I'm Glad Movies Like "Avatar" Aren't Metaphors or Anything: Exploring Black Mesa in America's Never Never

It's the stuff of science fiction movies. A pastoral peaceful society is overwhelmed by a technologically superior and more numerous invader because they were unlucky to be living on top of something valuable to the invader. Movies like Independence Day, Avatar, Cowboys and Aliens, War of the Worlds and so many others. In these movies the plucky group of survivors usually manage to fight back and somehow destroy or beat back the offending culture, because, well,  that's the way these stories are supposed to end.

This is a continuation of our exploration of America's Never Never, the vast desert lands of the Colorado Plateau that we explored last summer. Our previous entry was a trip into the world of the Ancestral Puebloans at Navajo National Monument. A few minutes after leaving the quiet serenity of a park preserving a part of the past we were thrust very much into the present at Black Mesa.

So how is this for a plot line for a movie?

A high plateau in the wilds of the American west. The escarpment rises dramatically out of the desert floor, with an extensive forest of Pinyon Pine and Juniper across the summit. A pair of ancient cultures calls the mesa home,  They've had their differences over the centuries but by and large they get along with each other. They make their homes on this beautiful mesa, subsisting on corn, squash, beans, and herding sheep. A few scattered springs provide life-giving water, enough to meet their modest needs.

Cue the darkened boardroom. Camera pans back to reveal a group of wizened old white men. They're discussing their plan.

"We are here to discuss the vast coal resource that underlies the mesa. There are billions of dollars just waiting to be dug up, and we must have that money..."

A voice from the back of the room: "But the mesa is in the middle of nowhere. There's no infrastructure. Where can we burn the coal?"

"But that's the wonder of our plan. There is a coal burning plant on the Colorado River 270 miles away, and another just 70 miles away. A railroad will suffice for the closer power plant, but for the more distant plant we have devised an ingenious plan. A pipeline!"

"A what? Pipelines carry liquids, not rocks! What madness is this?

"That's just it. We'll grind the coal into little bits, pump a bunch of water from the ground, and make a slurry mix! We'll be able to mine all the coal we want!"

The intern spoke up: "But sir, that's an arid environment. The water resources are limited. And people live there! They've lived there for hundreds of years! You'll be destroying a way of life". His voice wavered as he realized the mistake he had just made. A few eyes rolled, but mostly there was a quiet agreement throughout the room that this young man would not be in the organization for much longer.

The CEO spoke, and all eyes turned his way: "Forgive the young man's innocence. I'm sure we've all experienced moments of empathy, but luckily we've moved on from that. But he speaks to an important issue. Those people do technically own the land above our coal, and they need to be dealt with. What plans do we have?"

"The usual payoffs, sir. Offers of money and jobs. But here's the best part: the lawyer negotiating on behalf of those people? He's on our payroll! You may be assured that the royalties we pay will be a fraction of the usual rate!"

And the gigantic digging machines bit into the earth and rock....

This is of course a simplistic description of a very complex series of events that led to the development of two major strip mines on the northern end of Black Mesa. But the railroad is real (that's the storage silo that loads the railroad cars at the top of the post). And the slurry pipeline, the first and only of its kind was built and was used for several decades (one of the mines was shut down in 2005). The royalties paid for both coal and water were indeed far less than those paid at other mines, and the lawyer negotiating on behalf of the Hopi people, John Sterling Boyden, was indeed on the payroll of Peabody Coal. I've written on the issue previously; you can read it here.

The scale of the mining is hard to take in. You can watch the beautiful pictures and videos published by Peabody Coal (like this one) that tout the benefits of the coal mine, the jobs, and the reclamation of the landscape after the coal has been removed. I certainly can't speak to the feelings and thoughts of the Navajo and Hopi people whose land was exploited for the purpose of producing electrical power for the likes of Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas. There was certainly fierce opposition at all stages of mine development. I can't help but notice that the air pollution produced by the burning of coal did not foul the air of the three urban regions listed above, but instead contributed to smog across the Colorado Plateau, including the obscuring of the views from the rims of Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon. And the real profits did not accrue to the people who were the stewards and owners of the land, they went instead to Peabody Coal.

Every time I see these mines, I hear the voice of John Prine and his immortal words in "Paradise":

"Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel

And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land

Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man."

When His Horizon Fell Dark, His Dream, Unfinished, Morphed...Finding Beauty in Vacant Lots

Most of the time readers are hearing of my adventures of teaching at Modesto Junior College, but few know that I have also been teaching classes at California State University, Stanislaus down in Turlock, and in fact I've been there since 1991. There have been many changes on the CSU campus over the decades. Because I've nearly always taught a night class, I haven't had many chances to explore the campus. I have an afternoon class this semester so I'm getting a chance to discover a few interesting corners.

Today I found a river runs through it! Or more properly, a sort of symbolic artificial river flows through what will eventually be a transect through California's natural vegetation communities. It's been in place for only a few months, and most of the vegetation is still in the seedling stage. Still, there is a walkway and benches, and in a few years I imagine this as a contemplative place in the midst of an urban campus.

There are some mature Valley Oaks at the pond where the stream ends, and it was here I found out the heartening story. One of the long-time botany professors had been planting the oaks over the years in hopes of forming a "natural" woodland on the campus (which is notably bereft of natural landscapes). Dr. Pierce passed on before completing his dream, but it is being carried on by others. The poem on the interpretative sign was written by one of my long-time colleagues Lynn Hansen, who taught at MJC for many years.

A vacant lot morphing into a bit of the natural world. It's so good to see dreams being fulfilled. We have a similar dream for the vacant lot on the north side of our new Science Community Center at MJC. It's slated to become an outdoor education laboratory with a similar layout of native vegetation, pond and stream, along with a rock garden reflects the diverse geology of our region.

Lynn Hansen is an accomplished poet, by the way. If you enjoy poetry with a strong sense of place, check out her recently published book, Flicker by clicking here. It's good reading!

Cigarettes Don't Cause Cancer. "Cigarette-Science" Tells Us So

Credit: Lady Grey

The non-tobacconists have constructed a complicated and massive program to brainwash you into thinking that cigarette smoking will give you cancer and other horrible diseases. This pernicious plot has happened because the "scientists" who work for the non-tobacconists are trying to make sure they get lots of grant money to keep studying the so-called problem. If you are a smoker and you feel uncomfortable with this state of affairs, don't worry. You can choose to believe in "cigarette-science".

We, the practitioners of "cigarette-science", know right from the start that cigarettes can't cause cancer, and we carefully design our reports and our scientific experiments to prove this. And we are very good at showing that the so-called "science" of the non-tobacconists is faulty because one of their researchers twenty years ago said "we aren't totally sure that cigarettes are the sole cause of cancer". And there was a spelling error on one of the graphs they published fifteen years ago.

Best of all, we can prove we are right because we are great debaters, especially when we face off against a non-tobacconist in a room full of smokers. Those non-tobacconists keep trying to produce "facts" and "evidence", but we know how to "play the room", er, excuse me, "speak to the true believers". Our smoking friends want to believe that smoking cigarettes won't kill them. They need to hear that smoking cigarettes won't kill them. So we can never lose.

People hate ambiguity. They like firm statements like "cigarettes don't cause cancer" and hate the uncertainty inherent in a statement like "the available evidence strongly suggests a link between smoking and cancer".

Your blog author steps back and takes a deep breath (of fresh clean air):

Yes, of course I am talking about "creation-science" and the essentially useless "debate" that took place last night between creationist Ken Ham, and Bill Nye, the "Science Guy". I didn't watch it, not because I have a closed mind about such things, but because I have been studying and following the tactics of the creation-science community for the last twenty-five years, and I have seen in person the tactics used by them in debates (oh, and I was teaching a class last night. On science). I'm hearing that Bill did okay from those who have a scientific background, but I have no doubt that Ken Ham is celebrating his "victory", just as he has done with every other "debate" he has ever had. The problem with the whole concept is that debates aren't science. They are carnival side-shows. The debates are often held in churches and in front of audiences of religious believers who aren't about to listen to facts or evidence. They are there to see their champion slay the dragon of secular science.

Science is the pursuit of knowledge about the physical Universe, and the methodology of science is to achieve that knowledge in the most objective way possible. Ideally, people solve a problem or a mystery by gathering all the relevant evidence, analyze the evidence, and proposing as many hypotheses (plausible explanations) as they can to explain the mystery. They then set up experiments to test each hypothesis and hopefully eliminate those that cannot work as an explanation. When a specific hypothesis withstands all experimental challenges while all other hypotheses have been eliminated, it may be elevated to the level of being a scientific fact or theory. Atomic theory, plate tectonics theory, and evolutionary theory have reached this level of confirmation, along with many others.

Young Earth creationism starts with the conclusion ("the Earth was created 6,000 years ago") and uses the words of science to try and prove this conclusion. To put it succinctly, no. Science does not and cannot work this way. One cannot identify the person you want to convict of a crime and then garner only the evidence that he is the perpetrator. One cannot decide that vaccines cause autism, and then only collect anecdotal evidence to prove one's case. One cannot decide that the profits of the tobacco industry are more important than the health of smokers and set out to "scientifically" prove the lack of a link between cigarettes and cancer. And companies cannot decide that the profits of the fossil fuels industry are more important than the health of the planet and thus sow "scientific" doubt about global warming and climate change.

Or can they?

Out in America's Never Never: A Corner of the Navajo Nation Where the Ancient Ones Dwelt

One thing I love about blogging is the total freedom be distracted and leave projects unfinished. This is something I inadvertently did six months ago. I got distracted by a river trip down the Grand Canyon and four field trip classes to the Cascades, the Sierra, and the California Coast. But I'm back to try and finish a series on my other incredible trip this last year: a journey through America's Never Never with a group of my geology students. You can catch up with the earlier posts by clicking here.

As I said in the original post, the Never Never is a remote and largely inaccessible part of the Northern Territory and Queensland of Australia's Outback. To some, it is a place that one would "never, never" want to go (despite this neat-sounding trip). To some of those who live there, it is a place one would never, never want to leave.

There are many parallels between Australia's Outback and the American Southwest, especially the Colorado Plateau. Most of the local populations live on the margins of the region, and until recent decades many parts remained unexplored by people of European descent. To others it has been home for thousands of years. The lands are ancient, each part revealing a fascinating geological story. And so it is that I refer to the Colorado Plateau as America's Never Never.

When we last left off the story we had explored Antelope Canyon, a deep slot canyon near Page Arizona. It was late by the time we finished our tour so the sun had set long before we arrived at our next campsite at Navajo National Monument on the lands of the Navajo people.

It was hard to get a sense of the country we had reached in the dark of the night, but when the sun rose I set out across the plateau to get a view of the countryside. Navajo National Monument is actually composed of three different units several miles apart: Inscription House, Keet Seel, and our location, Betatakin. Each of the units protects the ruins of an ancient people, the Ancestral Puebloans (once called the Anasazi). They were the "ancient ones" who lived on this land before the Navajo arrived hundreds of years ago. They abandoned the region 700 years ago; Their descendents live on the Hopi Reservation and the pueblos of New Mexico.

The land is unique. It is a high plateau called the Shonto that reaches elevations of more than 7,000 feet, which is high enough to support a forest of juniper and pinyon pines. The cooler forested highland is a stark contrast to the mostly barren deserts that surround the uplift. The plateau exposes Triassic and Jurassic aged sedimentary rocks, primarily the Navajo Sandstone. The Navajo is a major scenery maker in the region, responsible for the incredible cliffs in such places as Zion and Capitol Reef National Parks. The main drainage of this part of the Shonto Plateau is Tsegi Canyon, a deep gorge with an intricate maze of side canyons. Alcoves in the deep canyons protect some of the most perfectly preserved cliff dwellings to be found anywhere.

The alcoves are especially striking. There are impermeable layers of shale and siltstone within the Kayenta formation which underlies the Navajo Sandstone. Groundwater seeps downward through the Navajo and then encounters an impermeable layer. The water is forced to flow sideways until it breaches the surface at the base of a Navajo cliff. The cement holding the sandstone together dissolves and an alcove begins to form. It gets larger as slabs fall from the arch-shaped cavern. The alcoves turned out to be ideal spots for constructing villages. They are dry, protected from the worst of the weather, often have seeps or springs as a secure water supply, and offer superb defensive positions.

Defense? From what or whom? The Ancestral Puebloans lived in the region for well over a thousand years, but did not build the defensible cliff dwellings until very close to the time of regional abandonment. It's ironic that the most iconic remains of their culture represented not the pinnacle of their success, but the harbinger of their doom. It has long been the subject of speculation as to why the Ancestral Puebloans left the Four Corners area (except for the Hopi who continue to live in the general area). The speculation centers on a horrific drought that gripped the region in the late 1200s. Persistent drought would have led to ongoing crop failures and soil loss (as wind blew away dry topsoil). Starvation would presumably have led in turn to raiding and warfare.

Anthropologists, archaeologists, and the descendants of the Ancestral Puebloans have differences of opinion as to the reasons for the abandonment, but drought and resource depletion must have played a role. The villages at Keet Seel and Betatakin (in the pictures above and below) look like their inhabitants simply walked away, and the buildings have persisted in their protective alcoves through the intervening centuries.

We like to think in our technological bubble that we are somehow immune from such problems, but the need for water and food is still fundamental, and we are once again seeing the story unfold in the Colorado Plateau region of persistent decades-long drought. The present drought has now lasted 14 years, not far off from the 25 year drought that forced the Ancestral Puebloans to leave. The big difference is that the population that depends on water from the Colorado River now numbers in the millions, not the thousands. We can draw water from elsewhere, but drought is gripping California as well. It is a worrisome time.

One cannot explore the villages of Navajo National Monument without taking a stiff hike and the presence of a ranger/guide (Inscription House is closed to all visitation), but a short trail winds across the plateau surface from the visitor center to an overlook hundreds of feet above Betatakin. The preservation of the village is truly astounding, given our sorry penchant for destruction of all things ancient. It's a fascinating place to visit.

South Dakota Senate Proposes to Allow the Teaching of the Great Spaghetti Monster Model in Science Courses!

Via Wikipedia

Via Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy and from the South Dakota State Senate website itself, we find that a bill has been proposed that will make law the statement that "no school board or school administrator may prohibit a teacher in public or nonpublic school from providing instruction on intelligent design or other related topics" (italics mine). That's actually the whole law. I would really be interested in seeing this pass the state legislature and get enacted into law. One can only notice that "intelligent design" is not defined, and that "related topics" covers a great deal of scientific and religious ground. The fact that it would be constitutionally illegal is beside the point.

The ramifications are fascinating. This would mean that at last biology and earth science teachers in South Dakota would no longer be shackled by the confines of "science" in their teaching. Anything that they believe explains the origin of the Earth or the evolution of life would be fair game. Science class could be fun again! I would of course expect that along with the teachings of Noah's Ark and the great flood of Genesis from the Bible that teachers will in all fairness include the story of the Great Spaghetti Monster in space hypothesis. It explains the world we see at least as well as any other creation story, and in many instances explains it better.

It is such a shame that the people who desire most to be elected as the representatives of our state and country often are the most ignorant of fundamentally important scientific principles. We see this in their foolish attitudes towards global warming and climate change, and we see it in their failure to understand the difference between religious belief and scientific evidence. And to be clear: "intelligent design" is ultimately a religious belief, not a scientific discipline. This is true whether a badly written law in South Dakota defines it or not. It is highly unlikely that the bill would become law, and lawsuits would assuredly follow, wasting a great deal of time and money. And in the end, I would hope that I never have to place my life in the hands of person schooled in "science" in the state of South Dakota. What an embarrassment.

Rock on, Pastafarians!

Pete Seeger: Singing Truth to Power

What is the most powerful agent of social change? If we are to judge by the accomplishments of one particular man in a life well-lived, that tool would have to be song. Pete Seeger passed away this week, and it set me thinking about how we choose to spend the time we have been allotted on this planet.

I can't know the inner life and motives of Mr. Seeger, but everything I do know of his life is that he used it to make life better for others. He spent his early years helping workers unionize so they could stand united to improve working conditions. He was known for his pacifism even though he served during World War II, briefly as an airplane mechanic, but later as an entertainer for the soldiers. He was involved in the nascent civil rights movement as well.

He made a number of successful albums with the Weavers (Goodnight Irene, On Top of Old Smoky, Kisses Sweeter than Wine, and Wimoweh are familiar tunes), but was blacklisted for his communist leanings in the 1950s. He had to support himself by teaching music and singing on college campuses around the country.

He was witness to and participant in some of the greatest movements in American society, and his anthems gave voice to those who had never before had a voice. He was instrumental in bringing We Shall Overcome to the civil rights marches of the 1960s. In 1968 he truly sang truth to power by performing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy on the Smothers Brothers show (censored a year earlier), which was a subtle and yet not subtle jab at LBJ and his war in Vietnam. He was deeply involved in the environmental movement, and the fight against the death penalty. His voice was gentle but persuasive.

These are all the kinds of things that one can read in a Wikipedia article (just sayin'), but Seeger's passing affected me deeply on a personal level as well. Music touches our lives in many ways, and Seeger's words and songs played a huge part of mine. I was a child when JFK and MLK were murdered, and I was only dimly aware of the massive marches in Washington over the war and civil rights. I became a teenager when "Kumbaya" wasn't a joke around the campfire, and "We Shall Overcome" and "If I Had a Hammer" held solemn meaning. Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" was one of the first songs I ever learned on the guitar as I approached draft age at the end of the Vietnam War.

It didn't take me long to find one of my most treasured possessions when I was thinking about this entry. It's the little book pictured above, given to me by my parents decades ago. I learned American history partly through the music of my country, not the top 40 commercial dribble, but the words of real people in hard times and in hard places. Even today I subject my poor students (the geology students who join me in the field) to the music that is their real heritage. People may cringe when the guitar comes out, but the songs of the coal miners (Which Side Are You On? and Paradise) and fruit pickers (Deportee, Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) speak to the meaning of human existence and the need for social justice.

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?
(Woody Guthrie)


The passing of Pete Seeger and the heritage of his life really had me thinking. How dow we choose what we do with our lives? For many, there aren't many choices. Their lives are governed by the need for survival. But what about those who are gifted with a choice about the direction that their life will take? What drives the decisions they make? Money? Of course. Fame? Sometimes. But how often does that life choice involve altruism? Seeger ultimately led a comfortable life, but I sense that he was driven by a much more fundamental motivation. He wanted to make life better for those who had little or no hope.

I am a teacher, and sometimes I wonder what led me down this path. It would be foolish of me and a lie to say that the motives for my choice of career were altruistic. To be perfectly honest, it has been the most fun I can imagine in life. I have a good and secure job that is satisfying and often enjoyable. But my choices were influenced by my experiences in the environmental movement and exposure to the civil rights movement. I lived in a time when being a teacher or social worker was considered an honorable calling. I came of age when people realized that they did in fact have a voice and that they could make choices that could make their world a better place. Idealism was a real thing, and it drove people. As a teacher, I have the privilege of seeing the lives of my students change for the better, and I can have the satisfaction of knowing that I was part of the process. How many stock traders and investment bankers get to have that privilege?

Pete Seeger was an integral part of the movements towards a better society: acceptance of civil rights, the need for a healthy environment, and the need for peaceful resolutions to conflicts. He was a true American hero. He was most certainly one of mine. He stood up to those in power, facing down the House Un-American Activities Committee in a time when it was dangerous to do so. He had his career destroyed by those who benefited from the subjugation of workers and minorities. And yet he persisted, singing gentle songs of protest and encouragement to whomever would listen.  His banjo was one of the most dangerous weapons ever wielded in the defense of the poor and helpless (an inscription on his banjo said: "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender"). He lived a good and long life. I can only hope that we can be inspired to do the same.

If you've made it this far, I hope you will enjoy this video of Pete singing one of my favorite songs. He wrote of the hope that is not always visible or felt, but it's always there.

Don't you know it's darkest
Before the dawn?
This thought keeps me
moving on

If we could heed these early warnings
The time is now quite early morning
Some say that humankind won't long endure
But what makes them feel
So dog-one sure?

I know that you who hear my singing
Make those freedom bells go ringing
And so we keep on while we live
Until we have no more to give

And when these fingers can strum no longer
And the old banjo to young ones stronger

Don't you know it's darkest
Before the dawn
This thought keeps me
moving on

Through all this world of joy and sorrow
We still can have
singing tomorrow

0.42 Inches of Rain Last Night! California's Long Drought is Over! Wait a Minute...The Problem of Day to Day Perception

No, the drought is not over. More on that in a minute...

I've been waxing eloquently (I hope, but whatever) about how thrilling it has been to be teaching in our new Science Community Center on the campus of Modesto Junior College.  The geology labs were placed on the third floor, much to my delight. I've spent the last two decades of my career ensconced in a windowless office and laboratory.

It's really cruel and unusual punishment to leave a geologist/earth scientist in a dungeon. We need to see the planet in action. One of my greatest delights has been the ability to look out my lab windows and get instant confirmation about atmospheric conditions. And today was special. It rained.

I'm sure there are those who don't think rain is all that remarkable, but this rainstorm was. It has not rained in most of California since Dec. 7, and that was barely a sprinkle. The only significant storm was in November, and our total before yesterday was about 1.3 inches. It should be around 7. By those standards, last night's 0.45 inches was a huge thing. But unfortunately it's not.

A normal year in our area will see around 13 inches of rainfall. The worst ever, in 1913, was 4.3 inches. We may be on track to do worse, and this is after two previous dry years. We are in trouble if some big storms don't develop soon. And there is no real sign yet that anything like that is happening. A hugely resilient high pressure cell, driven by exceptionally warm northern Pacific water is driving our storms north into Alaska, and apparently sending masses of arctic air into the rest of the country.

It's really easy to experience a rainstorm and think "the drought is over". But rain happens during droughts, just not enough of it. There is a lesson here for the politicians who earlier this month were experiencing frigid conditions of the the Polar Vortex and declared that global warming was a scam and a hoax. It still gets cold in winter despite global warming. But not as cold, and not as often. We are in the midst of global climate change, and the effects are very real. Sea level is rising, glaciers are melting, spring is arriving earlier (trees are blooming all over Modesto right now in January), and there are crippling droughts and heat waves (we've had 70 degrees days for weeks now in our area). I've been pleased by polls that show that vast majorities of the American people accept the fact of global warming and climate change, even in the most conservative of states like Oklahoma. If only their chosen leaders were as smart as their constituents. We are not the frogs in the boiling water; our politicians are.

It was a thrill to walk on the roof of the building and take pictures of the Coast Ranges, which I haven't seen clearly in weeks because of the constant dust in the air. Our politicians in Washington feel the cold air and say global warming isn't happening. By that standard, the air was clear today and therefore we have beaten air pollution. Our children won't get asthma anymore. Hooray!