The sweet and the sour

Working in science means saying goodbye all the time. The contracts are short, the playing field is international; making friends can't go without losing friends. One of our Plymouth PhD students; Heather, was in the process of writing up, and would move to Wales before it was done, so we threw a goodbye party before she left. It would be a wine, cheese and games night. At at its peak we were 10 people; overfed on cheese, drunk with wine, and shouting at each other over some game. In short: a good night! I hope Heather takes good memories of this night, and of her time in Plymouth, to Wales. And we'll see her again when she cames back to submit, defend, and celebrate!

Silver mine

It had cost £1. The entire mine, and the land on which the entrance could be found. What a bargain!

As far as I knew, there would be a trip to Wheel Jane on that Sunday. But evidently, I knew wrong. No such trip. Dave drew my attention to a trip of some other caving club in Plymouth, founded by a guy that had been politely asked to leave the Plymouth Caving Group. This trip would be to Combe Martin, a silver/lead mine in northern Devon. Both the distance, and the presence of this man that had proven to not be compatible with our club, made me doubt if I should go. But the pull of the underground won. I went.

Combe Martin (the village), seen from the mine entrance on the hill

It was a beautiful day. At the site we were greeted by one of the the owners of the mine who showed us around, first at the above ground remains of the mine. And later than I'd hoped we went down, over the grimy ladders, into the shaft. I was immediately charmed.

The entrance

It was evident this mine had had a long history; the shaft looked modern for mining standards, but there were old, narrow tunnels everywhere, with the pick-axe marks still in them, as if they were made yesterday. The oldest recorded activity in this mine was in 1292!

Pic by Dave

Beautiful internal supporting wall (pic by Dave)

A droplet makes an excellent lens

Modern supports

Pic by Dave

Pic by Dave

We happily scurried around, taking pictures, but we couldn't go everywhere due to collapses, and were out fairly soon. Even before the other batch, including the infamous guy, even entered. Outside in the sunshine we discussed the possibility of coming back in spring, and helping the owners with some maintenance, such as the clearing out of aforementioned collapses. Sounds great!

Pic by Dave

The mine came with a small garden shed also functioning as a museum. The local blacksmith talked us through the findings displayed there. And then there was quite some doodling and faffing, and I had a proper Lionel fit, and wanted out of there. I have time to go underground, but I have no time to just hang around!

The mini museum

We went down to the village museum, which was closed, and then to the pub, for a pint with the others. Ali had wanted to do another mine as well, on Great Hangman cliff, but it was too late for that. We did go and have a look, though. It was probably good we hadn't counted on this, as it looked like there was nothing we could secure a rope to, and attempting to enter the mine entrance on the cliff face without one would be suicide. We'll have to come prepared if we want to go there... but we got a nice afternoon walk.

Little Hangman

Picture taken from Great Hangman

And then we were off home. If I ever settle down I wouldn't mind doing that in a house with an affordable silver mine in the back garden!

Fun with the microscope

I rarely see things through my microscope that would be of interest to anyone other than micropalaeontologists with a thing going for salt marshes. But recently I did! Or at least, maybe I did. The first thing was a foram that couldn't decide which way to coil. Quite many forams coil, a bit like a snail or a nautilus, and normally they coil either clockwise or anticlockwise. Below is an example of a conventional specimen.

Balticammina pseudomacrescens

One day I saw a foram that had changed its mind halfway. That's odd! It started out going in the same direction as the one above, but after ~9 chambers it suddenly turned around. One headstrong foram, that! Picture below.

Same species, strange specimen

It might be that two-way coiling forams send all my readers to sleep. But I have something less nerdy as well! I had a metallic object under my microscpe, and the patterns in it were very arty. Maybe even to be appreciated by non-nerds! 

And if even this doesn't appeal to anyone I should just take pictures of the dead creepies and crawlies I find. Because I do! Maybe I should put some online for Halloween...

Another scenic swim

Sometimes the things you look forward least turn out the best. I had been zombieing away in the lab, sieving samples (which is fairly dull work), having built up a bit of a lack of sleep over the week, and I would go swimming after work. In the sea. I was tired! The last thing you look forward to when tired is getting cold and wet. But I knew it might do me good.

When I arrived at Bovisand Beach with Ferret it turned out to not be cold at all. Comfortably I got into my wetsuit, and no time later we were in the water. And it was good! The water was hardly cold, and the beach was beautiful in the fading light. There were lots of rocks to scurry around and over (I was wearing neoprene socks and shoes, so I could safely walk on the barnacle-encrusted outcrops) and I greatly enjoyed it! When we came out I felt reborn. I think I may be doing more of that!

Rescue: room for improvement

In May we had rescue training in Great Rock Mine, where we trained our searching skills. It's a mine with many entrances hidden in the forest, so it's more a hide-and-seek thing than a caving skill exercise. And I hope we're better at caving per se, as we failed to retrieve two of the (plastic) victims.

In June we trained with what's called the Heyphone; a sort of underground walkie-talkie. We hadn't tried that system before in an iron mine, and as the device uses the rock as an antenna that matters, so we should.

The heyphone

This picture of a puddle in a spoil heap illustrates the mineralogy: the white is kaolinite; weathering product of the granite that dominates in the area, and the silvery stuff is the micaceous iron ore. In the picture above it's evidently oxidised, but not here.

This gave us the opportunity to follow up on two trainings at the same time: go back to Great Rock mine, armed with Heyphones, and find the hapless two victims. While we were at it we also brought Little Dragons; hot-air rebreathers, which can be used to make hypothermic casualties feel a little less uncomfortable.

Mike assembling a little dragon

The little dragon worked! It's a neat invention. We did not manage to get the Heyphones to work, though. And by all indications that was not because of the ambient mineralogy. They are just old. There's a more modern, and hopefully better, system in development, and we hoped to already have gotten it, but it takes more time than expected. So to all those intent on getting lost in a cave: maybe wait a few months!

We were not allowed to look for victims beyond this point; the big slab on the right had recently come down, and one could see more of that on the verge of yielding.

Blog crisis!

I had never really thought about the possibility of filling up a blog. But I did! A blogspot blog seems to come with 1GB free storage space. And I filled it up. I bought 20 GB extra, but somehow the upgrade has not had proper effect. If I want to upload a picture I get a stern message that I ran out of space! I sent a message to Google, and I hope this will be settled soon, for I suddenly became aware of how addicted I have become to blogging. Or to "hysterically broadcasting my inner life", as I've heard it describe. Must blog about cave rescue! Must blog about microfossils! Must blog about swimming in the sea in the fading light! Must blog!

Miewu...


PS It's solved! It's solved! Spontaneously I could upload stuff again... yay!

Scenic swim

Next time I'll wear a wetsuit! That's what I though the first time I went down Redmoor Mine. The water in there is very cold. And I ended up surveying with Ali, and that involves lots of standing still. At some point I was shivering uncontrollably. Time to get out.

So a wetsuit. Until I got an email from Lionel: "Will be coming, with waders this time"; waders! That's another thought. Staying dry. The parts of the mine I had seen the previous time had water comfortably below maximum wader level. But in the end I decided to go for maximum flexibility: a wetsuit, after all.

In the cold October night I changed into it. And no time later I was lowering myself into the inclined shaft. This time with less friction than the previous time, so I was down quickly. This was working out well! When a few of us were down we started exploring. It's a pretty mine.

15 seconds exposure time can lead to confusing perspective effects... here a triple junction with a hole in the middle.

With Lionel I went all the way down one level until an inpassable collapse, taking pictures along the way. Then we went back to where we came from. Close to the inclined shaft there is a chute that connects two levels; we saw the lights of all the others, and knew they were in the other level. We walked around and followed. The previous time I had not gotten very far in this level, as I was really cold; now I had a blast in my wetsuit! But the water got deeper and deeper (strangely enough; this level was above the previous, less flooded one!), and Lionel, who had stuck to his prediction and had showed up in waders, could not go any further without filling these up entirely. Which would be most undesirable. When he decided to not go any further he was standing on tiptoe with the water only two inches below the edge of the waders... I am such a kind person, given that I did not give in to the temptation to give him a bit of a push!

I went on, reaching a T-junction; I arbitrarily chose to go right, and after a while I had walked to a dead end. So I tried the left arm too, but that left me no choice but to swim. And the water got deeper and deeper while the ceiling got lower. And still no sign of the others! So there I was, swimming in a narrow space, on my own, in an orange dreamworld. It was magic!

After a while the water table reached the ceiling. No others! They really weren't there. I resisted the temptation to see how far I could go, took some pictures, and went back to Lionel who turned out to be chivalrously waiting for me. He was as surprised at the absence of the others as I was. They must have taken a way back to the lower level just as we were walking around! But at the lower level we found them again. And unitedly we decided it was beer o'clock.

I took the fast road back to the inclined shaft. To my surprise I was the only one, and I heard the voices of the others from a distance when I reached the rope. I made a quick decision; I was in a wetsuit, so there was no urgency in getting me out and back in dry clothes again. Worse: I didn't have Dave's car keys, so I would be exposed to the wind while not having access to my clothes. But I knew I was one of the faster ones, and decided to just get back up before anyone else reached the rope. And off I was!

The lower level; it's a bit hard to take pictures of a tunnel if the only places where you can put your camera is on the side... but it gives some idea.

About three seconds later Lionel was up, then Rick, and then Finbar. Lionel was surprised to see two ropes attached to him; we only had one there, didn't we? Then we saw he had accidentally taken the end of the rope with him. Down there they were left without! Lionel thought it was hilarious, shouted "rope free!", imagined the surprise of the next in line at not finding any rope, and almost killed himself laughing. But then got his act together and brought the rope back down.

The inclined shaft, with Lionel, who is reduced to ghost status by the long exposure time, bringing the rope back down

By the time we were all out the pub was almost closed, but we did manage a pint and plans for the next three weeks. It had been a very good night!