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Les Sources Occultes - Teaser /999
Réalisation Laurent Courau sur un scénario de thierry Ehrmann
blog.ehrmann.org/films2/les-sources-occultes-teaser.html
© Les Amis de l'Esprit de la Salamandre 1999
Entre effroi et merveilles, une zone mouvante aux portes du futur et des enfers... Les Sources Occultes vous entraînent au coeur d'un univers polymorphe dont les clés et les motifs se révéleront au fur et à mesure des épisodes de cette série de fictions. En attendant un final apocalyptique, au sens premier du terme, qui révélera la structure générale sous la forme d'un long-métrage...
Les Sources Occultes offre aussi une nouvelle porte d'entrée dans le labyrinthe multidimensionnel de la Demeure du Chaos à celles et ceux qui postulent à notre casting, une occasion unique de pénétrer les arcanes de l'Esprit de la Salamandre...
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
Picture: Butter Fly :-)
Location: Butterflies Garden, Mandai Zoo. SINGAPORE
A butterfly is an insect of the order Lepidoptera. Like all Lepidoptera, butterflies are notable for their unusual life cycle with a larval caterpillar stage, an inactive pupal stage, and a spectacular metamorphosis into a familiar and colourful winged adult form. Most species are day-flying so they regularly attract attention. The diverse patterns formed by their brightly coloured wings and their erratic yet graceful flight have made butterfly watching a fairly popular hobby.
Butterflies comprise the true butterflies (superfamily Papilionoidea), the skippers (Superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (Superfamily Hedyloidea). Butterflies exhibit polymorphism, mimicry and aposematism. Some are known to migrate over large distances. Some butterflies have evolved symbiotic and parasitic relationships with social insects such as ants. Butterflies are important economically as one of the major agents of pollination. In addition, a number of species are pests, because they can damage domestic crops and trees.
Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts.
Source from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly
Microscopic photo showing tumor tissue with high degree of cellularity and nuclear polymorphism with scattered giant tumor cells. Jian-Hua Qiao, MD, FCAP, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
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An exceptional red-colored Gulf Salt Marsh Snake from the Florida panhandle compared with an individual of the more common black phase from the same population. The red animal is either hypomelanistic or this could be a similar color polymorphism to that exhibited by the Mangrove Salt Marsh Snake from peninsular Florida.
Marchantiacée dioïque à rosette de thalles aplatis, jusqu'à 10 cm de long et 2 cm de large, au bord ondulé et aux lames vert foncé, couchées, incisées, dichotomes ou divisées. Face supérieure avec marques hexagonales et face inférieure couverte de nombreuses racines ou rhizoïdes qui fixent la plante dans le sol.
Certains thalles portent des gamétanges, à savoir les structures de reproduction : les gamétophores femelles constitués d'une tige en forme d'étoile ou de parapluie fortement lobé (archégoniophores aux capsules sporales jaunes sans pédicelle se formant à la face inférieure des ombrelles âgées) avec des rayons dans la partie supérieure contenant les archégones ou organes produisant les ovules ; les gamétophores mâles surmontées d'un disque aplati modérément lobé (anthéridiophores pédonculés à extrémité en forme d'ombrelle à 5 côtes) contenant les anthéridies enfouies dans les cavités produisant le sperme.
Les Bryophytes sont classiquement divisées en Mousses et en Hépatiques. Les Mousses (bryoflore française d'environ 900 espèces) comprennent 3 sous classes : les Eubrya ou Mousses au sens strict, les Andraeobrya et les Sphagnobrya ou Sphaignes. Les Hépatiques peuvent être démembrées en 2 classes, celle des Hépatiques au sens strict (dont la famille des Marchantiacées et ici l'une des quelques 300 espèces d'hépatiques de la bryoflore française) et celle des Anthocérotes : 5 espèces en France (cf. J Augier et HM Jahns).
''La musique que proposent Tim et Meriadeg est une embarcation vers l’inconnu, le polymorphe et la rêverie. L’issue du périple est aussi incertaine que virtuose, la mécanique des sens est réglée sur intense, les questions fusent et se défont au gré de mille réponses qui coulent de source. On est en mer, sur le dos d’une vague en transhumance ou à terre au milieu des herbes hautes, qu’importe !!!… on est bien.''
Pas besoin de balances pour ce ''tandem acoustique résolu à dénicher et composer des mélodies simples, jolies ; puis jouer, s'en amuser.'' Fort de l'attachement de ces deux musiciens ''aux musiques traditionnelles, vivantes, étonnantes et voyageuses'' il a juste fallu qu'Estelle entame les deux chants qu'elle souhaitait proposer à son public en leur compagnie pour qu'une demi-heure plus tard tout soit en place ...
Apothécies sessiles, jusqu’à 1,46 mm de diam.
Asques cylindriques, à 8 spores unisériées, avec crochets à la base et appareil apical inamyloïde, 247,6 -277,19 x 11,82-14,6 µm
Paraphyses cylindriques, élargies à l’apex, ramifiées ou non à la base ou à l’apex, septées, couvertes d’une substance gélatineuse et incrustée, à contenu huileux finement incrusté et guttulé au tiers supérieur (exsiccatum), 282,3-293,8 x 6-7,1 µm
Spores ellipsoïdes, apparaissant lisses en Bleu coton, guttulées, 19,6-20,7 x 11,9-12,6 µm, Q = 1,7
Sous-hyménium en textura prismatica, formé de cellules ascendantes ± cylindriques, 11,6-16,7 x 5,6-9,6 µm
Medulla en textura intricata, formée de cellules polymorphes à subglobuleuses, 8,2-22,3 x 6,4-13 µm
Excipulum ectal en textura globulosa-angularis, formé de cellules subglobuleuses à ellipsoïdes, 21,2-93,3 x 15,33-53,6 µm
Revêtement externe formé de cellules subglobuleuses à clavées, à paroi épaissie, 18,6-33,4 x 13,4-19,4 µm
Poils externes ± ramifiés à la base, étroitement fusoïdes à l’apex, septés, à paroi épaissie, brun roux, 424,2-641,1 x 20,4-27,5 µm
Microscopie: Jacqueline Labrecque
Étude, recherche et correspondance: Roland Labbé
Identification: Jules Cimon
Confirmation: Nicolas van Vooren (AscoFrance)
www.flickr.com/photos/23151213@N03/25708644045/in/photoli...
LES SOURCES OCCULTES 014/999
L'Oracle
Réalisation : Laurent Courau
Scénario : Thierry Ehrmann
Prises de vue : Laurent Courau et Sydney Ehrmann
Lumières : Marquis
A film by Laurent Courau, based on a scenario by Thierry Ehrmann.
Entre effroi et merveilles, une zone mouvante aux portes du futur et des enfers...
Les Sources Occultes vous entraînent au coeur d'un univers polymorphe dont les clés et les motifs se révéleront au fur et à mesure des épisodes de cette série de fictions. En attendant un final apocalyptique, au sens premier du terme, qui révélera la structure générale sous la forme d'un long-métrage...
Les Sources Occultes offre aussi une nouvelle porte d'entrée dans le labyrinthe multidimensionnel de la Demeure du Chaos à celles et ceux qui postulent à notre casting, une occasion unique de pénétrer les arcanes de l'esprit de la Salamandre.
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
Obsidian in the Pleistocene of Wyoming, USA.
Obsidian is a glassy-textured, extrusive igneous rock. Glassy-textured rocks have no crystals at all. They form by very rapid cooling of lava or by cooling of high-viscosity lava. Most obsidians form by the latter. Obsidian can be felsic, intermediate, mafic, or alkaline in chemistry. Most are felsic to intermediate.
A famous locality in North America is Obsidian Cliff at Yellowstone, Wyoming. It is a Pleistocene-aged lava flow with the chemistry of rhyolite (= a light-colored, felsic, aphanitic, extrusive igneous rock). The cliff itself shows columnar jointing. The rocks principally range from aphyric rhyolitic obsidian to partially devitrified rhyolitic obsidian. Lithophysae are sometimes present. Extremely small, microscopic crystals are present - they can be seen in thin sections. Some samples are reported to have small olivine phenocrysts. Small clusters of crystals, composed of plagioclase feldspar, pyroxene, and olivine, are sometimes present.
Many of the whitish-colored spots and bands running through most Obsidian Cliff rock samples are areas of devitrification. Glass is unstable on geologic times scales and it slowly crystallizes. The light-colored spots and bands are now non-glassy. Spotted, partially devitrified obsidian is known by the rockhound term "snowflake obsidian" (see: www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/16561606417). The spots are composed of silica (SiO2), but are not quartz. Rather, they are composed of a polymorph of quartz - cristobalite.
Stratigraphy: Roaring Mountain Member, Plateau Rhyolite, Upper Pleistocene, ~59 ka
Locality: loose boulder near the base of Obsidian Cliff, Yellowstone National Park, northwestern Wyoming, USA
----------------------
Age & some lithologic info. from:
Wooton (2010) - Age and Petrogenesis of the Roaring Mountain Rhyolites, Yellowstone Volcanic Field, Wyoming. M.S. thesis. University of Nevada at Las Vegas. 296 pp.
NIKON D7000 plus Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8
The Great Eggfly (Hypolimnas bolina), also called the Blue Moon Butterfly or Common Eggfly, is a black-bodied butterfly with a wingspan of about 8cm, found mainly in the deciduous forests of Southeast Asia including South Pacific islands, and in parts of Australia, Japan, and New Zealand.
The species has a high degree of sexual dimorphism. The female is mimetic with multiple morphs, known for maternal care, with the females guarding leaves where eggs have been laid. Males are also very territorial and site fidelity increases with age.
On the Samoan Islands, a bacterium (Wolbachia) strain had been killing the male members of Hypolimnas bolina, reduced them to only 1% of the population by 2001. However, in 2007, it was reported that within a span of just 10 generations, the males had evolved to develop immunity to the bacteria, and the male population increased to nearly 40%. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypolimnas_bolina
In addition, an extremely rapid change in sex bias was reported for a Polynesian population of Hypolimnas bolina, with a switch from a male:female sex ratio of 1:100 to 1:1 in fewer than 10 generations within 1 year, which implies a very rapid spread of the suppression of male-killing in the population. Charlat S et al. Extraordinary flux in sex ratio. Science. 2007b;317:214.
Family: Nymphalidae
This picture is taken in the indoor live butterfly garden of the Sensational Butterflies Exhibition, Natural History Museum, London
Our garden seems to have a good range of phenotypes of Brown-lipped Snail - the ubiquitous polymorph, subject of classical studies in population genetics. Here I have chosen three examples.
The banded phenotype is one of the nemoralis form, the others, possibly flavovirescens and rosea, lack the dark bands and exhibit different background colours.
Strobist info: 2 x YN560-IIs, left and right, at 1/8 through white umbrellas. Triggered by RF603s.
Diamond crystal from Russia.
A mineral is a naturally-occurring, solid, inorganic, crystalline substance having a fairly definite chemical composition and having fairly definite physical properties. At its simplest, a mineral is a naturally-occurring solid chemical. Currently, there are over 5200 named and described minerals - about 200 of them are common and about 20 of them are very common. Mineral classification is based on anion chemistry. Major categories of minerals are: elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, phosphates, and silicates.
Elements are fundamental substances of matter - matter that is composed of the same types of atoms. At present, 118 elements are known (four of them are still unnamed). Of these, 98 occur naturally on Earth (hydrogen to californium). Most of these occur in rocks & minerals, although some occur in very small, trace amounts. Only some elements occur in their native elemental state as minerals.
To find a native element in nature, it must be relatively non-reactive and there must be some concentration process. Metallic, semimetallic (metalloid), and nonmetallic elements are known in their native state.
The element carbon occurs principally in its native state as graphite (C) and diamond (C). Graphite is the common & far less valuable polymorph of carbon. A scarce polymorph of carbon is diamond. The physical properties of diamond and graphite couldn’t be more different, considering they have the same chemistry. Diamond has a nonmetallic, adamantine luster, typically occurs in cubic or octahedral (double-pyramid) crystals, or subspherical to irregularly-shaped masses, and is extremely hard (H≡10). Diamonds can be almost any color, but are typically clearish, grayish, or yellowish. Many diamonds are noticeably fluorescent under black light (ultraviolet light), but the color and intensity of fluorescence varies. Some diamonds are phosphorescent - under certain conditions, they glow for a short interval on their own.
Very rarely, diamond is a rock-forming mineral (see diamondite - www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/14618393527).
The diamond shown here is a 1.29 carat octahedral crystal, modified by trigons (small triangular-shaped structures). It comes from a kimberlite body in eastern Siberia. Kimberlites are intrusive igneous rocks typically having pipe-shaped geometries. The host kimberlite is Paleozoic in age, but the diamonds date to the Precambrian, based on inclusion dating.
Geologic unit & age: Mir Kimberlite, Malo-Botuoba Kimberlite Field, erupted in the Devonian of Mississippian, 324 to 403 Ma (dates cluster around 354 to 360 Ma)
Locality: unrecorded locality in the Mir Kimberlite Pipe, town of Mirnyy, Yakutia (a.k.a. "Sakha"), eastern Siberia, Russia (~62° 31' 43.93" North latitude, ~113° 59' 38.60" East longitude)
Pseudomorphs are minerals that have replaced other minerals, while retaining the crystal shape of the original mineral.
The hexaradiate crystalline structure shown above was originally marcasite (FeS2), a brassy gold-colored iron sulfide mineral that is a polymorph of pyrite. The marcasite was replaced by black-colored iron oxide. People disagree on what the iron oxide mineral is - I've seen it referred to as hematite, limonite, or goethite.
Geologic context: eroded from the Khoman Formation, Maastrichtian Stage, upper Upper Cretaceous
Locality: unrecorded / undisclosed site in the White Desert, supposedly near Farafra Oasis, western Egypt
Les Sources Occultes 003/999
Un film de Laurent Courau, d'après un scénario de Thierry Ehrmann.
Comédienne : Yôko Higashi
Décors : Alisha Henry
Maquillage : Alisha Henry
Lumières : Marquis
Musiques : La Science des Fous - Urgence Disk
© Les Amis de l'Esprit de la Salamandre 1999
Entre effroi et merveilles, une zone mouvante aux portes du futur et des enfers...
Les Sources Occultes vous entraînent au coeur d'un univers polymorphe dont les clés et les motifs se révéleront au fur et à mesure des épisodes de cette série de fictions. En attendant un final apocalyptique, au sens premier du terme, qui révélera la structure générale sous la forme d'un long-métrage...
Les Sources Occultes offrent aussi une nouvelle porte d'entrée dans le labyrinthe multidimensionnel de la Demeure du Chaos à celles et ceux qui postulent à notre casting, une occasion unique de pénétrer les arcanes de l'esprit de la Salamandre.
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
Chrysotile asbestos veins in serpentinized komatiite in the Precambrian of Ontario, Canada.
Komatiites are very rare, magnesium-rich, extrusive, ultramafic igneous rocks. They are named after the Komati River Valley in South Africa, the type locality. Komatiite is an exceedingly rare type of lava. No volcano on Earth erupts this material today. Komatiites are essentially restricted to the Archean (4.55 to 2.5 billion years ago). Experimental evidence has shown that komatiite lavas, when originally erupted, were considerably hotter (~1600º C) than any modern lava type on Earth. This indicates that Earth’s mantle was much hotter than now. Other geologic evidence also indicates that early Earth’s heat flux was much higher than today’s.
Komatiite lava had a very low viscosity - it could flow like an ultradense gas. This property permitted the solidification of some individual lava flows that are only 1 cm thick.
The classic texture of komatiites is spinifex texture, named after clumps of long, spiky (& painful!) grasses. Komatiites with spinifex texture have short to long blades or plates of olivine mixed with smaller-scale blades of pyroxene.
All Archean komatiites are metamorphosed - the original igneous mineralogy (olivine, pyroxene, minor chromite, etc.) is gone to mostly gone. Such rocks are best termed metakomatiites, but the prefix “meta-” is usually not specified in writing.
Komatiites have economic significance, as many are closely associated with copper-nickel minerals (chalcopyrite & pentlandite), plus minor platinum-group elements, arsenides, bismuthides, and maybe a little gold and silver. Komatiites are a world-class source of nickel in Canada and Western Australia.
The outcrop seen here is part of a komatiite "lava lake" next to the Potter Mine in Ontario, Canada. This is near the world-famous Pyke Hill locality, which has numerous, thin komatiite lava flows. The rocks in the Potter Mine-Pyke Hill area are part of the Kidd-Munro Assemblage, which consists of ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks intruded by mafic to ultramafic dikes and sill-like bodies. Minor felsic volcanic rocks are also present. Volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits occur in the Kidd-Munro Assemblage - they have been mined at the Texas Gulf Mine and the Potter Mine.
The rocks at this particular site were originally interpreted as part of a relatively thick komatiite lava lake, the last feature of a volcanic eruption. A newer interpretation says that this is a series of thick komatiite sheet flows (at least 6) in a paleo-depression. A thin lava lake may have originally capped the succession.
This is an exposure of serpentinized komatiite. The light-colored linear features running through the rock are "veins" of asbestos. There are several minerals colloquially known as "asbestos". The most common is "white asbestos", which is a mineral called chrysotile. It is one of three polymorphs of serpentine (= magnesium hydroxy-silicate, Mg3Si2O5(OH)4). Other varieties include “blue asbestos” (= crocidolite amphibole) and “brown asbestos” (= amosite amphibole). Chrysotile serpentine has a whitish to greenish color, a silky luster, and fibrous fracture.
Stratigraphy: Upper Komatiitic Unit, Kidd-Munro Assemblage, Abitibi Greenstone Belt, lower Neoarchean, 2.711-2.717 Ga
Locality: "Lava Lake" exposure outcrop near dirt road, southwest of the Potter Mine, north of Route 101, east-northeast of Matheson & south of the western end of Lake Abitibi & ~83 kilometers east of the city of Timmins, Munro Township, southern Cochrane District, eastern Ontario, southeastern Canada (~vicinity of 48° 35' 50.93" North latitude, 80° 12' 50.97" West longitude)
-------------------------
For photos of chrysotile serpentine/white asbestos, see:
www.jsjgeology.net/Serpentine.htm
and
A microarray that can be used to assay half a million or so variable positions in the human genome.
Now completely outmoded by the 6.0 array, which does over 900,000, plus another 946,000 or so non-variable parts of the genome to boot.
Also shown - the ugly pattern on the guest chairs in my office, somewhat blurred to reduce the strain on your eyes.
Licensed to Gyldendal Publishing (Norway), www.gyldendal.no/Gyldendal-Akademisk/Medisin.
Douze sculptures énigmatiques d'Ugo Rondinone, représentant chacune un mois de l'année, intitulées Sunrise East sont exposées au jardin des Tuileries à Paris, non loin du pavillon de Flore (au fond sur la photo) dans le cadre du 38ème festival d'automne.
Leur présence transforme l'ambiance du jardin et met en joie de nombreux promeneurs !
Ugo Rondinone est un artiste né en Suisse, en 1964, auteur d'une oeuvre polymorphe composée de vidéos, photographies, sculptures, néons,..
www.festival-automne.com/fr/programme.php?programme_id=258
voir aussi les oeuvres d'Ugo Rondinone et d'Urs Fischer présentées dans l'église San Stae pour le pavillon suisse lors de la Biennale de Venise 2007.
Les Sources Occultes 005/999
Un film de Laurent Courau, d'après un scénario de Thierry Ehrmann.
Comédiens : Vigi Lust, Yvan
© Les Amis de l'Esprit de la Salamandre 1999
Entre effroi et merveilles, une zone mouvante aux portes du futur et des enfers...
Les Sources Occultes vous entraînent au coeur d'un univers polymorphe dont les clés et les motifs se révéleront au fur et à mesure des épisodes de cette série de fictions. En attendant un final apocalyptique, au sens premier du terme, qui révélera la structure générale sous la forme d'un long-métrage...
Les Sources Occultes offrent aussi une nouvelle porte d'entrée dans le labyrinthe multidimensionnel de la Demeure du Chaos à celles et ceux qui postulent à notre casting, une occasion unique de pénétrer les arcanes de l'esprit de la Salamandre.
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
Chrysotile asbestos veins in serpentinized komatiite in the Precambrian of Ontario, Canada.
Komatiites are very rare, magnesium-rich, extrusive, ultramafic igneous rocks. They are named after the Komati River Valley in South Africa, the type locality. Komatiite is an exceedingly rare type of lava. No volcano on Earth erupts this material today. Komatiites are essentially restricted to the Archean (4.55 to 2.5 billion years ago). Experimental evidence has shown that komatiite lavas, when originally erupted, were considerably hotter (~1600º C) than any modern lava type on Earth. This indicates that Earth’s mantle was much hotter than now. Other geologic evidence also indicates that early Earth’s heat flux was much higher than today’s.
Komatiite lava had a very low viscosity - it could flow like an ultradense gas. This property permitted the solidification of some individual lava flows that are only 1 cm thick.
The classic texture of komatiites is spinifex texture, named after clumps of long, spiky (& painful!) grasses. Komatiites with spinifex texture have short to long blades or plates of olivine mixed with smaller-scale blades of pyroxene.
All Archean komatiites are metamorphosed - the original igneous mineralogy (olivine, pyroxene, minor chromite, etc.) is gone to mostly gone. Such rocks are best termed metakomatiites, but the prefix “meta-” is usually not specified in writing.
Komatiites have economic significance, as many are closely associated with copper-nickel minerals (chalcopyrite & pentlandite), plus minor platinum-group elements, arsenides, bismuthides, and maybe a little gold and silver. Komatiites are a world-class source of nickel in Canada and Western Australia.
The outcrop seen here is part of a komatiite "lava lake" next to the Potter Mine in Ontario, Canada. This is near the world-famous Pyke Hill locality, which has numerous, thin komatiite lava flows. The rocks in the Potter Mine-Pyke Hill area are part of the Kidd-Munro Assemblage, which consists of ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks intruded by mafic to ultramafic dikes and sill-like bodies. Minor felsic volcanic rocks are also present. Volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits occur in the Kidd-Munro Assemblage - they have been mined at the Texas Gulf Mine and the Potter Mine.
The rocks at this particular site were originally interpreted as part of a relatively thick komatiite lava lake, the last feature of a volcanic eruption. A newer interpretation says that this is a series of thick komatiite sheet flows (at least 6) in a paleo-depression. A thin lava lake may have originally capped the succession.
This is an exposure of serpentinized komatiite. The linear features running through the rock are "veins" of asbestos. There are several minerals colloquially known as "asbestos". The most common is "white asbestos", which is a mineral called chrysotile. It is one of three polymorphs of serpentine (= magnesium hydroxy-silicate, Mg3Si2O5(OH)4). Other varieties include “blue asbestos” (= crocidolite amphibole) and “brown asbestos” (= amosite amphibole). Chrysotile serpentine has a whitish to greenish color, a silky luster, and fibrous fracture.
Stratigraphy: Upper Komatiitic Unit, Kidd-Munro Assemblage, Abitibi Greenstone Belt, lower Neoarchean, 2.711-2.717 Ga
Locality: "Lava Lake" exposure outcrop near dirt road, southwest of the Potter Mine, north of Route 101, east-northeast of Matheson & south of the western end of Lake Abitibi & ~83 kilometers east of the city of Timmins, Munro Township, southern Cochrane District, eastern Ontario, southeastern Canada (~vicinity of 48° 35' 50.93" North latitude, 80° 12' 50.97" West longitude)
-------------------------
For photos of chrysotile serpentine/white asbestos, see:
www.jsjgeology.net/Serpentine.htm
and
Chrysotile asbestos veins in serpentinized komatiite in the Precambrian of Ontario, Canada.
Komatiites are very rare, magnesium-rich, extrusive, ultramafic igneous rocks. They are named after the Komati River Valley in South Africa, the type locality. Komatiite is an exceedingly rare type of lava. No volcano on Earth erupts this material today. Komatiites are essentially restricted to the Archean (4.55 to 2.5 billion years ago). Experimental evidence has shown that komatiite lavas, when originally erupted, were considerably hotter (~1600º C) than any modern lava type on Earth. This indicates that Earth’s mantle was much hotter than now. Other geologic evidence also indicates that early Earth’s heat flux was much higher than today’s.
Komatiite lava had a very low viscosity - it could flow like an ultradense gas. This property permitted the solidification of some individual lava flows that are only 1 cm thick.
The classic texture of komatiites is spinifex texture, named after clumps of long, spiky (& painful!) grasses. Komatiites with spinifex texture have short to long blades or plates of olivine mixed with smaller-scale blades of pyroxene.
All Archean komatiites are metamorphosed - the original igneous mineralogy (olivine, pyroxene, minor chromite, etc.) is gone to mostly gone. Such rocks are best termed metakomatiites, but the prefix “meta-” is usually not specified in writing.
Komatiites have economic significance, as many are closely associated with copper-nickel minerals (chalcopyrite & pentlandite), plus minor platinum-group elements, arsenides, bismuthides, and maybe a little gold and silver. Komatiites are a world-class source of nickel in Canada and Western Australia.
The outcrop seen here is part of a komatiite "lava lake" next to the Potter Mine in Ontario, Canada. This is near the world-famous Pyke Hill locality, which has numerous, thin komatiite lava flows. The rocks in the Potter Mine-Pyke Hill area are part of the Kidd-Munro Assemblage, which consists of ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks intruded by mafic to ultramafic dikes and sill-like bodies. Minor felsic volcanic rocks are also present. Volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits occur in the Kidd-Munro Assemblage - they have been mined at the Texas Gulf Mine and the Potter Mine.
The rocks at this particular site were originally interpreted as part of a relatively thick komatiite lava lake, the last feature of a volcanic eruption. A newer interpretation says that this is a series of thick komatiite sheet flows (at least 6) in a paleo-depression. A thin lava lake may have originally capped the succession.
This is an exposure of serpentinized komatiite. The linear features running through the rock are "veins" of asbestos. There are several minerals colloquially known as "asbestos". The most common is "white asbestos", which is a mineral called chrysotile. It is one of three polymorphs of serpentine (= magnesium hydroxy-silicate, Mg3Si2O5(OH)4). Other varieties include “blue asbestos” (= crocidolite amphibole) and “brown asbestos” (= amosite amphibole). Chrysotile serpentine has a whitish to greenish color, a silky luster, and fibrous fracture.
Stratigraphy: Upper Komatiitic Unit, Kidd-Munro Assemblage, Abitibi Greenstone Belt, lower Neoarchean, 2.711-2.717 Ga
Locality: "Lava Lake" exposure outcrop near dirt road, southwest of the Potter Mine, north of Route 101, east-northeast of Matheson & south of the western end of Lake Abitibi & ~83 kilometers east of the city of Timmins, Munro Township, southern Cochrane District, eastern Ontario, southeastern Canada (~vicinity of 48° 35' 50.93" North latitude, 80° 12' 50.97" West longitude)
-------------------------
For photos of chrysotile serpentine/white asbestos, see:
www.jsjgeology.net/Serpentine.htm
and
Les Sources Occultes - Teaser /999
Réalisation Laurent Courau sur un scénario de thierry Ehrmann
blog.ehrmann.org/films2/les-sources-occultes-teaser.html
© Les Amis de l'Esprit de la Salamandre 1999
Entre effroi et merveilles, une zone mouvante aux portes du futur et des enfers... Les Sources Occultes vous entraînent au coeur d'un univers polymorphe dont les clés et les motifs se révéleront au fur et à mesure des épisodes de cette série de fictions. En attendant un final apocalyptique, au sens premier du terme, qui révélera la structure générale sous la forme d'un long-métrage...
Les Sources Occultes offre aussi une nouvelle porte d'entrée dans le labyrinthe multidimensionnel de la Demeure du Chaos à celles et ceux qui postulent à notre casting, une occasion unique de pénétrer les arcanes de l'Esprit de la Salamandre...
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Obsidian in the Pleistocene of Wyoming, USA.
Obsidian is a glassy-textured, extrusive igneous rock. Glassy-textured rocks have no crystals at all. They form by very rapid cooling of lava or by cooling of high-viscosity lava. Most obsidians form by the latter. Obsidian can be felsic, intermediate, mafic, or alkaline in chemistry. Most are felsic to intermediate.
A famous locality in North America is Obsidian Cliff at Yellowstone, Wyoming. It is a Pleistocene-aged lava flow with the chemistry of rhyolite (= a light-colored, felsic, aphanitic, extrusive igneous rock). The cliff itself shows columnar jointing. The rocks principally range from aphyric rhyolitic obsidian to partially devitrified rhyolitic obsidian. Lithophysae are sometimes present. Extremely small, microscopic crystals are present - they can be seen in thin sections. Some samples are reported to have small olivine phenocrysts. Small clusters of crystals, composed of plagioclase feldspar, pyroxene, and olivine, are sometimes present.
Many of the whitish-colored spots and bands running through most Obsidian Cliff rock samples are areas of devitrification. Glass is unstable on geologic times scales and it slowly crystallizes. The light-colored spots and bands are now non-glassy. Spotted, partially devitrified obsidian is known by the rockhound term "snowflake obsidian" (see: www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/16561606417). The spots are composed of silica (SiO2), but are not quartz. Rather, they are composed of a polymorph of quartz - cristobalite.
Stratigraphy: Roaring Mountain Member, Plateau Rhyolite, Upper Pleistocene, ~59 ka
Locality: loose boulder near the base of Obsidian Cliff, Yellowstone National Park, northwestern Wyoming, USA
----------------------
Age & some lithologic info. from:
Wooton (2010) - Age and Petrogenesis of the Roaring Mountain Rhyolites, Yellowstone Volcanic Field, Wyoming. M.S. thesis. University of Nevada at Las Vegas. 296 pp.
As borboletas são insectos da ordem Lepidoptera classificados nas super-famílias Hesperioidea e Papilionoidea, que constituem o grupo informal Rhopalocera.
As borboletas têm dois pares de asas membranosas cobertas de escamas e peças bucais adaptadas a sucção. Distinguem-se das traças (mariposas) pelas antenas rectilíneas que terminam numa bola, pelos hábitos de vida diurnos, pela metamorfose que decorre dentro de uma crisálida rígida e pelo abdómen fino e alongado. Quando em repouso, as borboletas dobram as suas asas para cima.
As borboletas são importantes polinizadores de diversas espécies de plantas.
O ciclo de vida das borboletas engloba as seguintes etapas:
1) ovo→ fase pré-larval
2) larva→ chamada também de lagarta ou taturana,
3) pupa→ que se desenvolve dentro da crisálida (ou casulo)
4) imago→ fase adulta
_______________________
A butterfly is any of several groups of mainly day-flying insects of the order Lepidoptera, the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, butterflies' life cycle consists of four parts, egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. Butterflies comprise the true butterflies (superfamily Papilionoidea), the skippers (superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (superfamily Hedyloidea). All the many other families within the Lepidoptera are referred to as moths.
Butterflies exhibit polymorphism, mimicry and aposematism. Some, like the Monarch, will migrate over long distances. Some butterflies have evolved symbiotic and parasitic relationships with social insects such as ants. Butterflies are important economically as agents of pollination. The caterpillars of some butterflies eat harmful insects. A few species are pests because in their larval stages they can damage domestic crops or trees. Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts.
Cuculus canorus
[order] Cuculiformes | [family] Cuculidae | [latin] Cuculus canorus | [UK] Cuckoo | [FR] Coucou gris | [DE] Kuckuck | [ES] Cuco Europeo | [IT] Cuculo eurasiatico | [NL] Koekoek | [IRL] Cuach
Status: Widespread summer visitor to Ireland from April to August.
Conservation Concern: Green-listed in Ireland. The European population is currently evaluated as secure.
Identification: Despite its obvious song, relatively infrequently seen. In flight, can be mistaken for a bird of prey such as Sparrowhawk, but has rapid wingbeats below the horizontal plane - ie. the wings are not raised above the body. Adult male Cuckoos are a uniform grey on the head, neck, back, wings and tail. The underparts are white with black barring. Adult females can appear in one of two forms. The so-called grey-morph resembles the adult male plumage, but has throat and breast barred black and white with yellowish wash. The rufous-morph has the grey replaced by rufous, with strong black barring on the wings, back and tail. Juvenile Cuckoos resemble the female rufous-morph, but are darker brown above.
Similar Species: Sparrowhawk
Call: The song is probably one of the most recognisable and well-known of all Irish bird species. The male gives a distinctive “wuck-oo”, which is occasionally doubled “wuck-uck-ooo”. The female has a distinctive bubbling “pupupupu”. The song period is late April to late June.
Diet: Mainly caterpillars and other insects.
Breeding: Widespread in Ireland, favouring open areas which hold their main Irish host species – Meadow Pipit. Has a remarkable breeding biology unlike any other Irish breeding species.
Wintering: Cuckoos winter in central and southern Africa.
To minimise the chance of being recognised and thus attacked by the birds they are trying to parasitize, female cuckoos have evolved different guises.
The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. On hatching, the young cuckoo ejects the host's eggs and chicks from the nest, so the hosts end up raising a cuckoo chick rather than a brood of their own. To fight back, reed warblers (a common host across Europe) have a first line of defence: they attack, or ‘mob’, the female cuckoo, which reduces the chance that their nest is parasitized.
To deter the warbler from attacking, the colouring of the grey cuckoo mimics sparrow hawks, a common predator of reed warblers. However, other females are bright rufous (brownish-red). The presence of alternate colour morphs in the same species is rare in birds, but frequent among the females of parasitic cuckoo species. The new research shows that this is another cuckoo trick: cuckoos combat reed warbler mobbing by coming in different guises.
In the study, the researchers manipulated local frequencies of the more common grey colour cuckoo and the less common (in the United Kingdom) rufous colour cuckoo by placing models of the birds at neighbouring nests. They then recorded how the experience of watching their neighbours mob changed reed warbler responses to both cuckoos and a sparrow hawk at their own nest.
They found that reed warblers increased their mobbing, but only to the cuckoo morph that their neighbours had mobbed. Therefore, as one cuckoo morph increases in frequency, local host populations will become alerted specifically to that morph. This means the alternate morph will be more likely to slip past host defences and lay undetected. This is the first time that ‘social learning’ has been documented in the evolution of mimicry as well as the evolution of different observable characteristics - such as colour - in the same species (called polymorphism).
From the University of Cambridge “When mimicry becomes less effective, evolving to look completely different can be a successful trick. Our research shows that individuals assess disguises not only from personal experience, but also by observing others. However, because their learning is so specific, this social learning then selects for alternative cuckoo disguises and the arms race continues.”.
“It’s well known that cuckoos have evolved various egg types which mimic those of their hosts in order to combat rejection. This research shows that cuckoos have also evolved alternate female morphs to sneak through the hosts' defences. This explains why many species which use mimicry, such as the cuckoo, evolve different guises.”
Chairlift @ Lollapalooza 2016, Grant Park, Chicago, IL, on Saturday, July 30, 2016.
Lollapalooza 2016 Setlist:
Look Up
Polymorphing
Amanaemonesia
I Belong in Your Arms
Show U Off
Romeo
Crying In Public
Moth to the Flame
Ch-Ching
Get Real
Chairlift @ Lollapalooza 2016, Grant Park, Chicago, IL, on Saturday, July 30, 2016.
Lollapalooza 2016 Setlist:
Look Up
Polymorphing
Amanaemonesia
I Belong in Your Arms
Show U Off
Romeo
Crying In Public
Moth to the Flame
Ch-Ching
Get Real
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. Butterflies comprise the true butterflies (superfamily Papilionoidea), the skippers (superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (superfamily Hedyloidea). All the many other families within the Lepidoptera are referred to as moths. The earliest known butterfly fossils date to the mid Eocene epoch, 40–50 million years ago.
Butterflies exhibit polymorphism, mimicry and aposematism. Some, like the Monarch, will migrate over long distances. Some butterflies have evolved symbiotic and parasitic relationships with social insects such as ants. Some species are pests because in their larval stages they can damage domestic crops or trees; however, some species are agents of pollination of some plants, and caterpillars of a few butterflies (e.g., Harvesters) eat harmful insects. Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts.
Gujba
Carbonaceous chondrites CBa
Nigeria
Fall: 1984
TKW: 100 kg / OBJ: 2,1 g
Gujba is a bencubbinite (carbonaceous chondrite). At 6:30 in the evening, a bright fireball approaching from the west was seen and heard by local residents. The cone-shaped mass that landed in a corn field near the village of Bogga Dingare in Yobe, Nigeria, was estimated to have weighed ~100 kg, but most of the mass was broken up into small pieces and dispersed.
To date, Gujba is the only witnessed bencubbinite fall.
Bencubbinites are unusual stony-iron meteorites composed of roughly equal amounts of Fe, Ni metal and ferromagnesian silicates. Gujba is classified as a bencubbinite (CBa); meteorites in the CBa group are primitive, metal-rich chondrites. The bencubbinites represent some of the most fascinating meteorites, recording evidence of violent planetary-sized impacts, and containing some of the most primitive solar system materials. Their primitive characteristics make the CBa chondrites valuable recorders of early nebular processes.
Gujba is a primitive, polymict, chondritic breccia, the first fall of the bencubbinite group. It contains 0.4–8 mm-diameter, rounded, metallic globules (~41 vol%) and 0.8–15 mm-diameter silicate globules (~20 vol%), cemented together by a dark-colored, silicate-rich, impact-melt matrix composed of mm-sized fragments of both silicate and metal globules (~39 vol%).
Metal globules can contain up to ~1 vol% troilite, which is positively correlated with the abundance of volatile siderophile elements. Fractionation of siderophile elements in Gujba was controlled by volatility rather than by oxidation/sulfidation processes or magmatic crystallization (Krot et al., 2002). Siderophile element correlations are inconsistent with a nebular condensation model. It is generally assumed that a protoplanetary impact gave rise to a vapor cloud with high enough partial pressures to generate a metal-enriched gas. The metal globules then condensed as liquids from this gas and were sorted by size and density, thereby establishing the high metal/silicate ratio of the group. The CB group reflects a sequence of increasingly lighter Fe isotopes from Gujba through HaH 237 to Isheyevo (Zipfel and Weyer, 2006). This wide Fe isotopic range provides further evidence of a formation within an impact vapor plume rather than in a nebula setting. See the HaH 237 page for a more detailed scenario of the CB group formation process ascertained by Fedkin et al. (2015) through kinetic condensation modeling.
In a nm-scale study of Gujba, a two-phase (kamacite and taenite) metal particle was observed comprising ~30 individual grains that demonstrate a reheating episode occurred at temperatures of ~675°C (Goldstein et al, 2011). It is estimated that a subsequent cooling to ~550°C occurred within a time period of a month. A similar metal particle having a similar thermal history was found in the CBb bencubbinite HaH 237. Through 3-D mapping of Gujba at a µm scale, at least five types of metal particles of differing Ni content (~5 to ~8.2 wt%) and sulfide content were identified (Berlin et al., 2013). These metal particles are consistent with an origin in an impact plume, followed by accretion to a secondary parent body, where they experienced impact-associated secondary heating. Based on their examination of sulfide phases embedded in metal grains within the Gujba and Weatherford CBa meteorites, and through comparisons of Fe–S–Cr phase diagrams, Srinivasan et al. (2013) concluded that both the reheating of these sulfide phases and the injection of silicate melt into metal and silicate host components were likely concurrent with this impact.
Hydrocode modeling employing a homogeneous nucleation theory demonstrates that the very high densities and temperatures that would lead to the formation of mm- to cm-sized metal globules are consistent with an impact vapor plume origin rather than a nebular origin (Anic et al., 2005). A high velocity collision is most likely to produce those conditions conducive to producing the particle size that exists in Gujba. An alternative model has been described whereby the metal was melted to form globules, while S and volatile siderophiles were subsequently evaporated out. The metal globules have varying Ni contents and exhibit quench textures (Rubin et al., 2003), and since no diffusion has occurred among globules in contact with each other, it can be inferred that they were accreted at cold temperatures after being isolated from the hot condensation region.
The silicate globules in Gujba exhibit skeletal olivine textures, contain no FeNi-metal or troilite, and have low concentrations of volatile elements, features indicative of quenching from a molten state; i.e., condensation from a hot, impact-generated vapor plume (Krot et al., 2004). CAIs have been found in some bencubbinites including HaH 237, QUE 94411, and Gujba, as well as the transitional member Isheyevo; however, since their O-isotopic values plot along the CCAM line instead of the CR trend line, they represent solar nebula material rather than condensates from the impact vapor plume (Fedkin et al., 2015).
Raman spectra have identified the first carbonaceous chondrite occurrence of several high pressure phases within barred olivine fragments and the matrix components of Gujba; these include majorite garnet, majorite-pyrope solid solution, and wadsleyite, along with minor grossular-pyrope solid solution and coesite (Weisberg and Kimura, 2010). These high pressure phases formed either from solid-state transformation of pyroxene or crystallization from an impact melt during a heterogeneous, planetesimal wide impact shock event reaching minimum pressures of ~19 GPa and temperatures of ~2000°C. The investigators argue that these high pressure phases are inconsistent with the subsequent formation of chondrules within an impact plume since at such high temperatures these phases would be rapidly back-transformed to their low temperature polymorphs. Moreover, the measured cooling rates of chondrules (ave. 100K/hr) are much too slow than that at which shock veins with high pressure polymorphs would survive (~1000K/hr). Therefore, they determined that the barred chondrules and metal in CB chondrites were formed prior to the impact event that produced the high pressure polymorphs.
The bencubbinites constitute a small group having similar oxygen and nitrogen isotopic compositions as well as similar petrologic characteristics. They have highly reduced silicates, bulk metal abundances of 60–70 vol%, Cr-bearing troilite, metal with near solar Ni/Co ratios, and similar elemental abundances. Among chondrite groups, the bencubbinites show a significant enrichment of 15N, with Gujba having an intermediate content within the group. The bencubbinites have been divided into two petrologic subgroups, CBa and CBb, representing those with cm-sized metal and silicate globules, and those with mm-sized globules, respectively. Further information on the formation of bencubbinites can be found on the Bencubbin, Isheyevo, and NWA 1814 pages.
Based on the U–Pb isotopic chronometer using the Shallowater standard (at that time corrected to 4.5613 [±0.0008] b.y. by Connelly et al., 2012), the chondrules in Gujba (CBa) and HaH 237 (CBb) were calculated to have formed simultaneously 4.56168 (±0.00051) b.y. ago; this age reflects a more recent formation event in comparison to other chondrite groups. Employing the corrected I–Xe data from Gilmour et al. (2009) for Gujba and that from Pravdivtseva et al. (2014) for HaH 237, respective closure ages of 4.5632 (±0.0013) b.y. and 4.56101 (±0.00087) b.y. were obtained. The age difference between these CBa and CBb chondrules was attributed to possible heterogeneity of the I-isotopic compositions in the two meteorites' respective formation regions within the impact vapor-melt plume (Bollard et al., 2015). Furthermore, other chronometers have provided ages consistent with those cited above, with a Hf–W age anchored to CAIs of 4.5622 (±0.0024) b.y., and a Mn–Cr age anchored to D'Orbigny of 4.5633 (±0.001) b.y. (Bollard et al., 2015). In their high-precision study of four Gujba chondrules, Bollard et al. (2015) derived a weighted average age of 4.56249 (±0.00021) b.y.; this equates to 4.8 (±0.3) m.y. after CAIs, or 1.2 (±0.6) m.y. after the formation of the youngest known nebular chondrule. Subsequent to this, high precision isotopic studies involving HaH 237 were conducted by Pravdivtseva et al. (2015, 2016), which led them to suggest a refinement in the absolute I–Xe age for the Shallowater standard of 4.5624 (±0.0002) b.y. Based on this new refinement, the age of HaH 237 relative to Shallowater was ascertained to be 4.5621 (±0.0003) m.y., which is consistent with the U-corrected Pb–Pb age determined for Gujba chondrules by Bollard et al. (2015) above, as well as that determined for HaH 237 silicates by Krot et al. (2005) of 4.5619 (±0.0009) b.y. All of these ages attest to a relatively late formation of the CB-group chondrites from a vapor-melt plume following a catastrophic impact between two planetary embryos.
The CRE age of Gujba (26 ±7 m.y.) is identical within uncertainties to that of Bencubbin (27.3 m.y.), and both have similar noble gas concentrations (also similar in some respects to the enstatite chondrites; Nakashima and Nagao, 2009), which attests to a common ejection event on their parent body. However, while the metal and silicate globules in Gujba are mostly complete, undistorted spheres, those in Bencubbin and Weatherford are fragmented and distorted. Gujba and other CB chondrites exhibit multiple characteristics that are consistent with a severe shock subsequent to its formation, including melting, brecciation, and deformation. The presence of certain high-pressure phases in Gujba—majorite and wadsleyite, produced by the conversion of low-Ca pyroxene and olivine, respectively—attests to the occurrence of a significant shock event of ~19 GPa at 2000°C (Weisberg and Kimura, 2004) consistent with a shock stage of S2. As in Bencubbin, shock-associated structures identified in Gujba include stishovite, amorphous to poorly graphitized carbon, ordered graphite, rounded to euhedral diamonds, nanodiamond clumps, and rare bucky-diamonds, along with carbonaceous nanoglobules (Garvie et al., 2011).
The CB, CH, and CR chondrites constitute the CR clan, comprising groups which likely formed in the same isotopic reservoir under similar conditions in the solar nebula; current evidence argues for an origin of the metal-rich carbonaceous chondrites in a common collision between planetary embryos (Krot et al., 2009). The Gujba specimen pictured above is an 18.1 g polished slice sectioned from a 282 g fragment that was originally purchased in 2000 in Gidan Wire, Nigeria. See also a most spectacular 81.05 g full slice of this special bencubbinite, courtesy of the Stephan Kambach collection, which exhibits the finest details of both metallic and silicate chondrules. A beautiful high-resolution exterior view of Gujba, courtesy of Paul Swartz (Meteorite Picture of the Day, 1 Oct 2014), can be seen here. The photo below shows an awesome 2,365 g end piece, part of the Jay Piatek Collection, that was sectioned from a 3,440 g complete Gujba mass.
Pseudomorphs are minerals that have replaced other minerals, while retaining the crystal shape of the original mineral.
The radiating crystalline structure seen here was originally marcasite (FeS2), a brassy gold-colored iron sulfide mineral that is a polymorph of pyrite. The marcasite was replaced by black-colored iron oxide. People disagree on what the iron oxide mineral is - I've seen it referred to as hematite, limonite, or goethite.
Geologic context: eroded from the Khoman Formation, Maastrichtian Stage, upper Upper Cretaceous
Locality: unrecorded / undisclosed site in the White Desert, supposedly near Farafra Oasis, western Egypt
Blijdorp, Rotterdam, Zoo
Butterflies are part of the class of Insects in the order Lepidoptera. Moths are also included in this order. Adults butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise the true butterflies (superfamily Papilionoidea), the skippers (superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (superfamily Hedyloidea). Other families within Lepidoptera are referred to as moths. Butterfly fossils date to the mid Eocene epoch, 40–50 million years ago.[1]
Butterflies exhibit polymorphism, mimicry and aposematism. Some, like the Monarch, will migrate over long distances. Some butterflies have and parasitic relationships with organisms including protozoans, flies, ants, other invertebrates, and vertebrates. [2] [3] Some species are pests because in their larval stages they can damage domestic crops or trees; however, some species are agents of pollination of some plants, and caterpillars of a few butterflies (e.g., Harvesters) eat harmful insects. Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts.
Cuculus canorus
[order] Cuculiformes | [family] Cuculidae | [latin] Cuculus canorus | [UK] Cuckoo | [FR] Coucou gris | [DE] Kuckuck | [ES] Cuco Europeo | [IT] Cuculo eurasiatico | [NL] Koekoek | [IRL] Cuach
Status: Widespread summer visitor to Ireland from April to August.
Conservation Concern: Green-listed in Ireland. The European population is currently evaluated as secure.
Identification: Despite its obvious song, relatively infrequently seen. In flight, can be mistaken for a bird of prey such as Sparrowhawk, but has rapid wingbeats below the horizontal plane - ie. the wings are not raised above the body. Adult male Cuckoos are a uniform grey on the head, neck, back, wings and tail. The underparts are white with black barring. Adult females can appear in one of two forms. The so-called grey-morph resembles the adult male plumage, but has throat and breast barred black and white with yellowish wash. The rufous-morph has the grey replaced by rufous, with strong black barring on the wings, back and tail. Juvenile Cuckoos resemble the female rufous-morph, but are darker brown above.
Similar Species: Sparrowhawk
Call: The song is probably one of the most recognisable and well-known of all Irish bird species. The male gives a distinctive “wuck-oo”, which is occasionally doubled “wuck-uck-ooo”. The female has a distinctive bubbling “pupupupu”. The song period is late April to late June.
Diet: Mainly caterpillars and other insects.
Breeding: Widespread in Ireland, favouring open areas which hold their main Irish host species – Meadow Pipit. Has a remarkable breeding biology unlike any other Irish breeding species.
Wintering: Cuckoos winter in central and southern Africa.
To minimise the chance of being recognised and thus attacked by the birds they are trying to parasitize, female cuckoos have evolved different guises.
The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. On hatching, the young cuckoo ejects the host's eggs and chicks from the nest, so the hosts end up raising a cuckoo chick rather than a brood of their own. To fight back, reed warblers (a common host across Europe) have a first line of defence: they attack, or ‘mob’, the female cuckoo, which reduces the chance that their nest is parasitized.
To deter the warbler from attacking, the colouring of the grey cuckoo mimics sparrow hawks, a common predator of reed warblers. However, other females are bright rufous (brownish-red). The presence of alternate colour morphs in the same species is rare in birds, but frequent among the females of parasitic cuckoo species. The new research shows that this is another cuckoo trick: cuckoos combat reed warbler mobbing by coming in different guises.
In the study, the researchers manipulated local frequencies of the more common grey colour cuckoo and the less common (in the United Kingdom) rufous colour cuckoo by placing models of the birds at neighbouring nests. They then recorded how the experience of watching their neighbours mob changed reed warbler responses to both cuckoos and a sparrow hawk at their own nest.
They found that reed warblers increased their mobbing, but only to the cuckoo morph that their neighbours had mobbed. Therefore, as one cuckoo morph increases in frequency, local host populations will become alerted specifically to that morph. This means the alternate morph will be more likely to slip past host defences and lay undetected. This is the first time that ‘social learning’ has been documented in the evolution of mimicry as well as the evolution of different observable characteristics - such as colour - in the same species (called polymorphism).
From the University of Cambridge “When mimicry becomes less effective, evolving to look completely different can be a successful trick. Our research shows that individuals assess disguises not only from personal experience, but also by observing others. However, because their learning is so specific, this social learning then selects for alternative cuckoo disguises and the arms race continues.”.
“It’s well known that cuckoos have evolved various egg types which mimic those of their hosts in order to combat rejection. This research shows that cuckoos have also evolved alternate female morphs to sneak through the hosts' defenses. This explains why many species which use mimicry, such as the cuckoo, evolve different guises.”
''La musique que proposent Tim et Meriadeg est une embarcation vers l’inconnu, le polymorphe et la rêverie. L’issue du périple est aussi incertaine que virtuose, la mécanique des sens est réglée sur intense, les questions fusent et se défont au gré de mille réponses qui coulent de source. On est en mer, sur le dos d’une vague en transhumance ou à terre au milieu des herbes hautes, qu’importe !!!… on est bien.''
Anthodites in a cave in Virginia, USA.
"Cave formations" in caves are technically called speleothem. Most speleothem is composed of travertine, a crystalline-textured chemical sedimentary rock composed of calcite (CaCO3). Travertine forms in most caves and at some springs by precipitation of crystals from water. Travertine speleothem occurs in a wide variety of forms. The most common variety of travertine speleothem is dripstone, which forms by the action of dripping water. The second-most common type of travertine speleothem is flowstone, which forms by precipitation of crystals from relatively thin films of flowing water. Flowstone typically has the appearance of a frozen waterfalls.
Shown above are anthodites, a scarce variety of speleothem that was first described from this very cave - Skyline Caverns in Virginia. Anthodites are radiating clusters of quill-like to slightly vermiform structures. Individual anthodite quills are hollow. Mineral analysis by White (1994) has shown that they are composed of aragonite (CaCO3), which is a polymorph of calcite. Some have recrystallized to calcite. The anthodites of Skyline Caverns were originally in sealed chambers in a mostly-sediment filled cave passage. During tourist trail construction, workers dug out sediments and encountered small chambers having common anthodites. They were subsequently named and described in the literature in 1949. The anthodite-bearing chambers were unusual in having near-vacuum conditions. Upon opening one chamber, a worker's hat was sucked in by the low air pressure.
When pure calcium carbonate, anthodites are white-colored. The yellows and reddish-browns seen above are from iron oxides. The green coloration is from algae that grows in tourist trail lighting.
Skyline Caverns is developed in structurally tilted carbonates (mixed dolostones and limestones) of the Rockdale Run Formation (Beekmantown Group, Lower Ordovician).
Locality: Skyline Caverns, Front Royal, central Warren County, northern Virginia, USA
-------------------
Reference cited:
White (1994) - The anthodites from Skyline Caverns, Virginia: the type locality. National Speleological Society Bulletin (Journal of Caves and Karst Studies) 56: 23-26.
Quartz after beta quartz from Russia.
A mineral is a naturally-occurring, solid, inorganic, crystalline substance having a fairly definite chemical composition and having fairly definite physical properties. At its simplest, a mineral is a naturally-occurring solid chemical. Currently, there are over 6100 named and described minerals - about 200 of them are common and about 20 of them are very common. Mineral classification is based on anion chemistry. Major categories of minerals are: elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, phosphates, and silicates.
The silicates are the most abundant and chemically complex group of minerals. All silicates have silica as the basis for their chemistry. "Silica" refers to SiO2 chemistry. The fundamental molecular unit of silica is one small silicon atom surrounded by four large oxygen atoms in the shape of a triangular pyramid - this is the silica tetrahedron - SiO4. Each oxygen atom is shared by two silicon atoms, so only half of the four oxygens "belong" to each silicon. The resulting formula for silica is thus SiO2, not SiO4.
The simplest & most abundant silicate mineral in the Earth's crust is quartz (SiO2). All other silicates have silica + impurities. Many silicates have a significant percentage of aluminum (the aluminosilicates).
Quartz (silicon dioxide/silica - SiO2) is the most common mineral in the Earth's crust. It is composed of the two most abundant elements in the crust - oxygen and silicon. It has a glassy, nonmetallic luster, is commonly clearish to whitish to grayish in color, has a white streak, is quite hard (H≡7), forms hexagonal crystals, has no cleavage, and has conchoidal fracture. Quartz can be any color: clear, white, gray, black, brown, pink, red, purple, blue, green, orange, etc.
The unremarkable quartz crystal shown above is actually a pseudomorph. This is quartz after beta quartz (also known as quartz-beta). Beta quartz is a high-temperature polymorph of quartz - it has the same formula, SiO2. Beta quartz is unstable at Earth-surface temperatures, so during cooling, the molecular structure became slightly rearranged, resulting in ordinary quartz. However, the quartz retains the crystal shape of the original beta quartz. Beta quartz has hexagonal crystals, while quartz technically forms trigonal crystals that have a hexagonal outline (see details of quartz crystals at: www.mindat.org/min-3337.html).
This example of beta quartz comes from a polymetallic sulfide ore body at the famous Dalnegorsk skarn deposit in far-eastern Russia.
Locality: Verkhneye Mine, Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Krai, far-eastern Russia
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See info. on beta quartz at:
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Photo gallery of quartz:
@ our garden
The Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina) is a butterfly found in European meadows, where its larvae feed on grasses, such as Sheep's Fescue.
Similar species are Gatekeeper (which prefers to rest with its wings open) and Small Heath (which is smaller).
There is marked sexual dimorphism in this species. Males are less colorful, with smaller eyespots and much reduced orange areas on the upper forewings. They are also much more active and range far about, while females fly less and often may not away from the area where they grew up.
A variable number of smaller eyespots are usually found on the hindwing undersides. These may number up to 12 per individual butterfly, with up to 6 on each wing. The factors that govern polymorphism in this trait are not resolved, although a number of theories have been proposed (Stevens 2005). On the other hand, the evolutionary significance of the upperwing eyespots is more obvious: The more active males have a markedly more cryptic upperside pattern, whereas the females have more often opportunity to present their eyespots in a sudden display of colors and patterns that presumably make neophobic predators hesitate so that the butterfly has better chances of escaping.
Chrysotile asbestos veins in serpentinized komatiite in the Precambrian of Ontario, Canada.
Komatiites are very rare, magnesium-rich, extrusive, ultramafic igneous rocks. They are named after the Komati River Valley in South Africa, the type locality. Komatiite is an exceedingly rare type of lava. No volcano on Earth erupts this material today. Komatiites are essentially restricted to the Archean (4.55 to 2.5 billion years ago). Experimental evidence has shown that komatiite lavas, when originally erupted, were considerably hotter (~1600º C) than any modern lava type on Earth. This indicates that Earth’s mantle was much hotter than now. Other geologic evidence also indicates that early Earth’s heat flux was much higher than today’s.
Komatiite lava had a very low viscosity - it could flow like an ultradense gas. This property permitted the solidification of some individual lava flows that are only 1 cm thick.
The classic texture of komatiites is spinifex texture, named after clumps of long, spiky (& painful!) grasses. Komatiites with spinifex texture have short to long blades or plates of olivine mixed with smaller-scale blades of pyroxene.
All Archean komatiites are metamorphosed - the original igneous mineralogy (olivine, pyroxene, minor chromite, etc.) is gone to mostly gone. Such rocks are best termed metakomatiites, but the prefix “meta-” is usually not specified in writing.
Komatiites have economic significance, as many are closely associated with copper-nickel minerals (chalcopyrite & pentlandite), plus minor platinum-group elements, arsenides, bismuthides, and maybe a little gold and silver. Komatiites are a world-class source of nickel in Canada and Western Australia.
The outcrop seen here is part of a komatiite "lava lake" next to the Potter Mine in Ontario, Canada. This is near the world-famous Pyke Hill locality, which has numerous, thin komatiite lava flows. The rocks in the Potter Mine-Pyke Hill area are part of the Kidd-Munro Assemblage, which consists of ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks intruded by mafic to ultramafic dikes and sill-like bodies. Minor felsic volcanic rocks are also present. Volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits occur in the Kidd-Munro Assemblage - they have been mined at the Texas Gulf Mine and the Potter Mine.
The rocks at this particular site were originally interpreted as part of a relatively thick komatiite lava lake, the last feature of a volcanic eruption. A newer interpretation says that this is a series of thick komatiite sheet flows (at least 6) in a paleo-depression. A thin lava lake may have originally capped the succession.
This is an exposure of serpentinized komatiite. The linear features running through the rock are "veins" of asbestos. There are several minerals colloquially known as "asbestos". The most common is "white asbestos", which is a mineral called chrysotile. It is one of three polymorphs of serpentine (= magnesium hydroxy-silicate, Mg3Si2O5(OH)4). Other varieties include “blue asbestos” (= crocidolite amphibole) and “brown asbestos” (= amosite amphibole). Chrysotile serpentine has a whitish to greenish color, a silky luster, and fibrous fracture.
Stratigraphy: Upper Komatiitic Unit, Kidd-Munro Assemblage, Abitibi Greenstone Belt, lower Neoarchean, 2.711-2.717 Ga
Locality: "Lava Lake" exposure outcrop near dirt road, southwest of the Potter Mine, north of Route 101, east-northeast of Matheson & south of the western end of Lake Abitibi & ~83 kilometers east of the city of Timmins, Munro Township, southern Cochrane District, eastern Ontario, southeastern Canada (~vicinity of 48° 35' 50.93" North latitude, 80° 12' 50.97" West longitude)
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For photos of chrysotile serpentine/white asbestos, see:
www.jsjgeology.net/Serpentine.htm
and
Les Sources Occultes - Teaser /999
Réalisation Laurent Courau sur un scénario de thierry Ehrmann
blog.ehrmann.org/films2/les-sources-occultes-teaser.html
© Les Amis de l'Esprit de la Salamandre 1999
Entre effroi et merveilles, une zone mouvante aux portes du futur et des enfers... Les Sources Occultes vous entraînent au coeur d'un univers polymorphe dont les clés et les motifs se révéleront au fur et à mesure des épisodes de cette série de fictions. En attendant un final apocalyptique, au sens premier du terme, qui révélera la structure générale sous la forme d'un long-métrage...
Les Sources Occultes offre aussi une nouvelle porte d'entrée dans le labyrinthe multidimensionnel de la Demeure du Chaos à celles et ceux qui postulent à notre casting, une occasion unique de pénétrer les arcanes de l'Esprit de la Salamandre...
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
Opening night of the show "Polymorph" by Katya Usvitsky, at The One Well, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NYC. See press coverage here. The work will be on display/for sale through November 4th.
Récolté par Jules Cimon
www.flickr.com/photos/23151213@N03/7263421248/#
Description partielle:
# 50419 – Asco sp. Description microscopique
Apothécies mesurant jusqu’à 1 mm de diamètre
Spores fusoïdes à extrémités légèrement obtuses, avec un septum et étranglement médian, à paroi épaisse, brun foncé,
(10,2) 10,3 - 12,9 (13,2) x (3,7) 3,9 - 4,6 (5) µm
Q = 2,5 - 3,1 (3,2) ; N = 13
Me = 11,7 x 4,3 µm ; Qe = 2,8
Asques à 8 spores bisériées, légèrement ventrus et à base plus étroite, à appareil apical amyloïde et contenu huileux dextrinoïde au tiers inférieur, à base possiblement crochetée (difficile à préciser), 42,62 - 68,8 x 8,52 - 10,2 µm
Paraphyses (pseudoparaphyses?) cylindriques à apex souvent légèrement élargi ou recourbé, septées, ramifiées, à paroi épaisse, 26 - 38,3 x 2,43 - 3,68 µm
Medulla en textura plus ou moins epidermoidea, à cellules indifférenciées hyalines-jaunâtres
Excipulum en textura globulosa-angularis, formé de cellules à paroi épaisse, brunes, 7,6 - 11,8 x 6 - 9,9 µm
Paroi externe constituée de cellules polymorphes brun noirâtre à brun foncé olivâtre
Nomada sp. - 49°09´22.3´´ N 7°51´17.4´´ E
cf. flava / fulvicornis / ferruginata / marshamella / leucophthalma /
(deep molecular analysis appreciated as published: - Dettai, A., and J. N. Volff. 2006. Morphological Characters from the Genome: SINE Insertion Polymorphism and Phylogenies, p. 45-75. In D.-H. Lankenau and J. N. Volff (ed.), Transposable Elements and Genome Dynamics, vol. 4. Springer, Heidelberg.)
Funddatum /Collection Date:
30.4.2017
Fundort /Location:
Busenberg, Bärenbrunnerhof, Pfalz / Palatinate Forest
49°09´22.3´´ N 7°51´17.4´´ E
~300m über NN
Sammlungsnummer / collection code:
Lkn8f
Geschlecht / Sex: ♂
Männchen / male
Wendeglied der Antenne eingezogen im Scapus / pedicellus retracted within scapus.
Größe des Exemplars / Size of specimen
~ 8,4 mm
Merkmale / Morphologic features:
Fühler oben dunkel, unten gelb, Scapus oben schwarz.
keine roten Male auf Thorax oder Scutum und Scutellum!
Orbiten im unteren Gesicht, innen bis auf Höhe der Fühler reichend. /
Yellow / white markings of the lower face extending halfway up the inner eye margins and attaining the level of the antennal insertions (fig. 40 Falk).
Bemerkungen / Notices:
auf Taraxacum / visiting Taraxacum flower
Zusammen mit Andrena cineraria & Andrena gravida / together with Andrena cineraria & Andrena gravida
Bestimmungsreferenz / Reference of determination:
1. Schmiedeknecht, O. 1930. Hymenopteren Mitteleuropas.
2. Amiet, F., M. Herrmann, A. Müller, and R. NEU-MEYER. 2007. Fauna Helvetica 20, Apidae 5. Schweizerische Entomologische Gesellschaft.
3. Falk, S., and R. Lewington. 2015. Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland. Bloomsbury.
4. Westrich, P. 2019. Die Wildbienen Deutschlands, 2nd ed. Eugen Ulmer KG, Stuttgart.
5. www.flickr.com/photos/63075200@N07/collections/7215763693...
Fotoinformation / Photo-Information:
Kamera: Canon EOS 750D; APS-C sensor
Objektiv: Canon MPE65mm
Blende: 2,8
Belichtungszeit: 1/50s
Beleuchtung: 4 Ikea LEDs
ISO: 100
Qualität der Serienfotos: jpg
Flash: no
Dateiformat jpg/tif
Beschnitt in % (Breite und Höhe): slightly
Vergrößerung lt. Objektiv: 1x
Brackating: Cognisys sled
Anzahl der Schritte: 160
Länge der Schritte: 50µm
Arbeitsabstand: ca. 10 cm
Stacking-Software: Helicon Focus 7 / Method C (Pyramid)
(Photo by Dirk Lankenau )