GEOSCIENCES SOURCE BOOK Definitions with Daffynitions

Advancing Glacier             Large ice mass that accumulates snow/ice at a rate that results in the lower edges being pushed outward and downward. Daffynition: Massive dork moving in your direction at a hot singles bar, chilling everything around as it creeps along.

Aeolian Landform              Landforms produced by the deposition or erosion of weathered surface materials by wind including, among others, the following landforms: erg, sand dunes in general, deflation hollows, reg, and desert pavement. Daffynition: land mass that lays around waiting to get blown (Yes, Sister Mary, I know the proper verb tense).

Agate               Very fine grained (cryptocrystalline), translucent type of variegated chalcedony quartz that forms in concentric layers or bands in a wide variety of colors and textures; translucent microcrystalline variety of quartz usually found as striped or banded filings in cavities of volcanic and other rocks; often found as a round nodule, with concentric bands like the rings of a tree trunk. Author’s Note: The type known as moss agate features very delicate, dendritic-like patterns that resemble moss. Agates are frequently associated with opal. Many agates are cut and polished as semi-precious stones or as art objects. The word is derived from Middle English and Old French by way of the Romans, who borrowed it from the Greek, akhates. Daffynition: The nickname of some lame-ass Texas college football team.

Agglomerate                        Pyroclastic rock comprised of a chaotic assemblage of coarse angular volcanic fragments cemented by a matrix of volcanic ash. Daffynition: Assemblage of coarse jerks who always seem cemented to the hottest babe in the bar.

Agglutinate              1) Pyroclastic deposit consisting of an accumulation of originally plastic ejecta that were welded together by molten glassy materials. 2) Fragmented foraminifer tests cemented together. Daffynition: Depositional process largely affecting female college freshmen. Used as the verb form, to agglutinate.

Air Blast        Physical effects, including sudden, high winds and enormous overpressure, produced on the Earth’s surface by a relatively large meteorite that had been burned up in the atmosphere; this type of blast can be more powerful than a Category 5 hurricane, as powerful as a moderate sized nuclear explosion, and is capable of destroying natural and built landscapes. Real World Example: On June 30, 1908, an air blast from a meteorite struck near the Stony Tunguska River in Siberia, about 55 miles north of Vanavara, devastating 800 square miles, felling nearly all the natural vegetation, including thousands of acres of evergreen forests. The force of the explosion has been estimated at 40 megatons of TNT, or 2,000 times the force of the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima in 1945. Daffynition: What you feel after getting rejected by the hottie of your dreams.

Air Pollution            Toxification of the atmosphere through the addition by means of human agency of one or more noxious substances in concentrations high enough to be hazardous to humans, other animals, vegetation, or natural materials. Author’s Note: The term pollution includes particulate emissions, industrial aerosols, nitrous oxide emissions, smog, formation of ozone layers, etc. Daffynition: Alert issued after the fat guy sitting in front of you rips an ugly one.

Albedo           Percentage of solar radiation reflected back by a surface; important property of the Earth’s surface as it relates to the relative rate of surface heating when exposed to insolation. An albedo of one indicates perfect reflection, 100 percent. Author’s Note: Fresh snow has a high albedo, from 0.7 to 0.9, indicating that 70 to 90 percent of the radiation received is reflected; glacier ice has a much lower albedo, which is a result of the recrystalization of the snow. Daffynition: Joey Bedo’s older brother, the one with the toxic breath.

Alpine Orogeny          Sequence of crustal disturbances and mountain-building episode beginning in the middle Mesozoic and continuing into the Miocene that resulted in the Alps. Daffynition: Orogeny experienced only by adventurous mountain climbers above 15,000 feet; similar to the 30,000 Mile Club but the act is performed on the ice and snow only by those in excellent physical condition.

Alteration                  Physical or chemical change in a rock or mineral subsequent to its formation. Daffynition: How Jack became Jacqueline and sprouted tits.

Amber                 Fossilized tree resin that varies in color from yellow to red to green and blue and was exuded as a protective mechanism against disease and insect infestation; forms through a natural polymerization of the original organic compounds. Most of the world’s amber ranges in age from 30-90 million years old. Historical Background: Mineralogists call German amber succinite, from the Latin succinum, which means amber. It is the oldest decorative substance known and was found in Paleolithic settlements and was used extensively by the Greeks and Romans for jewelry. The modern name, amber, is thought to originate from the Arabic word, amber, meaning ambergris, a waxy aromatic substance created in the intestines of sperm whales. Daffynition: New name of that guy who went through the alteration mentioned above.

Maryhurst Prep 03

Time for a couple unusual stories. One occurred on a Saturday evening right before bedtime in the fall of my junior year while I was making my bed. By way of explanation, we always stripped our sheets once a week, usually on Saturday mornings, and by that night the clean sheets were ready to be put on the beds. I recall being very tired and was determined to finish as fast as possible so I could literally fall into bed. I grabbed two corners of the tightly folded sheet in my hands and snapped it open over the bed several times to get it to lie down just right. As I stretched forward to make sure the sheet reached all the way to the headboard my pecker must have slipped out the opening in the front of my P.J.s and touched the metal frame. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a large blue spark of static electricity shoot from the frame to my unprotected wiener. ZAP! I let out an involuntary cry of pain and fell across the bed twisting in agony.

Naturally everyone looked over in astonishment as strict silence was the rule after night prayers. As I lay on the bed writhing in pain Bro. Xav appeared and in a stern whisper demanded to know what was going on. When I was able to catch my breath, I told him exactly how I sustained a static electric shock to the most vulnerable and tender part of my body. He had to bite his lip to hold back the laughter. He quietly told me it was only a temporary problem and to suffer in silence the next time. As he walked away I whispered that if I had anything to do with it there wouldn’t be a next time. Which made him chuckle all the way back to his room.

*     *     *

This next story is more serious in nature but sort of hysterical nonetheless. I never did very well in chemistry. Perhaps it was the math orientation but somehow chemistry and I never hit it off. However, in junior year my morning housework assignment was to clean the Chem Lab. I usually was able to finish the job fairly quickly, especially when the class hadn’t performed an experiment the preceding day and so had time on my hands. When that happened I was supposed to report to the Morning Work Supervisor and help someone else until the bell for classes rang. In actual practice, few boys were that oriented to the general welfare and rather than volunteer for more work they goofed around those last few minutes.

On the occasions when I had little to do I would read whatever general material on chemistry was available in Bro. Fred’s files. One day I found a treatise on the distillation of alcohol from potatoes and, having recruited Herb B., another McBride High classmate, as my accomplice, rigged up a crude still from equipment in the lab. We actually made a small quantity of alcohol but when we drank it all we got were terrific headaches, probably because we didn’t distill or filter it properly. Whatever, we weren’t about to risk doing it a second time. All I could think of was going blind from some sort of impurity in the alcohol.

Next, I found an old textbook on explosives. Herb and I were fascinated by the story of how Nobel discovered dynamite. Naturally, the first thing we made was black powder but we were unsatisfied with the results. Our sights were set on bigger fish. I found a reference to a powerful explosive, nitrogen tri-iodide, that provided detailed manufacturing instructions. The article explained that the explosive was never used in warfare because of its inherent instability, especially when dry. Minor changes in temperature, slight vibrations, or even exposure to sunlight were enough to set it off. Which, instead of scaring the living shit out of me, was the precise enticement I needed.

That day after classes a free period was scheduled during which we could basically do anything we wanted, within reason. So Herb and I sneaked into the Chem Lab, using the key I had, and started making the explosive. The chemical proved surprisingly easy to create, taking not even an hour. I must have belatedly recalled the warning in the textbook because we wet the dark granules thoroughly with tap water to prevent the explosive from drying out. Then, in a fit of perverse deviltry, I sprinkled a small quantity around the room to booby-trap unwary visitors. The moist remainder was placed in a shallow ceramic dish, covered with a damp cloth, and hidden in the back of the large glass-front cabinets in which were stored all the glass equipment used in our class-room experiments. And promptly forgotten as we slipped out to mingle innocently with our buddies until we could retrieve it for only God knows what purpose the following day. Who could remember exactly what we had in mind? Not me.

Early that morning, probably around 3:00 AM, we were awakened by a loud explosion that set off the building’s fire alarms and brought the Kirkwood Fire and Police Departments. After milling about uncertainly for fifteen minutes we were informed by Fr. Dorsey, the Chaplin, that there had been a gas explosion in one of the ovens in the kitchen. He told us everything was under control so, kids we were, we went right back to sleep.

After breakfast the Principal, Bro. Fred Weisbruch, who also happened to be the Chemistry teacher, grimly announced that the explosion had been in the Chem Lab and anyone with information concerning its cause should see him immediately. My heart turned to lead in my chest and my breakfast threatened to come up that moment. When I looked across the Refectory at Herb his face was an unhealthy shade of gray. We were both paralyzed with fear and apprehension.

As I walked down the corridor toward Bro. Fred (he was standing outside the entrance to the Lab) there must have been a look of absolute guilt on my face. He had Herb by the neck and said grimly, “Ah ha! Here’s the other culprit. Come on in, Don’t be so shy, I want you both to see the damage you’ve caused.” He pushed us ever so reluctant and guilty culprits ahead of him into the mess.

It was not a pretty sight. The explosion had destroyed most of the wooden cabinets, glass fronts, and had taken out part of the plaster wall behind them. Glass fragments and broken pieces of cabinetry and shelving were strewn everywhere, on the floor, tables, desks, and even on the window ledges across the room. Big-time damage. My heart sank even lower, if that were physically possible. The three of us stood silently surveying the debacle.

Bro. Fred sighed and asked seriously, “What am I going to do with you two?” It was not an innocent, rhetorical question. He wanted to know where he could dump our cold bodies after he made us suffer for our crime. We hung our heads, pretending to be deaf as well as invisible. He sighed again as he walked around the desks toward the front of the room.

As he approached the head table where he always demonstrated the experiments to the class we heard a number of little pops, like miniature muted explosions. Bro. Fred looked at the floor and then at us, frowning questioningly. Immediately I realized he was stepping on the minute amounts of nitrogen tri-iodide we had scattered on the floor. Oh my God, I thought. Here it comes. I could already read the newspaper headlines.

             STUDENTS MURDERED BY ENRAGED TEACHER

Bro. Fred took two or three more steps, this time watching carefully where he put his feet. Then it hit him. At that instant I understood why cartoonists illustrate someone having an idea with a picture of a light bulb turning on. Comprehension flooded his eyes. He turned angrily toward us, pointing a stiffly accusing finger like the business end of a loaded .45. “Ah ha! You threw some of the explosive on the floor, didn’t you?” It was not a question either of us cared to answer.

Before we could stammer out a reply he pounded his fist angrily down on top of the lab table. I watched helplessly as his fist descended, praying that he would miss the small mound of blackish-gray powder I had left on the table in front of him. No such luck. POW! A puff of blackish-purple smoke and a flash of light accompanied the miniature blast.

Bro. Fred yelped in surprise and shook his hand, which must have hurt. An involuntary, “Damnation!” escaped his lips. He stared at us in open-mouthed incredulity for what seemed an eternity. Then, to our amazement and utter disbelief, after a few eternity-long seconds he began laughing. From a low chuckle it grew into a loud belly laugh. Even though we still thought we were about to suffer a fate worse than savage dismemberment followed by a slow death and disappear from this world without a trace, in the next moment we were laughing with him. The situation was too contagious to resist.

Bro. Fred was probably reacting to the totally unexpected nature of the situation, which had to strike him, at least in part, as hilarious. However, what Herb and I were experiencing amounted to genuine hysterical fear, mixed with a minuscule measure of relief that, for the moment at least, we had survived his initial wrath and were still alive.

It took several long heartbeats for the hissy fit to pass. But, when it did, Bro. Fred cleared his throat and lectured us sternly for the next twenty minutes on the danger of abusing our knowledge of chemistry. The bad news he delivered about our parents having to pay for the damages eliminated whatever vestiges of humor remained.

In the end we were ordered to go and sin no more. After we cleaned up the mess. Which took us the rest of the morning. As I remember it, to our good fortune the school’s insurance covered nearly all the damages. Dad grumbled and threatened but all he had to pay was less than fifty dollars. But he ordered me to work all that summer to repay him. Which, of course, is exactly what happened. Naturally, as idiot teenagers, we failed to learn any lesson whatsoever from that experience.

Jokulhlaup, Buckyball, Chaos Theory

Jokulhlaup               1) Large outburst flash flood event of glacial origin. 2) Any unpredictable and catastrophic release of water from a glacier, such as when a glacially dammed lake drains catastrophically. 3) Glacial outburst caused by melt water from a sub-glacial volcano. Also known as Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF), these events are caused by one or more factors that adversely affect the dam’s structural integrity, including erosion, increase in hydrostatic pressure, rock fall, snow avalanche, earthquake or cryoseism, volcanic activity under the ice, or if a large enough portion of a glacier overhanging the lake breaks off and massively displaces water in a glacial lake at its base. The resulting floods often transport significant debris loads and can attain high velocity due to large volumes of water being released suddenly in areas having high relief, frequently causing significant environmental damage and loss of human life and property. As an eruption begins in Iceland, for example, pressurized magma moves slowly toward the surface, bringing volatiles and groundwater in its path to the boiling point. But the overlying glacier acts like the lid on a giant pressure cooker. The thicker the ice, the more it contains the pressure of the boiling water and the magma. But when the volcano finally erupts, magma as hot as 2,200° F instantly mixes with the superheated groundwater and the ice. The result is a monstrous eruption of steam, ash, lava, and volcanic fragments that rockets skyward upward in what amounts to a classic mushroom cloud. Real World Example: On November 5 though 8, 1996, scientists from the Science Institute at the University of Iceland flew over a jokulhlaup that had been released from the Skeiararjokull Glacier following a sub-glacial volcanic eruption. Only hours after emerging from the ice sheet, the jokulhlaup had a discharge of 5,000 cubic meters per second, which increased to 45,000 cubic meters per second within an hour and a half (another way for this to make sense to Americans not accustomed to metrics, is to think of the flow as 1.5 million square feet per second). Two large bridges, 1,150 and 2,800 feet long, were destroyed and six miles of roads washed away. A large, elongated plume of suspended sediment formed in the ocean beyond the jokulhlaup’s outlet. On the glacier itself, collapse, scouring, and subsidence associated with the jokulhlaup formed an ice canyon two miles long with an average depth of 300 feet. Luckily, owing to the advanced warning system Iceland has had in place for years, no deaths occurred as a result of the outburst flood. Countries affected by GLOFs include Iceland, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, northern India, Chile, and Argentina. Author’s Note: Jokulhlaup (pronounced yokel lop) is an Icelandic word meaning sudden water release from glaciers. Duh.

Buckyball                 Enigmatic cluster or chain of carbon atoms discovered in a Rice University research laboratory in a collaboration of British astro-chemist Harold W. Kroto and American chemists Richard E. Smalley (1943-2005) and Robert F. Curl Jr. into the by-products of laser-vaporized graphite. Kroto, Smalley, and Curl then discovered that the combinations of hexagons and pentagons that characterized the new found hollow spherical structure were amazingly reminiscent of the geodesic dome designed by the engineer, R. Buckminster Fuller, for the 1967 Montreal World Exhibition. So they named the new molecule buckminsterfullerene, which today is shortened to fullerene or buckyball. The more straight-laced chemists write it as C-60 or Carbon60 (or simply as C60). About that time Tony Haymet, an Australian theoretical chemist at the University of California at Berkeley, coincidentally published a paper predicting the existence of an allotropic form of carbon that he called footballene, named after a soccer ball (known as a football to the world outside of the U.S.) with its hexagonal-pentagonal leather cover. In 1996 Curl, Kroto, and Smalley were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery.

Author’s Note: The C-60 buckyball is the most famous of the fullerenes but by no means the only one. In fact, scientists have now discovered hundreds of different combinations of these interlocking pentagon/hexagon formations. However, it must be noted that the symmetry of C-60 makes it the most stable buckyball; other interesting variations include:

• Buckybabies — spheroid carbon molecules containing fewer than 60 carbon atoms
• Fuzzyballs — C-60 buckyballs attached to 60 other atoms such as hydrogen or fluorine or a combination of lithium/fluorine
• Giant fullerenes — fullerenes containing hundreds of carbon atoms in multilayer cages called “onions”
• C-70 — molecules with 70 carbon atoms, with an oblong shape somewhat like a rugby ball or an Australian Rules football
• Nitrogen fullerenes, especially C48N12, that hold promise for an impressive range of potential applications, from orthopedic implants to new pharmaceuticals to high explosives to propellants for supersonic aircraft/space vehicles

Actually fullerenes have been around for many thousands of years in small amounts, especially in burning candles or oil lamps whose flames vaporize wax molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Some of those molecules are instantly consumed while others move upwards into the yellow tip where temperatures are great enough to split them apart, creating carbon-rich soot particles that give off gentle yellow light. Buckyballs can be found amid the resulting soot. As Harry Kroto and his colleagues discovered, buckyballs are found in places ranging from interstellar dust to burning candle wicks to geological formations on Earth. Consequently, although they can be classified as an exciting scientific discovery, they’ve turned out to be fairly common in nature, although not in great quantities. Along with graphite and diamond, buckyballs are a form of pure carbon.

Real World Examples: For the past two decades materials scientists have been eagerly exploring the properties of fullerenes. In 1991, Japanese scientists discovered that the buckyball structure can be extended to form long, slender tubes, or carbon nanotubes, that are single molecules comprised of rolled graphene sheets capped at each end. Computer simulations and laboratory experiments have demonstrated that those nanotubes have extraordinary resilience and strength and various unusual properties; for example, under load they can abruptly and reversibly snap from one shape to another and can be formed into very strong rope-like shapes. They also exhibit electrical conductivity that has led to experiments with tiny nanowires and nanoscale transistors. Although manufacture of such incredibly small molecular structures poses enormous technical challenges, numerous practical applications are now being pursued. Richard Smalley believed that carbon nanotubes could one day be woven into long transmission wires that would be far lighter, stronger, and more efficient than the existing electrical grid. He also saw nanotechnology as the key to producing solar and other renewable energy sources that could replace fossil fuels. In 1990 for the first time physicists Wolfgang Krätschmer and Donald R. Huffman devised a technique that produced large quantities of C60 by arcing a current between two graphite electrodes to burn in a helium atmosphere and extracting the carbon condensate with an organic solvent. The Kratschmer-Huffman technique is now being applied in hundreds, if not thousands, of laboratories throughout the world that are engaged in an entirely new branch of chemical research in such diverse areas as astro-chemistry, biochemistry, solid-state physics, superconductivity, and materials chemistry/physics.

Additional Author’s Note: The formal name for the C-60 molecule’s structure is truncated icosahedron, which is the same shape that is used in the construction of soccer balls. It was also the configuration of the lenses used to focus the explosive shock waves of the detonators in the Fat Man plutonium implosion-type bomb the American military dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945.

Chaos Theory[1]                    In the book In the Wake of Chaos, philosopher Stephen H. Kellert defined chaos theory as: “The qualitative study of unstable aperiodic behavior in deterministic nonlinear dynamical systems.” To put that thought into simpler words, Chaos Theory posits that it is possible to observe complex, unpredictable, and apparently random behavior arising from seemingly simple natural systems. Chaos Theory also asserts the reverse scenario, that an observer can study seemingly random systems and show order within the apparent randomness/chaos.

Unlike many other branches of mathematics and physics, Chaos Theory deals with nonlinear problems and thus is not exclusively dependent on numerical calculations in developing predictions. The issue is nonlinear problems are generally more difficult to study because the behavior of nonlinear systems cannot be predicted in a straight-line manner. In essence, Chaos Theory asserts that the future behavior of complex and dynamic systems (like weather) is incredibly sensitive to small variations in initial conditions.

In the early 1960s, MIT meteorologist Edward N. Lorenz discovered chaotic behavior as he worked on a computer analysis of weather patterns. In his effort to predict weather Lorenz used an early digital computer to solve a set of twelve mathematical equations that roughly modeled a given number of weather patterns. Because at that time computer runs of complex mathematical equations were very time consuming and costly, on his second effort Lorenz started the computer run at the mid-point of his analysis and rounded his original numbers from six decimal places to three. However, because the numbers entered were not exactly the same as in the first analysis, the calculations produced by the computer quickly began diverging from those of the original outcome. Lorenz then substituted very nearly the same initial conditions for his system of equations but found that regardless of how slight the initial variation, the numbers that the equations were generating always diverged drastically after a relatively short period of time.

That occurrence led Lorenz to the conclusion that complex systems such as the weather are incredibly sensitive with respect to the initial conditions of the system. In Lorenz’s own words:

It implies that two states differing by imperceptible amounts may eventually evolve into two considerably different states. If, then, there is any error whatever in observing the present state — and in any real system such errors seem inevitable — and acceptable prediction of an instantaneous state in the distant future may well be impossible. An alteration so small that it only affected the one-millionth place value of a decimal point, comparable to a butterfly flapping its wings perhaps, could throw off the whole prediction.

This incredible dependence on initial conditions was labeled by Lorenz as the “Butterfly Effect.” According to his analogy, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil it thus changes the initial conditions within the atmosphere (though by only a fractionally small amount) and thereby could cause rain in Texas. Think about that idea for a moment. Lorenz’s concept indeed reveals an astonishing world that is not readily apparent. Until Lorenz’s discovery, scientists had no reason to believe that the stability of a subsystem could be independent of the stability of the rest of the system. Nor had anyone thought that a nonlinear system could be stable when driven by chaotic signals.

Author’s Note: So, what good is chaos in natural systems and does Chaos Theory have practical application? Before the 1990s most scientists believed that chaos was unreliable, uncontrollable, and therefore unusable in any scientific application. It is true that no one can ever predict exactly how a chaotic system will behave over long periods. For that reason, engineers and scientists initially dealt with Chaos Theory by avoiding it. Today, that strategy is regarded as shortsighted. Within the past few years scientists have demonstrated that chaos can be manageable, exploitable, and even invaluable. Application of Chaos Theory has resulted in increases in the power of lasers, synchronization of the output of electronic circuits, control of oscillations in chemical reactions, stabilization of erratic heart beats of unhealthy animals, and the encoding of electronic messages for secure communications. Therefore, who knows what the future holds, other than more chaos? For an in-depth review of non-linear science including Chaos Theory, see: Alwyn C. Scott. Nonlinear Science: Emergence and Dynamics of Coherent Structures. Oxford University Press, 2003; and “The Development of Nonlinear Science,” paper given at the University of New Mexico, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Consortium of the Americas Seminars, October 10, 2005; online source: http://personal.riverusers.com/~rover/AScott(rev).pdf

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[1] Sources: “Chaos Theory: The Mergence of Science and Philosophy” by Manus J. Donahue, found online at: http://www.duke.edu/~mjd/chaos/Ch3.htm#first

And “Mastering Chaos” by William L. Ditto and Louis M. Pecora, found online at http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/mastring.html

Also see: http://www.alunw.freeuk.com/chaos.html

Maryhurst Prep 01 and 02

Maryhurst Prep 01

Of course I got into a lot of trouble during the next three years at Maryhurst. I might have been attending a prep school for Marianist Postulants but that didn’t mean I wasn’t full of piss and vinegar (which is how Grandmother Cundiff described me) and as wild as I thought I could get away with. My first exposure to Bro. Xav’s stern gaze came only a few months after I arrived. One of our teachers was an elderly priest who had retired from a university professorship in France. Fr. Carl Dreisoerner, as I believe his name was spelled. He was in his early seventies, a tall, very slender even sepulchral man who in mid-Autumn took to wearing unusual hats, including berets, and a long black cape, much in the old European fashion. At night he would pace along the sidewalk in the front of the building, saying his Holy Office until the light failed.

One particularly nippy evening in late October I observed him strolling along, a French beret perched jauntily on his head and a long, black woolen cloak swirling in the wind behind him. To that impressionable teenager he looked precisely like the movie version of Count Dracula. Naturally, I ran inside the Recreation Room and called to several of my cohorts to come see something that was totally weird. We ran outside nosily and I pointed to the good priest and made my comparison.

While everyone was laughing and hooting at Fr. Dreisoerner’s expense along came Bro. Xav, who evidently had heard everything. He confronted us and demanded to know what was so funny. Naturally, we all fell silent. After an uncomfortable moment or two I ‘fessed up. He took me inside to his office, closed the door, and gave me a lecture on Christian courtesy. That wasn’t so bad but he made me tell Fr. Dreisoerner what I had done and apologize for my lack of consideration. The old priest took it quite well, actually, and even asked me to say a prayer or two for him if I had the chance.

Bro. Xav wasn’t nearly so forgiving. He made me go to Chapel every night for a week while everyone else had evening recreation and pray for wisdom and maturity. The punishment was singularly unsuccessful in that it didn’t achieve the desired result. But I never made that particular mistake again. An unruly handful, yes. Stupid, no.

Maryhurst Prep 02

In my junior year I managed to get involved in a much more serious problem that threatened to have me thrown out of Maryhurst on my ear. And of all things it was over cigarettes. Which was really stupid because, as an asthmatic, I was a non-smoker and even hated the smell of smoke. But I was anxious to do a favor for a couple friends and that’s how it got started. Because I wanted them to think highly of me. Peer pressure. Yeah.

Either Larry W. or Chuck S., or both, found out that I was going to the Fiftieth Jubilee of the ordination of Monsignor White, the pastor at St. Paul the Apostle Church, which was my home parish. Naturally, as a Postulant I was invited, as were all the other parishioners studying in seminaries or religious orders. I would have plenty of opportunity to buy cigarettes for my buddies. Cigarettes, of course, were on Maryhurst’s extensive list of forbidden pleasures. Sure, I said, without a single hesitation. So anxious was I to please. Both Larry and Chuck were excellent athletes whose respect I valued. And Chuck was also a very bright guy I liked. Therefore I couldn’t see any valid reason not to oblige them. After all, rules were meant to be broken. Any way, who would know? Right.

After attending the Jubilee, which turned out to be an extraordinarily boring event, I returned to Maryhurst, cigarettes in hand. Immediately after dinner about five or six of us retired to the privacy of the apple orchard to smoke the forbidden fruit, as it were. And how they enjoyed them. It was almost comical to watch those young teenagers acting like such jaded adults, pulling with determined nonchalance on their cancer sticks, trying so hard not to cough from the unaccustomed heat.

The shit hit the fan after Evening Recreation was over and we were back in Study Hall. Joel C., one of the smokers, came hustling over to my desk with a look of imminent death on his face. Out of the corner of his mouth came the words I never wanted to hear, “It’s our asses. Bro. Xav knows everything. We’re all in deep shit.”

My stomach rolled over several times before taking a dive for my toes. At that instant none other than Bro. Xav appeared at the Study Hall doorway and, with a frown as dark as a thundercloud, beckoned me to his office. By that time everyone in the Study Hall knew something big was up. A longer walk I have never taken in my life.

Once in his office he sternly asked me when was the last time I had a cigarette. I answered honestly, in a voice that trembled, that I never smoked one in my life. Naturally he didn’t believe me until I told him that I was asthmatic and couldn’t smoke. It didn’t take too long for the sordid truth to come out. That when asked I had agreed to buy the contraband and smuggle it into Maryhurst. Wow, was he angry. He gave me a long lecture about betraying his trust, making me feel like an absolute shit. Then he nailed the others, even though I had refused to identify them. We never found out for sure who blew the whistle. Certainly one of our fellow Postulants had seen us engaged in suspicious activities (my guess was one particular “old” boy who was a goodie-two shoes as some Postulants would have said ever so politely, or a true brown-noser and ass-kisser as I put it) and had reported us to the authorities. An informer, as my Irish Grandmother Cundiff would have put it, her lip curling in a contemptuous sneer.

I don’t remember the punishment we got but it had to have been major. Bro Xav called my parents with the bad news and they chewed me out big-time. I was miserable for a week or so. Then, like the kid I was, I forgot it until it was time for Report Cards, which to my horror were read out loud in front of the entire student population. I received two unsatisfactory conduct marks. Three “Unsatisfactory” marks on one Report Card meant that you were expelled forthwith. I had dodged the bullet by the smallest of margins and tip-toed around on my best behavior until after the next Report Card. Soon after that incident, when several Brothers from McBride visited Maryhurst, they chided me about letting the school down. They were sort of kidding but I got the message. Shape up, shithead, or you’re history.

Introduction to Maryhurst Prep

In the early spring of 1958, my freshman year in high school, I was invited to Maryhurst Preparatory School, located at 1101 South Kirkwood Road. The purpose of the visit was to determine if I liked what I saw enough to want to become a Postulant in the Society of Mary, which was the first step toward becoming a member of that religious order. It was also a chance for the powers that be to see if they thought me an acceptable candidate, though that idea came to me only later, after several years had passed.

One of the Brothers picked up me and another boy whose name is lost in the fog of time and off we went to Kirkwood, an old established satellite community southwest of the City of St. Louis. Right off the bat we were each assigned to the care and supervision of a Maryhurst freshman. Mine was Gerry M., a tall, gangly slightly overweight boy who had a sweet smile and a quiet, even disposition. We hit it off immediately despite the great difference in size and temperament. He was over six feet tall and probably came close to 200 pounds. One of the first things we did after a brief orientation indoors was to tour the grounds.

By way of introduction, prior to 1920 Maryhurst had been the country estate of a rich industrialist named Brown who was an amateur but serious horticulturalist and silvaculturalist. He had an abiding love for trees, shrubs, and flowers and sufficient money to indulge himself fabulously by transforming the previously unremarkable rolling uplands into a storybook garden. He converted a large portion of the not quite 100 acres into an arboretum, which he called Brownhurst (hurst being the German word for forest), featuring plants from all over the world, even exotic orchids. After the Marianists acquired the property, much of the original equipment and facilities remained and were put to a variety of uses in the newly renamed Maryhurst Preparatory School, which was a boarding school where the boys lived from mid-August through mid-June.

By 1958, Maryhurst was a boys’ paradise filled with baseball diamonds, soccer-football fields, tennis-basketball courts, swimming pool, park-like woods, apple orchards, modern print shop, and fields of potatoes, strawberries, corn, beans, carrots, lettuce, etc. And even a chicken house with assorted feathery residents busily providing eggs. The front part of the property was dominated by the main building, a five-story, reddish brick structure that resembled a less architecturally complex and much more attractive version of Chaminade High School, a Marianist institution several miles to the north in the City of Frontenac. To the first-time youthful visitor it was an awesome sight. As you entered the property on a gently curving drive from South Kirkwood Road, ball fields were on the right and a large forested park filled with maple, hickory, pine, and oak trees was on the left. Owing to the profusion of trees, the building could not be seen clearly until you were almost on top of it.

That first sight is forever burned into my memory. Towering above and seemingly into the distance it was, and remains in my mind’s eye, one of the more impressive buildings I have seen, although nothing of its architecture could be called remarkable or even distinctive. The brick was dark reddish brown and the shape of the building vaguely a 1920s institutional gothic, but at the same time it was warm and non-threatening. It occupied a gentle rise amid a sea of greenery punctuated by flowery jewels cared for by the postulants, under the mock-stern eye of Brother Frank Perk, an older Working Brother who functioned as the chief gardener and farmer. The formal front of the building contrasted with the relaxed atmosphere of the rear, with the kitchen, scullery, receiving area, and curving service drive where I later learned to play volleyball and the most viciously competitive game of four-square (also known as bounce-ball) ever witnessed.

On the day of the tour my guide, Gerry M., led me all over the grounds. Among the sights were a number of structures located several hundred yards from the main building. Almost hidden by a grove of enormous evergreen and oak trees was an old wooden tower that served fifty years before as a vertical greenhouse. Gerry said that Bro. Frank had told him that the lower stories were part hothouse and part nursery and the upper were used for storage and contained a complex, mechanical system that may have watered orchids and other delicate, tropical plants.

Naturally, the second I laid my eyes on this incredible structure I was fiercely determined to explore the inside. Equally naturally, Gerry told me it was locked, no doubt wanting to protect himself in case anything went wrong. But that meant nothing to me. I was certain he wanted to get inside as much as I did but was afraid to risk the consequences. I never hesitated. After all, I was an invited guest. A visitor. What could they do to me, even if I violated the rules? All I had to do was to plead ignorance, especially if Gerry was cool enough to keep his mouth shut.

I climbed the steps and tried the door. Sure enough, it was locked. As soon as I saw the little smirk on Gerry’s face I knew I’d be inside within three minutes. Having smashed many windows in the course of my young life (and also having learned to replace the glass properly under the lash of my father’s harsh gaze and impatient instructions) I knew how to take them apart as well. Using my trusty Boy Scout knife — which was always in my pocket and was not against school regulations to carry it, different times indeed — to pry a strip of old, brittle putty loose, I simply pried a lower pane out of the glass panel in the door, and carefully set it on the step. I then reached through the opening and released the lock from the inside. In less than a minute I was standing triumphantly in the middle of the first floor in the building.

Poor Gerry stood on the small porch for a couple seconds, locked in the horns of a nasty dilemma. If he followed me in he was in deep shit for breaking the rules. But if he didn’t and I got hurt while he stood uncertainly outside with his thumb up his ass not knowing what to do, then he would be in really serious trouble. So he quickly followed me in, determined to keep me out of as much trouble as was humanly possible. Ha! Little did he know, as later years at Maryhurst would prove.

We walked around every floor, finding a junkman’s paradise. Flower pots of all sizes lined the stairs and the landings. Old, dusty, cob-webbed equipment was everywhere. Neither of us had a clue as to what it was originally used for and didn’t care. In the middle of a bone-fide adventure you don’t stop to pose unanswerable questions.

It didn’t take us more then a few minutes to get all the way to the top floor — it was either the sixth or seventh story. In the middle of the nearly empty room was a rickety ladder leading to a trap door in the roof. In a blink of an eye we were standing together at the top of the ladder, peering out the trap door we had forced open over the landscape below. We were rewarded with an incredible view that with passing time has ceased to exist. The old farm buildings looked strangely out of proportion from that perspective, so radically different from the way they appeared a few minutes before as we walked past them.

The entire grounds of Maryhurst and far beyond spread out like a blanket before us. Visually, it was a magic carpet ride. The roof of the main building floated in a sea of green trees. A group of Postulants playing baseball looked ridiculously small and downtown Kirkwood, about a mile distant, was all but obscured by early spring vegetation and by topography’s swells and swales.

When we finally came to our senses and wandered down from the tower we were tired yet thrilled by our adventure. Cobwebs and dust stains covered our clothes so we cleaned off very carefully because I didn’t want Gerry to get into trouble, and neither did he. He made me promise not to tell anyone what we had done or, “It will be my ass,” as he succinctly put it. I remember being so impressed by his casual use of vulgarity that I momentarily forgot my excitement. What he couldn’t know was that I had been hiding all sorts of good times from my parents and was already an expert in dummying-up around authority figures.

The rest of my impressions of that day are vague. I sat in a study hall for an hour reading a novel while everyone around me did homework. The desk was one of those relics from the 1930s, attached by long wooden runners to the desk in front and the one behind. Each desk had an inkwell for old-fashioned ink pens and a hinged lid that lifted straight in the air so the monitor at the front of the room could see instantly if you were opening it to retrieve some contraband. That’s about all I recall of that magical day but that experience was more than enough to make up my mind. I was ready for a new high school.

On Floods and Humans

The recent floods on the Mississippi River captured my interest and have pushed me into reflecting on a number of things. One, of course, is how stupid we are to build in what is so demonstrably a natural hazard zone. A second is how stupid we are to build levees and water control structures that guarantee flooding will only get worse in the future.

After thinking about those two elements it struck me that they are related in a way I had not initially realized. With new insight I see in my mind’s eye that both forms of stupidity combine to indicate a fundamental flaw in humans that does not bode well for the species or for the Earth.

As a species we are blind to future consequences of our actions because we are blinded by what we as individuals want now. Humans are capable only of recognizing and acting on the demands of the individual in the present. It’s all about our uncontrolled “needs” and desires that amounts to types of narcissism and hubris and indifference to other things all rolled into one colossal species specific reality.

We know what we want and do not care what we have to do, what we have to destroy, to get it. We as a group do not care what our actions are doing to and will do to the environment. As a few specific individuals, maybe, which is why we have organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council or the Sierra Club. Yes, those liberal, idiot tree huggers.

But as a group we don’t give a rat’s ass. That’s exactly why the forests of Europe are gone. Why the Aral Sea is shrinking into nothingness. Why Lake Texcoco is gone. Why the Great American Prairie is gone. Why carrier pigeons, buffalo, and beaver are gone or nearly gone. Why the Everglades is no longer a viable ecosystem.

Because we want what we want and have the ability to take it and fuck the consequences. Which is why we face drastic times in the near-, mid-, and long-term future with global warming. We are blinded by what we want now.

The other day I drove to the grade school our children attended. My little Hyundai was surrounded by a herd of monster SUVs and vans. Dozens and dozens of SUVs and vans and practically no mid-sized or compact cars. We don’t give a shit about energy consumption or pollution in our daily lives. Not really. If we did no one would be driving those monsters. And that’s exactly why global warming has our future by the throat. Because the future is not present to us today. We only know what we want now and are able to grab.

The future isn’t real. Only now is real. Let someone else worry about the future. We’re too busy living in the present to give a shit.

GEOSCIENCES SOURCE BOOK — Definitions with Daffynitions

Abyssal Zone             Dark ocean region ranging from 6,500 feet to 19,500 feet deep with temperatures less than 39° F. About three-fourths of the deep-ocean floor lies in this zone, which is too far from the surface for photosynthesis to take place. Once believed to be devoid of life, the abyssal zone is actually home to an assortment of highly adapted and specialized fish and crustaceans, some of which are blind but others have evolved their own light sources. Daffynition: Don’t need to define it since you’ve been seen in bars just like it trying to hook up with some bottom dweller.

Acadian Orogeny               Convergent mountain-building event that occurred around 425 million years ago (Devonian) in which continental slivers accreted to the eastern edge of what is properly termed the Proto-North American continent (Laurentia). The Orogeny occurred when the Avalonian island arc, moving northwest, and Baltica (Proto Western Europe), moving west, crashing against the southward-Laurentia, creating the northern Appalachian mountains. The event is also known as the Appalachian or Avalonian Orogeny. Author’s Note: With the suturing of Laurentia and Baltica, the Acadian Orogeny marked the beginning of the closure of the southern Iapetus Ocean and the formation of Pangaea. Daffynition: Though we’ve all had an orogeny or two I don’t think many of them ever built up to the Acadian level. But I wish.

Accordant Summits               Ranges of hills or mountain peaks that have the same or nearly the same elevation; part of William Morris Davis’s no longer accepted erosion cycle concept in which a raised peneplain is eventually eroded into a series of peaks with about the same elevation. Daffynition: Well, maybe I should just let this one pass in a rare exercise in good judgment.

Accreted Terrane               Block of land that collided with a continent at a convergent margin and stayed attached to the continent; terrane that did not form at its present location on a continent. Real World Examples: the Canadian Cordillera, Franciscan Mélange in southern California, the Klamath Mountains in Oregon, and the Endicott Mountain in Alaska’s Brooks Range in Gates of the Arctic National Park are wonderful illustrations. Author’s Note: But, wait. Here’s an interesting question. From whence came the basement of Florida? Answer: Gondwanan origin for the pre-Cretaceous basement of Florida is thought likely from a study of U-Pb ages<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--> (515 Mya to 2860 Mya) for single zircons separated from subsurface samples of lower Paleozoic sandstone of the Suwannee basin (in Alachua County around Gainesville) and the Neo-Proterozoic Osceola granite (in Osceola County, which lies south of Orlando). The two dominant zircon age groupings correspond age-wise to the Pan-African and Birimian or Eburnian (Africa) and to the Brasiliano and Trans-Amazonian (South America) orogenic cycles, clearly placing the basement of Florida in Gondwanaland near the West African or Trans Amazonian-San Luis cratons in the early Paleozoic. Hey, and you thought you knew all about the Sunshine State. Daffynition: Some scrofulous jerk who’s attached himself to a young hottie in a watering hole, party, or concert just will not let go.

Accretionary Heating        Thermal energy resulting from bolide impacts upon a planetary surface. Daffynition: What you feel for that delicious young thing that keeps on growing on you.

Acid Precipitation          See acid rain. Daffynition: “Yo, dude, it’s fucking raining LSD.”

Acre-foot                   Volume of water required to cover one acre of land to a depth of one foot. One acre-foot is equal to 43,560 cubic feet, or 325,851 gallons, or 1,233 cubic meters, or a shit-load of water any way you measure it. Real World Example: When farmers irrigate their fields they typically use between two and four acre-feet per year per growing season, depending on their geographic location, climate, and crop needs. So, if you are a flower grower in Maricopa County (in the thirsty Sonoran Desert) west of Phoenix with 700 acres of roses that you continuously crop, since the growing season lasts all year, it’s easy to figure out how much of that liquid gold you’ll need to bring the crops to harvest, assuming three to four crops per year. Daffynition: The size your foot feels after someone has just shoved it up your ass.

Advancing Glacier             Large ice mass that accumulates snow/ice at a rate that results in the lower edges being pushed outward and downward. Daffynition: Total dork moving in your direction at a hot singles bar, chilling everything around as it creeps along.

Aeolian Landform              Landforms produced by the deposition or erosion of weathered surface materials by wind including, among others, the following landforms: erg, sand dunes in general, deflation hollows, reg, and desert pavement. Daffynition: inert mass that lays around waiting to get blown (Yes, Sister, I know the proper verb tense).

Agate                Very fine grained (cryptocrystalline), translucent type of variegated chalcedony quartz that forms in concentric layers or bands in a wide variety of colors and textures; translucent microcrystalline variety of quartz usually found as striped or banded filings in cavities of volcanic and other rocks; often found as a round nodule, with concentric bands like the rings of a tree trunk. Author’s Note: The type known as moss agate features very delicate, dendritic-like patterns that resemble moss. Agates are frequently associated with opal. Many agates are cut and polished as semi-precious stones or as art objects. The word is derived from Middle English and Old French by way of the Romans, who borrowed it from the Greek, akhates. Daffynition: The nickname of some lame-ass Texas college football team.

Agglomerate               Pyroclastic rock comprised of a chaotic assemblage of coarse angular volcanic fragments cemented by a matrix of volcanic ash. Daffynition: Assemblage of coarse jerks who always seem cemented to the hottest babe in the bar.

Agglutinate              1) Pyroclastic deposit consisting of an accumulation of originally plastic ejecta that were welded together by molten glassy materials. 2) Fragmented foraminifer tests cemented together. Daffynition: Depositional process largely affecting female college freshmen. Used as the verb, to agglutinate.

Air Blast             Physical effects, including sudden, high winds and enormous overpressure, produced on the Earth’s surface by a relatively large meteorite that had been burned up in the atmosphere; this type of blast can be more powerful than a Category 5 hurricane, as powerful as a moderate sized nuclear explosion, and is capable of destroying natural and built landscapes. Real World Example: On June 30, 1908, an air blast from a meteorite struck near the Stony Tunguska River in Siberia, about 55 miles north of Vanavara, devastating 800 square miles, felling nearly all the natural vegetation, including thousands of acres of evergreen forests. The force of the explosion has been estimated at 40 megatons of TNT, or 2,000 times the force of the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima in 1945. Daffynition: What you feel after getting rejected by the hottie of your dreams.

Air Pollution             Toxification of the atmosphere through the addition by means of human agency of one or more noxious substances in concentrations high enough to be hazardous to humans, other animals, vegetation, or natural materials. Author’s Note: The term pollution includes particulate emissions, industrial aerosols, nitrous oxide emissions, smog, formation of ozone layers, etc. Daffynition: Alert issued after the fat guy sitting in front of you rips an ugly one.

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<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--> Source: P.A. Mueller, A.L. Heatherington, R.. Shuster, J.L. Wooden, A.P. Nutman, and I. Williams. “Precambrian zircons from the Florida basement: A Gondwanan connection.” Geology, vol. 21: pp. 119-122, 1994.