Another off-topic post on feminism (sorry): This time, empowerment

I should really post my part two to my Natural History Museum adventure but I think there's something I need to get off my chest.

Whenever you're part of a movement you expect to be burnt at some point. I was burnt very recently by a group of feminists who decided that my disagreement with the letter of their feminism was trolling, being miss-informed etc etc. It got very personal (mocking my use of English as an example, because apparently grammatically correct full sentences are a crime (I seriously don't know what the person's problem was, I made one typo and corrected it)) and I did not like it. In fact it made me want to stop engaging in feminist debate, and that's hard to do on the internet or anywhere else for that matter. (If you wish to see the thread you can't, someone deleted it... Talk about invalidation of feelings; the hurtful thing no longer exists. I'll come back to that later).

But here's something I think I can post about because it's egalitarian enough. Empowerment.
Firstly, power and the gaining of power, always means different things to different people. Empowerment can mean gaining control and leadership, the power to make others do as you ask, having the feeling of total agency in your life or just being told you can do something, those are all types of empowerment and I've not named them all.

But the word empowerment's been batted around a lot recently in relation to female celebrities and females in music videos (I'll not insult your pop culture knowledge by saying who, we all know who and which videos). And there's been a lot of talk about whether these women are being empowered, or whether they really feel empowered, or whether they are lying or been tricked by the patriarchy etc etc.

Here's my axe to grind (listen well internet):

Who the four-letter-word (chose-one-you-like) are the rest of us to debate whether or not these women feel empowered. 

Yes, you can debate all day long whether they are empowered but feel empowered, come the four-letter-word (chose-another-one-or-stick-with-the-last) on! To argue whether a woman feels empowered by being topless is to argue whether a couple are actually in love or not after they've said 'I love you'.

Sorry, words mean things and if you think that a person cannot select the right words to express how she feels, well, where's the oppression? It's us! It's us (the people) saying 'no, no, you can't possibly feel that because you are oppressed by the patriarchy!' We (the people) are actively trying to invalidate someone's own feelings. Active Listening 101 training, you do not invalidate how someone feels.

Now I'm not saying that there aren't societal standards and societal expectations for what constitutes empowerment, but isn't that what feminist movements and egalitarianism is trying to fight against? Aren't those movements meant to be striving for a way that everyone can reach the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? (I wrote an essay years ago on those in relation to youth work, you can read it if you like!)
At the top of that pyramid is self-actualisation which we could probably translate as empowerment to be who you want to be and be the best of it.

And it's probably now that's a good moment to point out that not everyone is the same, people are confined (oppressed if you will) by different amounts. A multi-millionaire singer has a lot more agency in her life than a single mother with two children who is working full time. These singers have already broken through a glass ceiling, they are already successful people doing what they want to do. I don't see much in the way of oppression in the way we'd usually think of it for the average Joe or Jane on the street. (I'll come back to that).

Before I sign off I'll briefly mention the dark side of this topless-females-empowerment debate.  As I've already mentioned, empowerment means different things to different people, perhaps being topless is the most empowering thing for these women. After all, they are beautiful, talented and adored but they are also, on one level, controlled (told you I'd mention it again), told how to make money by the industry they are part of, ridiculed or praised by the media. They are influenced, although they don't always need to be. They have enough money and talent to make their own rules if they want. And many do. But for some doing something shocking is their rebellion, their liberation. And if that's how they feel about it, well ok then. But we do need to acknowledge that some of these acts of 'empowerment' are cynical PR strategies. And that's wrong. Not the act. The motivation.

A person's body is their own, not to be bought or sold or used for manipulation, and when something as potentially empowering as taking ownership of one's body becomes cynical marketing. Well, that just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth...

Krakens and Crystals: The Natural History Museum, London (Part 1)

And so the end of Summer arrived and finally the thing I'd been looking forward to all holiday had finally come. I got to go to those hallowed halls in Kensington. I finally got to visit The Natural History Museum.

The last time we tried to visit it had been the middle of the School Summer Holidays. For those unfamiliar with the setting and location of the museum imagine a great gothic-esque brick palace the length of the average British street surrounded by iron railings and overlooked by Embassies (the one closest to the South Ken. Tube station is the French one). And so with bubbling glee we'd headed across London those years ago only to discover the mother, farther, aunt, uncle and cousins of a queue of people. The queue snaked from the entrance, down one half of the building, out onto the street and then down the full length of the building along the pavement.
We did not join that back of that queue. Instead we found Kensington Park and got lost in Sloane-Ranger town, Belgravia were the pavements are just for show.

Years passed (it's been a while since I've been in London proper for more than a day or so) and this time it was it. Visit to the Natural History Museum round 2 was on! And it being during term time all the dino-obsessed five-year olds would be in school rooms up and down the country and I might actually get to see the exhibits.
OK, so the dinos were on holiday (their words not mine, the exhibition was being renovated) as was the earthquake and volcano galleries but that wasn't going to stop me jolly well enjoying the great cathedral to natural science.

Firstly, you have to hand it to the Victorians, we just don't make buildings like they used to. I was astounded by the place itself. Archways and pillars were decorated with birds, plants, fish, the heads of rams. Great Wooden cases stretched from floor the ceiling, the windows were high, flooding each room with as much daylight at possible. The space itself was stunning.

If I sound a little giddy with flowery language this might be because while in London I have been reading a rather interesting book that sparked my imagination more than most I've read recently.

My sister had brought with her on holiday a book she was planning on reading in preparation for next term (like the diligent student that she is, naturally). She had started it but had already got frustrated with the pace (the start doesn't exactly draw you in, partly because the start lulls you into a false sense of normality) so naturally I wanted to take a look, nearly 300 pages later (still not finished) I was enthralled. (No I'm not a bad sister, she wasn't snatching it back from me to read it herself).

Kraken by China Mievelle (yeah I thought he was a she too) concerns itself with the theft and cult-worship of the Giant Squid (Architeuthis dux) that is actually housed within The Natural History Museum. Perhaps there's something both attractive and repulsive about something so Other that makes the book so captivating. I believe there's a saying about what we are most fascinated by is that which we most fear. If that's true I clearly was harbouring an unknown fear for giant squid. As a novelty its definitely a recommended read, just don't expect to necessarily like it.

That's all for now for my intro, my next post will concern itself with the collections proper!

----

Quotation of the day from the trip: "Oh no, not more rocks!" - said by a disgruntled family member... aww, bless.

When non-erupting volcanoes make the news...

The massif is the light blue (indicating shallow bathymetry) object located about
centrally between Southern Japan and the Emperor Island Chain.
You can see Mauna Loa at the end of the Hawaiian Chain (bottom right) for comparison)

Twenty years. That's a flipping long time to work out whether a volcano's a volcano or more than one volcano. But geologists have come to conclusion, yes, after 20 years since it was first discovered, that Tamu Massif is one giant, British Isle sized, single vent, shield volcano in the Pacific Ocean, 1000 miles East of Japan.
A staggering 119,000 square miles in area, 2.2 miles high and extends down 18 miles into the Earth, this beauty erupted 144 million years ago and dwarfs Earth's current largest active volcano Mauna Loa. It's so gigantic it's almost on the scale of Olympus Mons on Mars (fun fact below about that volcano). That actually surprised me because I recall Prof. Brian Cox discussing at length in Wonders of the Universe that a massive volcano like Olympus Mons could not support itself on planet Earth because our gravity is too great. Presumably there's a decent explanation!

In other news, international collaboration has meant extensive monitoring of a volcano very few people have heard of.

Mount Paektu (no I've not heard of it either by that or any of it's other, many names) straddles the border of China and North Korea. It's last '1000 year event' in 940 AD was on a scale that was only matched by the Tambora eruption of 1815 AD (which was scientifically termed 'super-colossal' in case you weren't fully aware). Actually, the last explosive event at Mount Paektu occurred in 1903. With a recurrence cycle of about 100 years and recent increased seismic activity naturally volcanologists are concerned.
But it's a proud day for science triumphing over politics for the greater good with volcanologists from the UK, US and North Korea working together. (See full article for details).

Fun fact about Olympus Mons:

Mars was, prior to the space age, the only other celestial body besides the Earth and Moon in close enough proximity to us to be mapped.
As a result a bit of creative naming and a lot of mythology surrounds Mars and its features; Olympus Mons being one of them. It was first identified as a bright spot 20 degrees North of the Martian Equator and was dubbed Nix Olympica. This feature's name was artistically translated as 'the Olympian Snows' by Isaac Asimov in an essay of the same name (it's probably more like 'Olympic snow' but the former is, granted, a more aesthetically pleasing phrase). It was photography from Mariner 9 in 1971 that revealed there was no snow on Nix Olympica, but instead it was one, gigantic, volcano. Perhaps a more impressive thing! Soon after this discovery the volcano was renamed Olympus Mons. A fitting name for the biggest volcano discovered in the Solar System.

References:
Tamu Massif map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/EmperorSeamounts.jpg
Telegraph article on Tamu Massif: 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/10291350/Worlds-largest-volcano-discovered-on-Pacific-floor.html
BBC article on Mount Paektu: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23981001
Wikipedia article on Mount Paektu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Paektu
Definition of the Volcano Explosivity Index scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VEI
Asimov, I., 1976, The Planet That Wasn't: The Olympian Snows, Sphere Books Ltd.

Mistakes

I feel kind of sad to discover that the myth that Persian rug makers put deliberate mistakes into their rugs to show respect to Allah is just that, a myth. I liked the idea that skilled artisans that probably didn't knowingly make mistakes in their craft felt the need to muddy the potential perfection of their craft by introducing a mistake. In our mind's eye, anything we make will be perfect. Reality just get's in the way.
    Some people would argue that the 'deliberate mistake' is something of an arrogance. Make a deliberate mistake because an accidental one couldn't possibly happen. I instead like to think of the 'deliberate mistake' as a kind of prayer. A stitch knitted when it should have been purled, the wrong coloured thread on a tapestry. That action feels like an acknowledgement to God that the skills, talents if you like to draw that parable parallel, are God-given. To the person who later finds the mistake perhaps they too will think on the devotion of the maker of the item and perhaps their own spirituality.

    OK, I now feel inclined to link this in with science.
A true scientist of the scientific method must admit mistakes. If they collect data that contradicts their hypothesis they must admit that this is what they find. There should be no shame also in admitting they made an error in an experiment. Something broke, someone read a figure out wrong. To quote The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy book 4 So long and thanks for all the fish by Douglas Adams:

"But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting.”  - Wonko the Sane

While looking for that exact quote I also found this one by Jules Verne from Journey to the Centre of the Earth:

“Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.” 

Too much science it seems, especially in geology these days, is firmly set in dogma. People don't admit they are wrong after being shown evidence to the contrary. Data is manipulated. Lines are drawn in the sand. 

The deliberate mistake is not searched for. The null hypothesis isn't sort.

When I was at high school we were taught to calculate errors in every possible way. The errors of the ruler, the container, how much liquid was lost in transference, how actuate the mass balance was.

There's no such thing as a 5 sigma error test in geology like there is in physics. More shame on us.

Why we need sci-fi: An amble on the topic.

Thinking about the formative books of my late teenage years several of them were science or speculative fiction. Ben Elton's Blind Faith, Orwell's classic 1984 and Ray Bradbury's off-kilter, chilling vision of parlour walls and firemen Fahrenheit 451 shaped my view of the world a lot. They also scared the living daylights out of me.

Strangely I believe that sci-fi manages to frequently go to darker places than any other genre. The horror of a spin-chiller is solely contained within the pages of the book. Although a few nightmares of monsters and murders may follow those terrors are primarily cathartic. We observe horror in film or read it in books, it maybe part of humanity we find distasteful or bestial, we can then examine it within the story and by the end we feel a release, a purging of the emotions associated with secret shames or untold fears. Not being a fan of scares like that I can only comment on other commentary I've heard on the matter (video game commentary actually of the likes of Silent Hill 2) but I think that is the basic psychology behind horror.
Science fiction does not offer that catharsis, if anything the reader is left with a sense of unease at what they have read.

Before I continue I should say that yes, not all science fiction does this. Space Westerns like Star Wars, Star Trek and Firefly or serials like Doctor Who are a little more light-hearted and fanciful but even they manage social commentary in a futuristic or alternative technology setting. (No I will not go into whether Star Wars is true sci-fi right now. However, I will say that some of the more recent novels have certainly elevated the series with more social commentary than usual including elements such as what a Sith meritocracy looks like and whether the Dark Side is grounds enough to plea diminished responsibility to a murder).

Science fiction has often been viewed as the purview of the nerd, geek and cult follower. Things like The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy are often referred to as 'Cult Classics'. Most people will admit they have one favoured romance book, action flick, historical television show et cetera but science fiction  may be dismissed in its entirety. Which is a shame because sci-fi is not just robots, mad scientists and aliens. In fact in what you would call 'hard' sci-fi these things might be present but not the focus. They are narrative devices. Sci-fi is probably one of the most 'message' heavy genres out there because a lot of it is allegory.

1984: Fears of communism
District 9: Apatite South Africa
Do androids dream of electric sheep?/Blade Runner: What makes a person human?
X-men: Social issues of race and sexuality oppression and phobia.
Ghost in the Shell: The internet as the new primeval pools of life and trans-humanism
Ender's Game: Are all things fair in (love and) war?
And that shouldn't be seen as a bad thing, far from it. Allegory is a way into thinking about issues by introducing them through a narrative.

Today I read in a newspaper (code name: The Tea-leaf-graph) that three Shakespeare plays now have to be taught as part of English before GCSE. Setting aside for a moment the limited selection of appropriate plays that one can teach to a 12 year old (is this a dagger I see before me?/A rose by any other name/ If he was in my books I would burn my study maybe?) I fear this is removing space for other genres to be taught.

(My next point requires a bit of set up, bare with me). Now I went through reading Lord of the Flies kicking and screaming (seriously, what is with that pig's head?!) and the less said about Cold Mountain the better, but Regeneration by Pat Barker was a revelation for me (yes I did actually do A Level English, non, je ne regrette rien). I was introduced to a kind of fiction I never thought I would enjoy. For those unfamiliar, Regeneration is a World War I semi-biographic work about Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen during their time at Craiglockhart Mental Hospital. For me, the book was a way into Sassoon and Owen's real poetry and prose as well as giving me a better feel for life for the mentally ill at the time. It also taught me that just because a book might not sound my cup of tea doesn't mean a darn thing!

I really hope that perhaps a classic piece of sci-fi will make it's way into the English curriculum alongside the compulsory Shakespeare and give some young people the opportunity to discover a book, and genre, they probably never thought they'd like.

DVD extras:

Books I would suggest as one's to be taught in schools (with approximate age ratings):

1984 by George Orwell. 16 years and up for the best level of appreciation.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. 14 and up (younger if the children are fairly mature).
Star Wars: Truce at Bakura Kathy Tyers. (11 and up) Don't laugh! Everyone's seen Star Wars and this follows on directly for Return of the Jedi. It has some interesting ideas about the human soul and mind control.
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. (13 and up, or basically over an age where a child can hear the word 'sex' without giggling uncontrollably).
Anything by H.G. Wells or Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov. (I wouldn't include my favourite non-Douglas-Adams sci-fi author in this list though, because Philip. K. Dick is a bit.... odd).

Scotty, beam me up!

Broadband seismometers meme

Yeah, this is one of mine... Yes, I know it's bad...

To make up for it, here's the 8th funniest joke from the Edinburgh Fringe 2013 by Liam Williams:

The Universe implodes. No matter.

Hi ho Silver, away!

Ah, the Lone Ranger.... or as Jasper Carrot once pointed out, the Lone Ranger... and Tonto. (Yes my last post was a bit heavy, so time to lighten the mood)
Despite warnings to the contrary by American critics I went and saw the new 'Lone Ranger' film anyway. And despite its narrative short comings (which is the main issue) it sort of played out like a live action cartoon complete with implausible survival from ridiculous injuries and a quasi-supernatural horse. The plot about maybe-maybe-not-cursed silver was silly but at least I wasn't bored at any particular point which is at least a point in its favor.
    But I'm not here to review the film more use it as a jumping off point to talk about precious metals and silver in particular.

Gold, Silver, Platinum and the more exotic Palladium and Rhodium very much call to mind a certain romance. Throughout human history where ever precious metals have been located humans have coveted it. It's quite easy to tell if an element was known about by an ancient people because it usually don't have an '-ium' on the end of the name. Copper, lead, zinc, tin, sulphur, iron et cetera as well as gold and silver have been known about for a good number of years either because the element was found in a native, pure, form (like silver) or was easily liberated from an ore. Silver is found, often, with native copper although several ores exist.

So here's a few quick (fairly) interesting facts about silver (no not the horse):

1. Many silver compounds, including silver nitrate, are used in photography development.

2. Mirrors were often made by 'silvering' glass. During 19th century silvering was produced by the direct coating of silver onto the glass surface. The process is quite simple, requiring a few chemicals that will cause the precipitation of silver onto roughed glass (to provide a surface of deposition).

3. High quality wind instruments will often have solid silver mouth pieces or whole bodies for superior sound quality.

4. Silver has anti-bacterial properties. You might have noticed silver plasters for cuts in pharmacies.

5. Sterling silver bares the hallmark '925'. Pure silver is marked as 999. Since this is a total out of 1000 (the millesimal system), sterling silver is therefore 92.5% pure silver with the remaining 7.5% often made up with copper. Silver is alloyed like this to improve silver's relatively soft nature.

6. Silver bullets are quite popular in fiction. In myth a werewolf can only be killed using silver bullets. The Lone Ranger also carried silver bullets to symbolize how valuable a life is.

And we're back around to the Lone Ranger again,

Hi, ho, Silver, away! 

An open letter to the 'frack off' community

Dear Frack-Offers,
                            I'm going to assume that the majority of you do not live in a cave or wooden hut, wear hemp and wool only and use candles (beeswax not paraffin) for lighting. I'm going to assume you own a phone, probably traveled to your protest site by a means of transport that wasn't walking or bareback horse riding and have drunk out of a plastic bottle at some point.

    We live in the Oil Age, just as our ancestors lived in the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. Almost every part of our modern lives is fueled in some way by oil. It is unfortunate but many of the wonderful things about life today, plastics, medicine, the internal combustion engine require drilling for oil. And yes, it is a finite resource. But tell me, if we do not drill for oil in this country, under some of the strictest laws and regulations on the planet, where would you like to get your oil from?
    Your answer would probably be either, 'nowhere' or 'not here'. Neither of those are particularly selfless recommendations. Until we perfect cold fusion or whatever is the next big breakthrough in energy we need oil. Yes, we should recycle, lower our energy usage and really think about whether driving to work and school is necessary but we will still need oil even if that is the case. Just less of it. (If, by the way, you are part of the NIMBY lot, I've nothing to say to you except people in Saudi Arabia probably don't like having whacking great oil refineries all over their landscape).

    Now to the crux of my letter, so I hope you're sitting comfortably,
I am a geologist. I have study geology formally for five year of my life and have held a keen interest in it for probably nearly 15 years. I don't say this so I can pretend I am qualified to pass judgment on the situation. No, I tell you this to prove I am a scientist and apply logic, knowledge and the scientific method to things and that my knowledge is mainly based in geology.
    Here's a home truth: Fracking causing earthquakes because any breaking of a rock below ground produces thermal and seismic energy which we would call an 'earthquake'. But, do you know how big an earthquake has to be to actually be felt by a human? 2 on the Local Magnitude (Richter) Scale. Do you know what size most fracking earthquakes are? In the negative numbers, -2, -1 etc. Richter, who made the Local Magnitude scale thought that any earthquake less than 1 (a size only rarely felt by humans) would be so insignificant as to not be relevant.

    Now, the larger quake in Blackpool I can't pass much comment on as I've not read any literature on the causes of the quake or what people think happen but that kind of event is not likely and not supposed to be a regular event when fracking happens. Besides, the UK government is currently enforcing a policy of no fracking. I mean, what more do you want? As old and as fractured as Britain is, it is also extremely well mapped, geologically. A company knows what they are drilling into and, wait for it, will always mitigate risks to the environment, people and their workers because they are legally obligated to do so, and also for the sake of any future contracts they may wish to acquire.
     Cuadrilla is not fracking at the site you are protesting. They are drilling an exploration well for oil and even admit the site might not go into full scale production at all. Also, and this may have escaped your notice, the company does not possess a licence to frack at the site.

Please, go home. Leave Cuadrilla alone. Groups like the RSPB who have real concerns about drilling occurring within protected sites I sympathize with. After all, once a nature reserve has an oil well developed on it, there isn't a nature reserve there any more. And yes, mechanisms must be put in place to protect against contamination of ground water. But the type of individual who is prepared to brake into private property and use bully tactics through volume of numbers to get what they want, regardless of the cause, I do not sympathize with. I'm sorry.

Might I suggest you take a holiday to Dorset and visit the coast around Wytch farm instead?

Yours,

LostTimeLady, geologist

Here is the permits that Cuadrilla has for the site at Balcombe, East Sussex:  http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/our-sites/balcombe/

The chock cycle

My high school geology/geography/RE teacher (she taught a lot of subjects over the years, it was a small school with a lot of teacher overlap) used to do fun things with us in geology class including what she liked to call edible geology. This involved taking a geological concept and explaining it with food.

This one wasn't one of her ideas per se but does slightly borrow from her idea of how Mars bars are a good analogy for folding.

Also, before continuing know that I've made this for a bit of fun and any student of geology who happens across this should know that that is the case and bare that in mind!

OK, so first of the ground rules so to speak, how rocks and chocolate are similar:

Both can melt.
Both can be fractured or mechanically weathered.
Both have variable composition.
Both can be found in different forms.
Both have variations in colour and texture.
Both have a variable viscosity as they cool and solidify.
Both can be combined with other chocolate/rocks to form new rocks of variable composition. i.e. Magma mixing or those nice sea shell chocolates with the praline in the middle.

How chocolate and rocks aren't similar:
There's only a handful of rocks on the planet that make their way into foodstuffs. The main one is salt.

OK, so this is the rock cycle:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Rock_cycle.gif

So now with the ground work done let's think about the rock cycle:

Imagine your block of nice solid chocolate. What are the things you can do to it? (Apart from eat it!)

Well, you can grate it. This would be like mechanical weathering of a rock leading to particles that can be transported.

This grated material can be transported then compressed with minimum heat and temperature to form a new, if crumbly, slab or be set inside some kind of matrix, like on top of the icing on a cake. This represents a sedimentary rock.

Next you could deform the chocolate. Apply enough heat to cause folding but not for it to melt. This represents low grade metamorphism. If this happened to a rock it would still be identified as the original rock. If you really bent and squished the chocolate beyond all recognition this could be seen as higher grade metamorphism. Throw in some raisins and hazelnuts and you've got some fruit 'n' nut metamorphosed chocolate with porphyroblasts.

Finally, you can melt the chocolate. This would be your magma stage of a rock. In reality rocks don't so much melt due to a temperature rise than a fall in pressure causing melting. Think about it this way, you can boil water on top of Everest at 30 degrees because the pressure is much lower. The atmosphere is thinner. As mantle rock rises the temperature will remain within the rock because it's a poor conductor of heat but the pressure drop leads to melting.

But since this is the rock cycle there are many different ways all this can happen so I've made a handy chocolate diagram:

Now here's another thing about chocolate, it's called tempering.

Nice shiny chocolate with a crisp 'snap' is caused by the alignment of the fat molecules in the slab. If you melt the chocolate beyond a certain temperature the chocolate is no longer in 'temper' that is when it resets it will not set to a crisp shine and instead it will melt at room temperature! (Depending on your type of chocolate temper is about 40 degrees C, approximately). If you melt an igneous rock and cool it again the the same way you will get the same rock. But, if you cool it down differently you'll end up with a different grain size and rock texture. This is the reverse of the chocolate since it's the heating not the cooling that effects chocolate.

OK, so in the end not the most perfect analogy for the rock cycle but still fun to think about.

TTFN. 

Fun geology fact: A trilobite fossil is named after Harrison Ford's character from Star Wars, the fossil is called H. Solo. 

Non-Newtonian YouTube video playlist

I love Non-Newtonian fluids!
From the first time I saw the cornflour and water experiment to now, when my Masters project will focus on particle suspensions causing Non-Newtonian behavior in fluids I've been captivated.

Here's a playlist of some good videos on YouTube about it. It mainly focuses on shear-thickening behaviors but it's a good representation of how odd liquids can behave:

This is Veritasium's take on the cornflour/water mix on a speaker video and had a great analogy for shear-thickening by describing it like traffic in LA.

A three way comparison of water, silly putty and cornflour/water: http://youtu.be/bLiNHqwgWaQ 

Hank Green's Sci Show video on Non-Newtonian fluid

Some slow motion footage of impacts on cornflour/water mixtures.

Some more home economics level cornflour/water experiments.

Prof. Brain Cox talks about promoting science

A little off-topic once again but I think in keeping with the science theme of this blog.

I think it is desperately important for people of all ages to engage in science. Science isn't just that lesson you fell asleep in in High School because your teacher was a stuffy bore. It's live, relevant, exciting, constantly progressing.
When I was a small child I thought I couldn't be a scientist because everything had been discovered, gravity, electricity, wave-particle duality et cetera ... how wrong I was and woe betide any teacher who makes a child think otherwise!

Part of the reason why I chose the field of Earth Sciences as my subject (despite my love of bangs and sparks of physics and chemistry) is because at a grass roots, non-high powered electron microscope, level there are still discoveries to be made. Although I've discovered that high powered scanning electron microscopes do produce some intense images of samples. Like this:

This is a piece of volcanic ash

In recent times great advocates for science have appeared on television, the airways, the internet and in books. Chief among these is Professor Brian Cox of the University of Manchester. With his boyish good looks and a winning smile he's woo'ed the hearts of the nation and with any luck their ears too while he plainly, effectively and, most importantly, enthusiastically, shared his love of science.

I saw an article about the science shows being put on at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. One of the scientists doing a show and self-identifies as a nerd said this:

"We're trying to redefine nerd as not being someone who sits in their room and never talks to anyone.
Being a nerd is being unable to stop yourself communicating this cool stuff.
 We cannot conceive that people would not be interested in this stuff."
- Helen Arney

It's no surprise that enthusiasm for material is what gets other people engaged. It's infectious. 

I think back to the teachers I really loved in High School and I know that the reasons why I loved them and loved their subject is because they did too. They wanted to show us how cool their subject was, they bubbled with enthusiasm and where even more excited when you showed interest back. (I'm sure it must be crushing though to have people in your class who don't give a damn. I mean, I find it hard when my friends eyes glaze over when I talk about rocks).

But I promised Brian Cox so here he is giving a speech at the Institute of Physics after being presented with the President's Medal:

And if you want even more Brian Cox, here's his BBC programme 'A Night with the Stars':

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TQ28aA9gGo

Vive la Science!

References:

More info and origin of the ash picture: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/about/pglossary/ash.php

Science at The Fringe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23571166

A drastically off topic post on gender-blindness and gender-shaming...

Time for a change? Always!

So the new Doctor has been chosen for Doctor Who.
For the record, I loved him in Local Hero and think he's fearsome and intense in The Thick of It but I do remember when Chis regenerated into David and... ummm, I had very little clue who he was, partly because I wasn't into Doctor Who that much at the time (having only discovered it properly watching re-runs before 'A Christmas Invasion') and I think the excessive hype over the casting of future characters may just have reached fever pitch.

Case in point, the debate over whether the Doctor should have been a woman this time round...

Ugh...

Look, for years people labelled me as a feminist and my response was always 'no, I'm an equalist' (egalitarian) but this never worked so I gave up, threw my hands in the air and embraced the label in vain hope that perhaps I could do some good with it...
What I discovered when digging into feminist theory, especially that which is pervasive on the internet, was a group of people, chewing the cud, who think that misandry is progressive, would sooner moan than actually instigate political change and over-state trivialities while failing to focus on true inequalities (whether purely a female issue or just a people issue).

A truly equal society is meritocratic. Meritocracy as a pure concept therefore should be inherently gender-blind. I won't delve into the issue of CEOs and boardrooms because my point of view on it all is too liberal (read, not angry) and I don't want to be shot through the lungs by radical feminists.

So with that groundwork down, do I think the Doctor should have been a woman this time?
My answer: No.
Tokenism is a horrible thing and the exact opposite of a meritocratic system. If a woman had been chosen it wouldn't have been because they had done open casting for men and women and chosen the best out of a mixed line up. No, they would have auditioned only females. If the former had occurred I would probably say 'well, I will take what they give us' but I don't think that would happen. The choice to make the Doctor a woman would have been a narrative one before casting even would start.

Yes, I'm that cynical.

What I object to now in the fallout is the gender-shaming of Peter (this isn't even mentioning the producers' need to justify casting a white, British man, or the tittering about him being 'too old'. Good grief!)
To paraphrase the feeling of some people (read, some feminists):
"Oh look, another man being cast in the lead of a hit TV show, this is once again a sign of the institutional sexism in this patriarchy."
Quite.

What we need is good female characters in fiction not retrofitting a current one to be a woman.
Doctor Who has always had great female characters: Romana, Sarah Jane Smith, Rose Tyler, Harriet Jones (MP for Flydale North), Susan Forman, Barbara Wright, etc etc two of the above named were characters who sat in the highest seat of power possible (Romana as Madame President of the Time Lords and Harriet as Prime Minister!)

Sci-fi in general has a good track record for strong females (more so that a lot of genres) so what we really need to ask for is more well-written females for young girls to want to grown up to be and young boys to admire, in Doctor Who and other original stories. I'm hopeful on that count.

This is what the internet calls 'Rule 63':
gender-swapping characters to see what would happen. Ok...

References:
Picture 1: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llvt76J6vn1qk2h0eo1_500.jpg
Picture 2: http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/374/557/005.jpg

The only legitimate reaction to academic papers you don't understand....

It's been a long day. Maybe you've been doing revision, maybe you have an essay due and what are you faced with? A long, esoteric journal article that you just know contains the perfect piece of data/info/trivia-to-woo-your-marker-into-giving-you-a-first. But there's one tiny little problem...

You don't understand a single word written on the page because it's an esoteric journal article written by super-geniuses for the reading pleasure of other super-geniuses.

After the existential crisis of realising that if you can't ever understand this paper how will you ever know enough so that you too can also be a academic super-genius you conclude you have only one option left...

No, seriously, there is only one true reaction when all other options have failed you, and it is this...

Nah, I'm only joking, I just wanted to write a bit of satire before bed.

(The head-desk is courtesy of John Green, noted American Vlogbrother, thanks goes to a person on tumblr (probably) for making the .gif).

Getting a sense of scale.

xkcd, as many will know, is a web based comic on science, satire and (sometimes) silliness. But he also does some rather excellent info graphics, like this one. Note in particular the volume of the Marianas trench verses Mauna Kea! Slightly mind blowing...
(for a full size version go to: http://xkcd.com/1040/large/)

Blue John and other geological oddities in fiction

 



Recently a vein of fluorite (fluorospar if you're old-fashioned) has been rediscovered in the Castleton mine after 68 years. (See below for the link).
Blue John, a corruption of the French bleu-jaune, is so named after its distinctive purple-blue colour with yellowish banding. Personally to my eyes I've never really seen the blue in even good pieces of Blue John, more just extremely attractive shades of purple but apparently no one sees colours the same as someone else so I guess such debate is moot. (I've probably only seen one real piece of Blue John in the stone so to speak anyway).

Rare geological curios always seem to make their way into fiction, in fact one of my very-guilty pleasure reads, the Lovejoy novel, 'The ten word game' by Jonathan Gash features two Blue John pieces, Edwardian set Amethyst, the legendary Amber Room, a page on the rarity of early Russian set Alexandrite jewellery and why perfume is a killer for pearls (amongst other things).

The Koh-I-Noor has featured as a major plot device in an episode of 'Doctor Who'  for instance ('Tooth and Claw' for the interested) and thefts of rare diamonds, both fictional and non-fictional have featured in crime stories for many years. Quite a lot of gems have stories more romantic or gripping than many made up tales.

Gems, with their great wealth and rarity are symbols throughout fiction.
In 'Stardust' by Neill Gaiman the symbol of power of the Stormhold thrown rests in a Topaz crystal. In the 'Lord of the Rings' Aragorn possesses the Ring of Barahir ("Two serpents with emerald eyes. One devouring, the other crowned with golden flowers.") which represents his true heritage, and, in the film adaptation, he carries the Evenstar given to him by Arwen half-elf as a symbol of their love.

But there's one geological oddity that doesn't get much good press in fiction and that is geologists themselves. Often portrayed as a stereotype, the film geologist is slightly dorky, often bearded and never the hero. There's no 'Indiana Jones' of geology. At least not yet. (The closest we've come is probably the faux-docu-drama 'Supervolcano' produced by the BBC).

You could argue the reason for this is that geology just doesn't have the same romantic history as Archaeology. True for every five digs outside Cairo that Archaeologists dug during the Edwardian there was only one geologist... and he was probably walking around a muddy field in Scotland being paid by the mile of geological contact he found. (You could also make some jokes about a film about geology moving at a glacial pace but that would be mean).

Now I'm not here bemoaning the lack of geologists in fiction. I'm sure a lot of professionals whose professions are represented in literature and television cringe at the miss-representation so I'm certainly not asking for that. My point is more that it's nice to see the very romantic side of geology, gemmology, enriching literature. Perhaps the mention of a Alexandrite necklace in a book might be just enough to lead someone to find out about the Russian emerald trade and Tsar Alexander II.

It's like that word association game....
Black,
White,
Snow,
Cold,
Antarctica,
Ice,
Diamonds,
Jewels,
Queen Elizabeth,
Prince George... (Sorry, couldn't resist since everyone else is going on about him!)

I might write again soon on other geological curios in fiction et cetera.

References:

The Blue John mine discovery: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-23559735
Blue John bowl picture: http://www.bluejohn-cavern.co.uk/products/blue-john-bowl.php

Funny latin names... I mean, they've discovered a new dinosaur!

So after my quick moan about pay walls for journal articles in my last post I'm happy to announce that this time the article in question is free, yay!
(here's the link: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1766/20131186
also, ooo! it's in the proceedings of the Royal Society, classy!)

Ok, so to the topic in question:
Nasutoceratops titusi or if you'd rather it in English, 'that there dino with a big nose, horn-face'. No seriously it translates as 'big nose, horn-face'.
Well, that certainly made the day of one of my friends who actually posted a link to it on Facebook which is where I first found the BBC article (link below). (Look, I make no apologies for using the BBC as a source, it's free online (unlike certain science magazines (I'm looking at you, New Scientist)) and easy to use and access. It also should be fairly unbiased which is what I look for in my science-related news stories.
Wow, I've got off topic, ok, Nasutoceratops.

Found in Utah in 2006 the fossil has only just been cleaned up and pieced back together well enough to discover that it's unlike any other triceratops that have been found before. The triceratops dated from the late Cretaceous period and like its lumbering herbivore triceratops cousins weights 2.5 tonnes.

I'd quote directly from the abstract of the journal article to tell you a little more about what the partial skeleton and skull that they found looked like but unfortunately I don't speak palaeontologist. So we're going to have to stick with it has a big nose and a horned face for now. However, to help matters, here's a picky of the beasty in question:

Figure 1: taken from the original journal paper (full reference below) this is a reconstruction of the skull from the fossil found.

 



 

It seems from the article that the purpose of the facial appendages are a matter of debate either for male competition as weapons or species identification or part of mating. Well, I'll leave that to the palaeontologists but its nice to see natural sciences (read, geology) make the news recently.

 

 

In other science news....

 

A gas cloud has been imaged spiralling into a black hole. Astrophysicists are hoping to get images of the cloud as its ripped apart by gravitation forces. The sadists. (Joke). (Link below)

 

In other news that I made up because I thought it sounded interesting...

 

OK, so genuinely this just happened ('just' being when I'm writing this). So I wanted to pluck a random journal article out of the aether to talk about so a quick bit of Science Direct searching later for some up to date (2013) articles with the search word as 'magma' has lead to none other than an article co-authored by a member of my own dept. at my University (!):

 

The rheology of two-phase magmas: A review and analysis

(rheology is just how something flows. From the Greek, rheos meaning flow)

 

Apart from the fact that this will be just perfect to read for my project next year here's a quick summary of the abstract and my cursory glance:

The paper addresses two different types of two-phase magma, one that is liquid and crystals and the other, liquid and gas (bubbles). It reviews the rheological analysis of each and presents numerical modelling techniques for calculating each.

Or to put it into newspaper headline speak:

"Scientists confirm their mathematical simplifications of physical processes marry up with their analogue simplifications of physicals processes. In some cases."

(Kind of reads like the headline of every science press release ever, right?)

 

More exciting geology news next time!

 

What do you call a dinosaur with no eyes? Do-you-think-he-saw-us



 

References:
Sampson, S.D., Lund, E.K., Loewen, M.A., Farke, A.A., Clayton, K.E., 2013, A remarkable short-snouted horned dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (late Campanian) of southern Laramidia, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences), Vol. 280
BBC article on the dinosaur: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23329193
BBC article on the black hole: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23343563
Mader, H.M., Llewellin, E.W., Mueller, S.P., 2013, The rheology of two-phase magmas: A review and analysis, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, Vol. 257, p.135-158

Redoubt Volcano, Alaska (and a lesson in how much information actually makes it to the press)

Yesterday I read an article on the BBC website about the Redoubt Volcano in Alaska. The full article is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23317368
but I'll give a brief over-view.

The title of the article was 'volcanic 'scream' precedes explosive eruptions'. The article more or less chews the cud over new research done on the seismicity before the 2009 eruption at Redoubt, focusing on the increase in the frequency of earthquakes leading up the eruption, leading to a crescendo of 'sound' before the event.
Here's a link to said seismic events sped up 60 times to audible hearing:
https://soundcloud.com/uw-today/redoubtscream

(The idea of harmonic tremors indicating magma movement are nothing new but this isn't what is been analysed here. A harmonic tremor, also known as a long-period event, is the sort of wave form that you might get inside a capped organ pipe. Such a tremor indicates that magma is rising up a path within the volcano and so an eruption is imminent!)
The identification of the seismic pattern can be just one more tool in the arsenal of earthquake forecasters and predictors.

And so my quest began to discover a little more about this phenomena by tracking down the article. Luckily the author of the BBC article cites that the material was from the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research which helps in limiting a search.
A quick keyword search on Science Direct* lead me to the top article which wasn't the one I was looking for. Scrolling down the lists I noticed that all these recent articles on the same volcano were published in the same edition of the journal. A further quick Google search confirmed my suspicions that Vol. 259 of the journal was a special edition on the Volcano.

Interesting...

And so for 424 pages of hard-graft scientific research how much of it actually makes it into the public sphere (read, the BBC)? A summary and simplification of just 10 pages of it. Which is pretty good going really, because most journals get overlooked by the press and pass like phantoms in the night never to be seen or read by anyone other than those in the specific field of research. (I might also point out that as a guest on science direct the best someone without a subscription can do is only see the abstract of that original article, it being behind a $31.50 pay wall. Some of the other articles from that edition of the journal are free... for what it's worth...)
Just scrolling through the titles in Vol. 259 of the journal prove that it was a pretty comprehensive analysis of the eruption and it's a bit sad that some of the excellent research and (hopefully) excellent analysis may never be used or referenced.

I am somewhat reminded of a video by PhD comic's Jorge Cham. He argues that the current system of how information about cutting edge science reaches the general public is at best inefficient and there must be better ways of doing it. His suggestion, get the scientists to talk directly to the public. Easier said than done but it does happen such as with projects like The Brain Scoop on YouTube (links to both will be below), it just takes a bit of initiative but unfortunately more work.

Well that's all for now. In other volcano news, Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano has become more active recently since its awakening in 1999 causing 200 people to be evacuated (link below).

References

The original BBC article (again) : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23317368
A list of the journal's articles : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03770273/259
Jorge Cham's TEDx talk on the 'science gap': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzcMEwAxSP8
The Brain Scoop's YouTube channel page : http://www.youtube.com/user/thebrainscoop
News on the Ecuador volcano : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/ecuador-volcano-tungurahua-records-explosion-021908220.html?vp=1#EWRcXe2

*(God bless full access to scientific journals through university subscription, it really is worth its theoretical weight in gold (and costs about as much too!))

This week's geology-related news (that I found on the BBC...)

So here's a round up of the geology related news stories this week (week beginning 8th July 2013) so you don't need to go and find them yourself:

So starting off with a quick one, a volcano:

Video footage of the Popocatepetl eruption has been captured by Mexican military aircraft. The footage (for those to lazy to click the link) shows a smoking single vent at the top of the volcano:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23267354

Lake Vostok:

For several years an Antarctic drilling programme has being happening over the sub-glacial Lake Vostok. The task undertaken has not been insignificant as the teams only operate during the summer months and battle against extreme colds in their quest to drill through 4 kilometres of ice to the lake that lies 200 m below sea level.

But the big news is that the lake may contain all manner of extremophiles and possibly even fish! The energy source of such creatures maybe from nutrient rich hydrothermal vents on the lake bed.

It's all quite a thought when considering the environments that might be suitable for life on other worlds or, closer to home, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, Europa and Enceladus (respectively).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23230864

(As aside this article mentions tardigrades, for more info. see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H0E77TdYnY)

The blue planet of silicate rain:

I'm going to pause for a second and let you wrap your head around the implications of an environment that has liquid sand as rain instead of water or light hydrocarbons (a more celestially common substance to find in a planet's rain).

Not so for HD 189733b which orbits it's sun extremely closely 65 light years for our own blue planet.

Where as our blue sky colour comes from the refraction of light in our atmosphere when light is refracted through silicate rain in an atmosphere over 1000 degrees centigrade it produces a stunning azure blue colour.

The planet was observed crossing its sun (which is one of many ways astronomers now have for detecting planets) and joins the myriad of exotic worlds that we are only just discovering.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23275607

(For more info. on exo-planets check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFPnOUSdMdc)

Journey to the centre of the Earth...:

So the core. We know it's hot, dense and made or some sort of iron alloyed with... err... something. Ok, here's the thing, we actually know very little for sure about the Earth's core and considering that the core is approximately a third of the Earth's volume and takes up half the radius that's pretty embarrassing. Anything we do know is from seismic waves which have the unfortunate property of not being particularly good at being able to distinguish what the wave speed is actually being affected by.
Here are the following factors that can control wave speed of a seismic wave (from, say, a nice big earthquake):
Mineral composition, mineral phase, mineral density, melt fraction, mineral alignment and, finally, temperature.

Yeah, it's a wonder we know anything at all.

Anyway, the big news is there's some new theory about the structure of the Earth's core, for more information see this nice article here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23180271

If you go down to the woods today...:

And finally, scientists have discovered a 50,000 year old forest that was totally submerged and covered until Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico removed the sediments. Now it's a race against time to discover as much about the forest as possible before the sea water does its work and rots the forest away to nothing...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125801-Scientists-Discover-50-000-Year-Old-Underwater-Forest

-------------------

Hopefully I'll have so more science-y news for you next week otherwise I'll just have to wax-geological about this article I'm currently reading about the rheology  of suspended solids in solution.

I keep up to date with the latest news in nuclear technology.... I'm a dedicated follower of fission.

Popocatepetl- The smoking Mountain

Aside from having one of the greatest volcano names on the planet (it's up there with Batu Tara (Indonesia) and Erta Ale (Ethiopia) as one of those volcano names that just trip off the tongue in a delightful ribbon of phonetic sounds), Popocatepetl has an interesting mythology and geology to go along with its frequent activity.

Popocatepetl has been recently in the news (with some very pretty images accompanying it (see below)) for increased activity which has disrupted the airspace over Mexico City (which is approximately 60 km North-West of the volcano). The activity has included near-continuous explosions on Saturday 6th July, gas and ash emissions. As of writing (Monday 8th) reports are that the volcano is on yellow alert (phase 3 of 5) with a 12 km exclusion zone. Sunday 7th saw intermittent eruptions with a steam and ash plume 3 km high.

(Figure 1, reference below)

Like many ridiculously photogenic stratovolcanoes (kind of like the ridiculously photogenic Syrian rebel (dft.ba/-5rebel1) only more deadly), Popocatepetl was formed due to the collision of two plate boundaries, the North American Plate (which the volcano sits upon) and the Cocos Plate that is being subducted beneath it. Fluids are liberated from the subducting plate causing the mantle above the plate to melt and rise up through the crust. This magma mixes with other components creating an Andasitic magma which is viscous, volatile rich leading to explosive eruptions.

(Figure 2, reference below)

 

But let's now talk about some interesting trivia to do with our dear friend El Popo. I've been recently reading a book called 'Melting the Earth: The history of ideas on volcanic eruptions' by Haraldur Sigurdsson which apart from being the most compulsively readable geological text I've read since Prof. Gillian Foulger's 'Plates Vs. Plumes: A geological Controversy' recounts the local creation myth of Popocatepetl amongst other things.

So without too much plagiarism I shall now summarise said Aztec myth: 

 

The two mountains Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl (The Woman in White) were worshiped by the Aztec people as gods.

 

The Smoking Mountain (Popocatepetl) was a warrior who fell in love with the daughter of the emperor, Princess Izraccihuatl. The warrior went away to war and upon his victory headed home to claim his beloved sweetheart. However, enemies of the warrior sent word to the Princess that far from coming home victorious he had been killed. Heartbroken, the Princess died soon after of grief.

Upon discovering his deceased love Popocatepetl built two great mountains. He laid his 'sleeping woman' right on the peak of Iztaccihuatl (La Mujer Dormida, which means 'the sleeping woman') and on the other he forever stands guard bearing her funeral torch.

(I get something of a Romeo and Juliet vibe from this story personally...)

 

As far as explanations for the firry wrath of the great mountains near Mexico City (the flaming torch and insatiable wrath of a great immortal warrior) it certainly beats some of the other ideas early people had about volcanoes (if only in style!) For instance, for a great number of years it was thought that earthquakes and volcanoes were caused by great winds in the caverns beneath the earth! Combine that with some thoughts on the winds being caused by the combustion of brimstone (sulphur) and you've a recipe for some humorous wind-related jokes. (Except I'm far to high brow to make such jokes!)

 

Anyway, that's all for now, if you want to keep up with other volcano related activity I highly recommend the Smithsonian weekly report (the webpage has recently had a nice shiny overhaul) at: http://volcano.si.edu/weekly_report.cfm

or for daily updates on volcanoes practically as it happens check out the Volcano Discovery website:

http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/volcanoes.html



In an attempt to get myself doing this during the doldrums of the holidays expect to see more posts soon!

I'm so cool, I'm obsidian...

References:

Help with working out which plate the volcano is on: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061211100617AAirLaW
Figure 1: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/9218197/Mexico-City-on-alert-as-Popocatepetl-volcano-spews-rock-and-ash.html
Figure 2: http://www.platetectonics.com/book/images/Subduction2.gif
Volcano monitoring information: http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/popocatepetl/news.html
More information on Popocatepetl: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popacatapetl
Further information on the myth of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iztacc%C3%ADhuatl