has a nice review of the many factual problems in the actual text of the bill (serpentine is not asbestos; it may contain an asbestiform crystal habit, but so do five other minerals, and it is they which are most implicated in causing disease), as well as a review of geobloggers who have been discussing the problem. Also, check out Andrew Alden's take on this at About Geology.

I do not want to belittle the problem of asbestos, lung cancer, and mesothelioma. These are serious enough issues, but going after serpentine is misguided, and I believe, actually hurting the effort at raising awareness of the connections between the two. The fracas going on today will be over, and in another month no one will remember the issue. But any child studying the state symbols over the coming decades will discover an interesting rock, but also the connection to asbestos and disease.

They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and since it has already passed the state senate, I fear they may succeed. If you are concerned about this, and you're in California, call your assembly representative or Governor Terminator with your views.

Something Doesn't Feel Right About This: The Serpentine Issue in California

The more I read about this, the more disturbed I become. Andrew Alden gets right to the point about the very strange goings-on in the California legislature while they avoid working out the state budget. Senate Bill 624 would remove serpentine as the California State Rock, and declare in effect that serpentine is a dangerous mineral. The declaration could very well be legally binding, possibly leading to lawsuits for anyone who uses serpentine as a building stone or a classroom sample. For a short bill, it is full of inaccuracies and misstatements of fact. I wrote about this the other day, and as I have learned more, I am concerned that we are being conned in the name of a tragic disease. Somebody may be making an underhanded political move with the intention of making a lot of money. If this isn't true, the parties are welcome to respond.

First off, read the bill and the related analyses. It won't take long. Read some analysis by people who actually know something about minerals. Look at the official list of supporters:

Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization
Belkin International, Inc.
Children's Hospital Los Angeles
City of Manhattan Beach
Consumer Attorneys of California
Environmental Information Association
International Brotherhood of Ironworkers Local 433
International Union of Operating Engineers
The John McNamara Foundation
Kazan, McClain, Lyons, Greenwood & Harley
Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation
Veterans of America
Water, Kraus & Paul Attorneys and Counselors
13 individuals

Organizations related to disease I could understand. But why are lawyers on this list? Why is there no analysis from the California Geological Survey? Why haven't geologists been consulted? Or teachers?

The analysis changes the subject at the end of a paragraph which in effect implicates chrysotile asbestos as the 'bad' kind of asbestos when it is not:

...Once asbestos has been made into an insulating form, it will not necessarily release fibers into the air unless it is disturbed. Amphibole serpentine is another type of asbestos which is commonly associated with detrimental health effects including cancer and asbestosis.

Asbestos has a long history of being hazardous to human health. During the 1st century AD, Greek and Roman populations observed that slaves responsible for weaving textiles containing asbestos fibers often demonstrated pulmonary illnesses...

It comes down to this. Serpentine is a unique mineral (and rock, serpentinite) that is uniquely Californian. It has a crystalline form that is called asbestos, but this particular form is not the one that is clearly linked to mesothelioma and other diseases. Large numbers of endemic species live on serpentine soils. Serpentine is related to the rocks that hosted the gold that made California a state. It is an appropriate state symbol. And now, someone is hijacking the state designation for reasons I find suspicious.

If organizations really are concerned about educating the public about asbestos and mesothelioma, why make the state rock go away? If we keep serpentine as the state rock, and I think we should, every child doing a report on the state symbols is going to learn about asbestos and the effects it has. And that serpentine is not the actual disease-causing form.

Something is really wrong here...please consider contacting your state assemblyperson. Because this very badly written bill passed the State Senate unanimously on June 25th (correction, passed May 18th, it is now moving through the Assembly). It's almost a law.

And someone who knows about these things: how does one get on the list as opposing this bill officially? The people in the Assembly need to know that there is opposition.