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.