Wet baby heads

Bake a cylindrical bun. Cut it in two horizontally, so you have two thinner cylinders. Bake them again so they become bone dry and crumbly. Then smear butter on top and add aniseeds covered in white and blue sugary icing and serve these. As the doubly baked buns crumble you end up with hungry guests and crumbles and aniseeds all over the floor. That’s what every soundly thinking new father of a son would do, wouldn’t it? At least in the Netherlands.

Roland is the proud new father of a baby son, but he’s been living in England so long he didn’t bother with food that will reduce people to cookie monster regarding uptake efficiency. He did the UK thing: he invited his colleagues for “wetting the baby’s head”; this is the much more pragmatic tradition of just leaving new mother and kid where they are, and going to the pub to raise glasses on the new world citizen.

The splendid now complete family.

Jon, Jamie and me ventured north, and indeed, soon the proud father of young Aart showed up, and glasses were raised and gifts exchanged. But we got a bonus: a few pints on we were ready to leave, and Roland decided to phone Maria to find out if we could, after having wet it, actually observe the baby’s head. And we could! So soon we were admiring the serene little 5 days old chap, dozing off on his mother’s chest. A young chap worthy of having glasses raised to! I hope he’ll have a splendid life.

Where hydrology meets mud

How do you distinguish a hydrologist from a mine explorer? The former would think that if you make the effort of going to DGC you might as well add a little trip to a nearby river. The latter would think that if you make the effort of going to DGC you might as well add a little trip to a nearby mine. And given that we were one of each we just did both.

After Hugh the hydrologist and I had enjoyed Rick’s tour of Devon Great Consols at the surface we went to the Tamar, as Hugh had a sampling station there he wanted to check. And luckily so, as lots of rainfall had, probably by sweeping away large chunky objects that can bump into things, almost removed one of his sampling tubes. But he had come prepared with waders, and no time later this issue was resolved! And it was good I got an idea of what his fieldwork encompasses, for I expect to be called upon for field assistance soon.

Hugh tending to a sampling tube

I figured that a bloke studying pollution due to mining activities should see a mine from the inside, and there was one very close by. So I informed Hugh of the expected water levels, and down we clambered, and into the dark we vanished! I hadn’t brought more than my helmet and my caving boots; it’s not a very wet mine and I had not bothered to load up my full kit into bicycle bags. What didn’t fit into my bag would have to stay at home. Hugh had waders with him, but was too tough to don them, and just sacrificed the wellbeing of his trousers and boots to science.

Hugh with clean jacket and filthy trousers in the furthest part of the mine

We travelled the width and breadth of this modest mine, and I pointed out the staining on the walls, which undoubtedly contained high levels of whatever he was interested in, and would probably leak quite some of that into the mine water, which drains straight into the Tamar. It was good to see this mine again, which I had only seen once, almost two years ago. And for Hugh it was an entirely new experience.

Doesn't my jacket look good with these stainings!

When we came out, all orange from the knee down, we washed the worst off in the Tamar (ha! more pollution!), and managed to get us back within the limits of social acceptability. We tested this by going to the pub, and being allowed in, and thus ended a day of splendid mine exploration mixed with science. Two birds with one stone! Or maybe even three, if you count the pub…



ps I hope I will one day figure out why this blog sometimes uses small font without my consent. Even specifying "12pt" in HTML doesn't help! Grmbl...

DGC ex machina

The ivory tower is being corroded away by contaminated mine water! I already spoke of one of the newest acquisition of our school: Hugh the Australian postdoc. One may guess he’s here not only for ogling cricket. And indeed: his core activity concerns studying pollution due to mining activities in the Tamar Valley. And an observant reader might have noticed I greatly enjoy wallowing in exactly these pollutants. So I might have a thing or two to show him!

I like immersing myself in corrosive gloop, but I acknowledge that the monarch of ochre is not me but Rick, so when Rick would give a talk about something having to do with mining I dragged Hugh along. If he could plug into the knowledge of not only Rick, but also the other very knowledgeable members of the audience such as Dave, he would gain massively from that.

Listening to a talk is one thing, but getting deep down & dirty and close to science is better, so he’d decided to wander around on the surface on Devon Great Consols on the Sunday. And on that very surface I had imbibed Rick’s limitless knowledge in May, so I volunteered to come along and find out how much I would be able to remember of that walk, perhaps festooning my elaborations with anecdotes of underground DGC exploits. So on a reasonably beautiful morning we turned onto the old dressing floor, nowadays mostly in use as parking lot. There were some cars there already; my eye was caught by one which looked quite like Rick’s. And then my eye was caught by what could be no other than Rick himself. Who would have thought!

Rick seemed to be waiting for something. I jumped out of the car and soon found out we had, entirely accidentally, come just in time for Rick doing just that guided tour again, yet to a different audience. Fate gave us a huge bonus! We rejoiced in such an unbelievable chance.

One may assume that such a tour done twice is boring, but that assumption does not take into consideration the undeniable eloquence of our host, and the ever-increasing amount of knowledge he possesses. There were features along the way he hadn’t discovered yet the previous time, there were those he didn’t understand the previous time while now he did, there were features he had described as unique but now found more of, and features he now understood better. So we quaffed the information-by-the-bucket and had a good time. Hugh especially drooled and swooned at evident accumulations of pollutants and streams probably taking these to the Tamar. Where his sampling stations were gobbling it all up!

Rick looking erudite next to a pristine "DGC" inscription

Two of the other participants: Ian, one of the technicians in chemistry, and his very charming dog

One of the buildings on site had been restored in a somewhat questionable way, but I was taken by the charming detail of the rusty kettle

I also took the opportunity to dive into two small tunnels in an enormous pile of arsenic-laden mine waste. Perhaps not the wisest places to reside but I really couldn’t resist. They are pretty on the inside! And after the ball mill and the arsenic works the fun came to an end. Hugh wanted to check one of his stations, and I wanted to show him a conveniently nearby and easily accessible mine from the inside, so we moved on. Watch this space for reports on these exploits!

The entrance to one of the tunnels in the waste heap

The view from the waste heap



On the inside, looking out. Notice this tunnel isn't supported at all!

Maybe this is what keeps the sediment together: crystallisation! Would it be arsenic?

Hugh in the second tunnel, which was wet but supported

The arsenic works in the afternoon sun

If the whole of Hugh’s project is as blessed as this day was his career is now on a one way track to Nature publications and professorships. We’ll see!

Drink yourself happy

From the BBC news website

Ha! I'll have me another one...

Students on the Tamar

Campus had been an oasis of piece and quiet for months. But that wouldn't last...

Like an invading army the first year students engulfed the university. If you walk over campus now you have to slalom your way past the socialising youngsters. It's good students tend to be too lazy to use the stairs, for otherwise there would be the huge risk of ending up behind some young men whose sense of fashion would force them to wear their trousers at the approximate altitude of their knees. I think I'm officially a grumpy old woman, for I really can't get used to that sartorial offence.

Even in a year which is the last one before tuition fees are raised to the legal maximum it is important to give these up-and-coming academics a warm welcome. Next year we hope to still get some, in spite of the £9000, and a record of lots of students dropping out wouldn't help with that. And it's of course just the right thing to do. That first week will probably resonate right through the entire rest of their lives. It had better be good!

Induction week ended with a boat trip on the Plym and the Tamar, and Paul had asked me to join, so I did. One of the lecturers in human geography grabbed the microphone and provided a continuous erudite commentary on everything we sailed past. I don't think the students were listening, but I enjoyed it. I want that chap on the back of my bike, commenting on everything I bike past!

The boat leaves downtown Plymouth and Paul, the organiser, looks relaxed.

I've never been this close to this, eh, thing!

The waterfront holds some nice architecture

The roofed slipway I only glanced during the Devonport walk. Now I could see in!

The Tamar Bridge in dramatic lighting

Whether they listened to the commentary or not, the students were treated to a nice boat trip in splendid weather, and a view on Plymouth from a less usual angle. And so was I. It was, in a way, the boat trip with Neil, but then with less testosterone and more human geography. And, in a way, also the water-borne version of the recent Devonport walk. A nice change from a hard week in the lab. And I won't be teaching these students, but it may be good to get to meet them anyway. I hope they're still there by the time I have to help Roland teach them about sea level change! And it provided me with a nice insight into their world (so different from mine!); I pointed out the citadel; a beautiful relic from the civil war, and they said "we know that place; there was a dubstep party there!"

No escape from the lab

All was going smooth; the radiocarbon lab was doing our 14C measurements, one of the lab technicians was working on pollen counts on my sediments, and I could focus on my beloved foraminifera. How long do you think such a situation can persist? No, not very long indeed.

Pollen!

We got a message from the radiocarbon lab; something had gone wrong with three of my samples. Whether I could perhaps send replacements...

We got a message from our good old collaborator Rob: he wanted to do our pollen analyses. It turned out our technician had hardly started with these, so we happily tranferered that job to Rob. But that did mean I had to send him samples. And only our Connecticut core already consiusts of 200 samples I had to subsample.

One can imagine how fast I get through these forams counts this way. But then again; I claim sometimes one of my stronger scientific merits is sheer doggedness. So I'll just plough on. The evening is still young...

Staying alive

If a wall or a false floor collapses underground that may be certain death. It’s best not to provoke such structures, but the inherent disequilibrium of mines can be enough provocation. All you can do is be sensible and hope for the best.

If your rope climbing or descending gear fails that can also easily lead to death. But that’s easier to avoid! I am sloppy by nature, but I am trying to better myself, and while the news on the radio still went on about the four unfortunate Welsh miners I gave my rope ascenders some care. We’re all going to die, but I’ll try not to do that prematurely or avoidably!