Porphyritic nepheline syenite (8.3 cm across) - this rock is derived from the summit spires of Mt. Kenya Volcano. It is a porphyritic nepheline syenite, a shallow intrusive igneous rock that filled up the throat of the old volcano.

 

This rock was collected from a float boulder on the southern slopes of Mt. Kenya, but derived from the summit spires. The rock contains large phenocrysts of sanidine feldspar, smaller phenocrysts of nepheline, and a groundmass of aegirine pyroxene, alkalic amphibole, aenigmatite, and melanite.

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

Mt. Kenya is an eroded, extinct volcano in south-central Kenya, just next to the East African Rift Valley system. The volcano was active principally during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. The summit area of Mt. Kenya consists of majestic-looking, high spires of rock - these rocks are shallow intrusives that filled up the throat of the old volcano. The eroded slopes of the volcano consist of a variety of extrusive rocks, including trachytes, basalts, phonolites, and kenytes.

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

Mostly synthesized from:

 

Baker (1967) - Geology of the Mount Kenya area. Geological Survey of Kenya Report 79. 78 pp. 4 pls. 1 map.

 

Price et al. (1985) - Geochemistry of phonolites and trachytes from the summit region of Mt. Kenya. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 89: 394-409.

 

Concealed behind the walled city of Intramuros, built by the Spaniards in 1570, is the church of San Agustin. This church is a significant monument to the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, being the first religious structure built in the island of Luzon, after the Spanish relocated from Cebu in the south.

 

Built within the administrative center of the Spanish government, San Agustin church enjoyed privileges not commonly dispensed to most colonial churches. It was built by the Spaniard Juan Macias in 1586 and was completed in 1606. Luciano Oliver later renovated it in 1854. The book Great Churches of the Philippines points out that the church was designed “according to the plans approved by the Royal Audencia of Mexico and by a Royal Cedula.”

 

Jesus Encinas, who wrote San Agustin Manila, states that the design of the church was derived from other churches that were built by the Augustinians in Mexico. Pedro Galende, OSA, in his book San Agustin Noble Stone Shrine, adds that the Augustinians “who came from Spain and those born in Mexico had a great opportunity to observe and study the South American monastic architecture which they later used in the Philippines. They took into consideration the quality of the local stone and the weather conditions which required them to sacrifice aesthetic requirement for durability.”

 

This practical and banal approach to aesthetics is evident on the church’s facade. It may have been the most sought and copied facade in the colonial period, but its static appearance and dark adobe stone lack grace and charm. Even the Augustinians themselves were not too kind with the church’s displeasing appearance. In another book, Angels in Stone, Galende recalls the Augustinian historian, Agustin Ma. de Castro’s critical comment of the church’s facade: “It was of triangular form, very ugly and of a blackish color; flanked by two towers, one of which has no bells and does not serve for anything. Due to the frequent earthquakes in Manila, they (towers) have only one body, ugly and irregular, without elevation or gracefulness.”

 

Sedate and direct to the point, the facade follows the style of High Renaissance. The symmetrical composition is prefixed by pairs of Tuscan columns that flank the main door of the two-tiered facade. The vertical movement of the paired columns is adapted at the second level by equally paired Corinthian columns. At the second level, mass and void alternate in a simple rhythm of solid walls and windows. The two levels, emphasized by horizontal cornices, are then capped by a pediment that is accentuated with a simple rose window. The facade’s hard composition is held together by two towers; unfortunately, the missing left belfry further exaggerates the lackluster facade. It was taken down after a destructive earthquake hit the church in 1863 and 1880, splitting the tower in two.

 

The facade has a touch of Baroque by the ornately carved wooden doors that depict floras and religious images. Baroque is also evident in the carved niches that quietly reside between the paired lower columns. The church is bequeathed with Chinese elements in the form of fu dogs that emphatically guard the courtyard entrances.

 

Alicia Coseteng, in Spanish Churches of the Philippines, describes the church as having “an inverted vaulting foundation, which reacts to seismic effects in much the same manner as the hull of a ship resists the waves.” Although this is difficult to prove, this may be one of the reasons why, amidst the destructive natural calamities that are prevalent in the country, the church is still standing today. Winand Klassen, in his book Architecture in the Philippines, also notes that the church has an inverted vault-like foundation, and was the first earthquake-proof building in stone. This makes San Agustin as the only surviving 16th century edifice, and the oldest church in the Philippines. Another interesting structural component of the church is the lateral bays that act as interior buttressing. This is completely different from all the colonial churches where the wall buttresses flare out at the exterior side of the church walls. Within each compartmentalized bay is a side chapel that Coseteng refers to as cryptocollateral chapel. Seven side chapels line the entire length of each side of the nave.

 

San Agustin church is also the only colonial church that has retained its original vaulting, despite the destructive forces that shelled the church during WW II. It was a fortuitous turn because San Agustin church flaunts one of the most artistically decorated interiors among all of the colonial churches in the country.

 

The splendid trompe l’oeil barrel vault and dome magnify the skills of two Italian decorative painters, Alberoni and Dibella, who were commissioned to paint the church’s interior in 1875. With a barren, plain surface, they managed to sculpt and gave life to the ceiling with their paint brushes. Alberoni and Dibella animated every space with wonderful floral motifs, geometric patterns, classic architectural themes, coffers, and religious images. Significantly, the artists developed a language in the trompe l’oeil vaulting that synthesizes with the spatial geometry of the church. The super-imposed columns which divide each side chapel are echoed above by coffered bands that traverse across the barrel vault. Even the faux coffers are organized along the length of the ceiling to suggest depth, movement, balance, and proportion to the nave below. At the crossing, the concentric trompe l’oeil of the shallow dome is curiously crisscrossed by fluted ribs that rise from each pier and merge at the apex.

 

The playful effect of chiaroscuro-light and shadows-and perspective, restrained only by the limited palette of a few earthly colors, is a visual spectacle. Perhaps, the grandiosity of the painting is a bit too presumptuous to some critics, but one can assume that the vitality of the interior must have roused the imaginations of Simon Flores, a local artist who later became responsible in decorating the interiors of several other churches, including the sumptuous interior of Betis church in Pampanga.

 

As a final stroke to the exhilarating visual experience, the church is vested with a heavily guilded pulpit, with the native flora and pineapple as decorative motifs, as well as a very ornate altar.

 

The church is more than just an architectural icon. A side chapel next to the main altar is dedicated to the Spanish Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the founder of Manila. His remains were re-buried here by the Augustinians, unidentified and mixed along with others, after they were ruthlessly unearthed by the British who were searching for golden treasures in 1762.

 

At best, today, one can only quietly contemplate the charged bygone days at the foot of Legaspi’s final resting place.

 

Adjacent to the church, the monastery was converted in 1973 to become a repository for religious artifacts and art treasures dating back as early as the 16th century. Here, one can spend an entire day to cherish and absorb the remains of a resplendent era in the country’s religious history.

 

San Agustin church is, indeed, the mother of all Philippine colonial churches.

Conglomerate & sandstone in the Pennsylvanian of Ohio, USA.

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(Synthesized from info. provided by several geologists during the 2003 Annual Field Conference of the Great Lakes Section, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists):

 

The Lower Pennsylvanian Sharon Formation is a 10-15 meter thick, ledge-forming, erosion-resistant unit. The Sharon is paleovalley-filling in places, so it is thicker than 10-15 meters in some spots. The jointing patterns of the Sharon Formation allow for 3-D examination around large blocks of outcrop - can see the 3-D architecture of sedimentary structures. The Pottsville Group lies over a major unconformity, which was formed by eustatic sealevel fall & erosion. The Sharon Formation is the basal unit of the Pottsville sediments over this unconformity. In terms of the tectonic setting, this is in the Appalachian Foreland Basin. What influenced sedimentation and sediment supply of the Sharon Formation during the Early Pennsylvanian? Probably a migrating forebulge and Early Pennsylvanian climatic changes. The Sharon is correlatable with the Olean Conglomerate in Pennsylvania. Both the Sharon and the Olean are time-equivalent to the Tumbling Hill Member & the Huylkill Member of the lower Pottsville Formation of central Pennsylvania (both of those members are below the major unconformity in Pennsylvania, unlike in northeastern Ohio). The Sharon Conglomerate/Formation & the Olean Conglomerate were deposited under strong north-to-south paleoflow conditions.

 

About twelve lithofacies can be seen in the Sharon Formation in the Akron, Ohio area. The Sharon Formation is dominantly conglomerate and sandstone, with lots of sedimentary structures. It is light on fine-grained materials. The Sharon has horizontally bedded gravels, cross-bedded gravels (including trough and tabular cross bedding), deformed/overturned cross-bed sets, basal scours up to 2 meters deep (but typically 0.5 to 1 meter deep; scours are backfilled by dune/bar back migration), whole channel fills, chute fills, and gravel bar platform deposits (usually 1-2 meters thick in the Sharon; these include bar head deposits, bar core deposits, bar tail deposits, and bar margin deposits - can usually use the presence of imbricated clasts to ID bar-head & bar-core portions of gravel bar platforms, but in the Sharon, clasts are mostly spheroidal, so it is difficult to tell specific portions of gravel platforms here). In the gravel-rich Sharon deposits, get calculated average bankfull depths of 2.1 meters, 19.9 meter average paleochannel widths, and 34.3 meter maximum paleochannel widths. Get different numbers for the sandy Sharon deposits. The Sharon is typically more conglomeratic at the base & more sandy near the top. The Sharon’s interpreted depositional environment is gravel & sand bedload streams. Paleovalleys underneath the Sharon Formation were formed when the subsidence rate was greater than the sediment supply. Paleovalley backfilling (i.e., Sharon deposits) occurred when the subsidence rate was less than the sediment supply. The change in fluvial style seen in Sharon deposits is probably due to filling & overtopping of paleovalleys.

 

Beds of the Sharon Formation are usually cliff-forming. The Sharon in the Akron area consists of quartz-pebble conglomerate & quartzose sandstone & pebbly quartzose sandstone & sandy quartz-pebble conglomerate & some lenses or thin intervals of granulestone. The basal Sharon is conglomeratic - the “lower conglomerate”. An “upper conglomerate” can be seen in places - it is usually quite thin (1-2 pebbles thick in places), and in some places, it splits into two horizons; in some places it’s not there at all. Pebbles are almost entirely white vein quartz, with an uncertain source from the north. Detrital muscovite in the Sharon has been dated to about 370 and 406 Ma (Devonian), so the source area includes Acadian Orogeny materials. The Sharon has relatively common cross-bedding, with a few overturned cross-beds visible in areas. Abundant iron oxide staining is present in the Sharon sandstones, with a variety of morphologies - this can weather out as resistant ridges or as 3-D surfaces. Many vugs have thick goethite linings. Many goethite-stained quartz pebbles are present. Seeps & springs occur sporadically along the sandstones of the lower Sharon Formation in places. These spring waters have widely variable pH and TDS (total dissolved solids). Some dry springs are present - conduits without water emerging. A few places in basal Sharon strata have obvious rip-up shale clasts, derived from uppermost Meadville Shale beds (below the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian unconformity). One outcrop is known with many Meadville Shale clasts mixed in with Sharon quartz pebbles - this appears to represent paleobank failure of Meadville material during near-earliest Sharon deposition.

 

The outcrop shown above is at Virginia Kendall Ledges in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Virginia Kendall Ledges is an isolated platform of Sharon Formation, surrounded by a lower land surface of Lower Mississippian Cuyahoga Formation shales & siltstones & sandstones. The lower Sharon Formation at this site is quite pebbly - many pebble-filled channelform features are present. Upon 3-D examination of their architecture, these are not channels or chutes, but are interpreted by Professor Neil Wells as bar confluence scours with subsequent pebble fills. The edges of the Virginia Kendall Ledges platform have large Sharon blocks separating from the rest of the platform. Abundant overturned recumbent cross beds are present - some of the world's best developed and best exposed examples. The mechanism by which crossbeds get overturned seems straightforward (unidirectional shear by fluvial currents), but the cause is not clearly understood - some cohesive agent may be required? Someone suggested biomats. Some of the scour pits in this area seem to have fairly steep margins - perhaps whatever cohesive agent was responsible for simple deformation of crossbeds was also responsible for overly steep, stable margins of depressions/chutes/channels/scours.

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Stratigraphy: Sharon Formation (also known as Sharon Sandstone or Sharon Conglomerate or Sharon Member), lower Pottsville Group, upper Lower Pennsylvanian

 

Locality: Virginia Kendall Ledges, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, north of Akron, northern Summit County, northeastern Ohio, USA (~~vicinity of 41° 13' 44.76" North latitude, 81° 30' 37.76" West longitude)

 

The Postcard

 

A postally unused carte postale published by Madame Moreau of Versailles.

 

The Gardens of Versailles

 

The Gardens of Versailles are situated to the west of the palace. They cover some 800 hectares (1,977 acres) of land, much of which is landscaped in the classic French formal garden style perfected here by André Le Nôtre.

 

Beyond the surrounding belt of woodland, the gardens are bordered by the urban areas of Versailles to the east and Le Chesnay to the north-east, by the National Arboretum de Chèvreloup to the north, the Versailles plain (a protected wildlife preserve) to the west, and by the Satory Forest to the south.

 

In 1979, the gardens along with the château were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List due to its cultural importance during the 17th. and 18th. centuries.

 

The gardens are now one of the most visited public sites in France, receiving more than six million visitors a year.

 

The gardens contain 200,000 trees, 210,000 flowers planted annually, and feature meticulously manicured lawns and parterres, as well as many sculptures.

 

50 fountains containing 620 water jets, fed by 35 km. of piping, are located throughout the gardens. Dating from the time of Louis XIV and still using much of the same network of hydraulics as was used during the Ancien Régime, the fountains contribute to making the gardens of Versailles unique.

 

On weekends from late spring to early autumn, there are the Grandes Eaux - spectacles during which all the fountains in the gardens are in full play. Designed by André Le Nôtre, the Grand Canal is the masterpiece of the Gardens of Versailles.

 

In the Gardens too, the Grand Trianon was built to provide the Sun King with the retreat that he wanted. The Petit Trianon is associated with Marie-Antoinette, who spent time there with her closest relatives and friends.

 

The Du Bus Plan for the Gardens of Versailles

 

With Louis XIII's purchase of lands from Jean-François de Gondi in 1632 and his assumption of the seigneurial role of Versailles in the 1630's, formal gardens were laid out west of the château.

 

Claude Mollet and Hilaire Masson designed the gardens, which remained relatively unchanged until the expansion ordered under Louis XIV in the 1660's. This early layout, which has survived in the so-called Du Bus plan of c.1662, shows an established topography along which lines of the gardens evolved. This is evidenced in the clear definition of the main east–west and north–south axis that anchors the gardens' layout.

 

Louis XIV

 

In 1661, after the disgrace of the finance minister Nicolas Fouquet, who was accused by rivals of embezzling crown funds in order to build his luxurious château at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Louis XIV turned his attention to Versailles.

 

With the aid of Fouquet's architect Louis Le Vau, painter Charles Le Brun, and landscape architect André Le Nôtre, Louis began an embellishment and expansion program at Versailles that would occupy his time and worries for the remainder of his reign.

 

From this point forward, the expansion of the gardens of Versailles followed the expansions of the château.

 

(a) The First Building Campaign

 

In 1662, minor modifications to the château were undertaken; however, greater attention was given to developing the gardens. Existing bosquets (clumps of trees) and parterres were expanded, and new ones created.

 

Most significant among the creations at this time were the Versailles Orangerie and the "Grotte de Thétys". The Orangery, which was designed by Louis Le Vau, was located south of the château, a situation that took advantage of the natural slope of the hill. It provided a protected area in which orange trees were kept during the winter months.

 

The "Grotte de Thétys", which was located to the north of the château, formed part of the iconography of the château and of the gardens that aligned Louis XIV with solar imagery. The grotto was completed during the second building campaign.

 

By 1664, the gardens had evolved to the point that Louis XIV inaugurated the gardens with the fête galante called Les Plaisirs de L'Île Enchantée. The event, was ostensibly to celebrate his mother, Anne d'Autriche, and his consort Marie-Thérèse but in reality celebrated Louise de La Vallière, Louis' mistress.

 

Guests were regaled with entertainments in the gardens over a period of one week. As a result of this fête - particularly the lack of housing for guests (most of them had to sleep in their carriages), Louis realised the shortcomings of Versailles, and began to expand the château and the gardens once again.

 

(b) The Second Building Campaign

 

Between 1664 and 1668, there was a flurry of activity in the gardens - especially with regard to fountains and new bosquets; it was during this time that the imagery of the gardens exploited Apollo and solar imagery as metaphors for Louis XIV.

 

Le Va's enveloppe of the Louis XIII's château provided a means by which, though the decoration of the garden façade, imagery in the decors of the grands appartements of the king and queen formed a symbiosis with the imagery of the gardens.

 

With this new phase of construction, the gardens assumed the design vocabulary that remained in force until the 18th. century. Solar and Apollonian themes predominated with projects constructed at this time.

 

Three additions formed the topological and symbolic nexus of the gardens during this phase of construction: the completion of the "Grotte de Thétys", the "Bassin de Latone", and the "Bassin d'Apollon".

 

The Grotte de Thétys

 

Started in 1664 and finished in 1670 with the installation of the statuary, the grotto formed an important symbolic and technical component to the gardens. Symbolically, the "Grotte de Thétys" related to the myth of Apollo - and by association to Louis XIV.

 

It represented the cave of the sea nymph Thetis, where Apollo rested after driving his chariot to light the sky. The grotto was a freestanding structure located just north of the château.

 

The interior, which was decorated with shell-work to represent a sea cave, contained the statue group by the Marsy brothers depicting the sun god attended by nereids.

 

Technically, the "'Grotte de Thétys" played a critical role in the hydraulic system that supplied water to the garden. The roof of the grotto supported a reservoir that stored water pumped from the Clagny pond and which fed the fountains lower in the garden via gravity.

 

The Bassin de Latone

 

Located on the east–west axis is the Bassin de Latone. Designed by André Le Nôtre, sculpted by Gaspard and Balthazar Marsy, and constructed between 1668 and 1670, the fountain depicts an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

 

Altona and her children, Apollo and Diana, being tormented with mud slung by Lycian peasants, who refused to let her and her children drink from their pond, appealed to Jupiter who responded by turning the Lycians into frogs.

 

This episode from mythology has been seen as a reference to the revolts of the Fronde, which occurred during the minority of Louis XIV. The link between Ovid's story and this episode from French history is emphasised by the reference to "mud slinging" in a political context.

 

The revolts of the Fronde - the word fronde also means slingshot - have been regarded as the origin of the use of the term "mud slinging" in a political context.

 

The Bassin d'Apollon

 

Further along the east–west axis is the Bassin d'Apollon. The Apollo Fountain, which was constructed between 1668 and 1671, depicts the sun god driving his chariot to light the sky. The fountain forms a focal point in the garden, and serves as a transitional element between the gardens of the Petit Parc and the Grand Canal.

 

The Grand Canal

 

With a length of 1,500 metres and a width of 62 metres, the Grand Canal, which was built between 1668 and 1671, prolongs the east–west axis to the walls of the Grand Parc. During the Ancien Régime, the Grand Canal served as a venue for boating parties.

 

In 1674 the king ordered the construction of Petite Venise (Little Venice). Located at the junction of the Grand Canal and the northern transversal branch, Little Venice housed the caravels and yachts that were received from The Netherlands and the gondolas and gondoliers received as gifts from the Doge of Venice.

 

The Grand Canal also served a practical role. Situated at a low point in the gardens, it collected water that drained from the fountains in the garden above. Water from the Grand Canal was pumped back to the reservoir on the roof of the Grotte de Thétys via a network of windmill- and horse-powered pumps.

 

The Parterre d'Eau

 

Situated above the Latona Fountain is the terrace of the château, known as the Parterre d'Eau. Forming a transitional element from the château to the gardens below, the Parterre d'Eau provided a setting in which the symbolism of the grands appartements synthesized with the iconography of the gardens.

 

In 1664, Louis XIV commissioned a series of statues intended to decorate the water feature of the Parterre d'Eau. The Grande Command, as the commission is known, comprised twenty-four statues of the classic quaternities and four additional statues depicting abductions from the classic past.

 

Evolution of the Bosquets

 

One of the distinguishing features of the gardens during the second building campaign was the proliferation of bosquets. Expanding the layout established during the first building campaign, Le Nôtre added or expanded on no fewer that ten bosquets between 1670 and 1678:

 

-- The Bosquet du Marais

-- The Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau, Île du Roi

-- The Miroir d'Eau

-- The Salle des Festins (Salle du Conseil)

-- The Bosquet des Trois Fontaines

-- The Labyrinthe

-- The Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe

-- The Bosquet de la Renommée (Bosquet des Dômes)

-- The Bosquet de l'Encélade

-- The Bosquet des Sources

 

In addition to the expansion of existing bosquets and the construction of new ones, there were two additional projects that defined this era, the Bassin des Sapins and the Pièce d'Eau des Suisses.

 

-- The Bassin des Sapins

 

In 1676, the Bassin des Sapins, which was located north of the château below the Allée des Marmoset's was designed to form a topological pendant along the north–south axis with the Pièce d'Eau des Suisses located at the base of the Satory hill south of the château.

 

Later modifications in the gardens transformed this fountain into the Bassin de Neptune.

 

-- Pièce d'Eau des Suisses

 

Excavated in 1678, the Pièce d'Eau des Suisses - named after the Swiss Guards who constructed the lake - occupied an area of marshes and ponds, some of which had been used to supply water for the fountains in the garden.

 

This water feature, with a surface area of more than 15 hectares (37 acres), is the second largest - after the Grand Canal - at Versailles.

 

(c) The Third Building Campaign

 

Modifications to the gardens during the third building campaign were distinguished by a stylistic change from the natural aesthetic of André Le Nôtre to the architectonic style of Jules Hardouin Mansart.

 

The first major modification to the gardens during this phase occurred in 1680 when the Tapis Vert - the expanse of lawn that stretches between the Latona Fountain and the Apollo Fountain - achieved its final size and definition under the direction of André Le Nôtre.

 

Beginning in 1684, the Parterre d'Eau was remodelled under the direction of Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Statues from the Grande Commande of 1674 were relocated to other parts of the garden; two twin octagonal basins were constructed and decorated with bronze statues representing the four main rivers of France.

 

In the same year, Le Vau's Orangerie, located to south of the Parterrre d'Eau was demolished to accommodate a larger structure designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart.

 

In addition to the Orangerie, the Escaliers des Cent Marches, which facilitated access to the gardens from the south, to the Pièce d'Eau des Suisses, and to the Parterre du Midi were constructed at this time, giving the gardens just south of the château their present configuration and decoration.

 

Additionally, to accommodate the anticipated construction of the Aile des Nobles - the north wing of the château - the Grotte de Thétys was demolished.

 

With the construction of the Aile des Nobles (1685–1686), the Parterre du Nord was remodelled to respond to the new architecture of this part of the château.

 

To compensate for the loss of the reservoir on top of the Grotte de Thétys and to meet the increased demand for water, Jules Hardouin-Mansart designed new and larger reservoirs situated north of the Aile des Nobles.

 

Construction of the ruinously expensive Canal de l'Eure was inaugurated in 1685; designed by Vauban it was intended to bring waters of the Eure over 80 kilometres, including aqueducts of heroic scale, but the works were abandoned in 1690.

 

Between 1686 and 1687, the Bassin de Latone, under the direction of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, was rebuilt. It is this final version of the fountain that one sees today at Versailles.

 

During this phase of construction, three of the garden's major bosquets were modified or created. Beginning with the Galerie des Antiques, this bosquet was constructed in 1680 on the site of the earlier and short-lived Galerie d'Eau. This bosquet was conceived as an open-air gallery in which antique statues and copies acquired by the Académie de France in Rome were displayed.

 

The following year, construction began on the Salle de Bal. Located in a secluded section of the garden west of the Orangerie, this bosquet was designed as an amphitheater that featured a cascade – the only one surviving in the gardens of Versailles. The Salle de Bal was inaugurated in 1685 with a ball hosted by the Grand Dauphin.

 

Between 1684 and 1685, Jules Hardouin-Mansart built the Colonnade. Located on the site of Le Nôtre's Bosquet des Sources, this bosquet featured a circular peristyle formed from thirty-two arches with twenty-eight fountains, and was Hardouin-Mansart's most architectural of the bosquets built in the gardens of Versailles.

 

(d) The Fourth Building Campaign

 

Due to financial constraints arising from the War of the League of Augsburg and the War of the Spanish Succession, no significant work on the gardens was undertaken until 1704.

 

Between 1704 and 1709, bosquets were modified, some quite radically, with new names suggesting the new austerity that characterised the latter years of Louis XIV's reign.

 

Louis XV

 

With the departure of the king and court from Versailles in 1715 following the death of Louis XIV, the palace and gardens entered an era of uncertainty.

 

In 1722, Louis XV and the court returned to Versailles. Seeming to heed his great-grandfather's admonition not to engage in costly building campaigns, Louis XV did not undertake the costly rebuilding that Louis XIV had.

 

During the reign of Louis XV, the only significant addition to the gardens was the completion of the Bassin de Neptune (1738–1741).

 

Rather than expend resources on modifying the gardens at Versailles, Louis XV - an avid botanist - directed his efforts at Trianon. In the area now occupied by the Hameau de la Reine, Louis XV constructed and maintained les Jardins Botaniques.

 

In 1761, Louis XV commissioned Ange-Jacques Gabriel to build the Petit Trianon as a residence that would allow him to spend more time near the Jardins Botaniques. It was at the Petit Trianon that Louis XV fell fatally ill with smallpox; he died at Versailles on the 10th. May 1774.

 

Louis XVI

 

Upon Louis XVI's ascension to the throne, the gardens of Versailles underwent a transformation that recalled the fourth building campaign of Louis XIV. Engendered by a change in outlook as advocated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Philosophes, the winter of 1774–1775 witnessed a complete replanting of the gardens.

 

Trees and shrubbery dating from the reign of Louis XIV were felled or uprooted with the intent of transforming the French formal garden of Le Nôtre and Hardouin-Mansart into a version of an English landscape garden.

 

The attempt to convert Le Nôtre's masterpiece into an English-style garden failed to achieve its desired goal. Owing largely to the topology of the land, the English aesthetic was abandoned and the gardens replanted in the French style.

 

However, with an eye on economy, Louis XVI ordered the Palisades - the labour-intensive clipped hedging that formed walls in the bosquets - to be replaced with rows of lime trees or chestnut trees. Additionally, a number of the bosquets dating from the time of the Sun King were extensively modified or destroyed.

 

The most significant contribution to the gardens during the reign of Louis XVI was the Grotte des Bains d'Apollon. The rockwork grotto set in an English style bosquet was the masterpiece of Hubert Robert in which the statues from the Grotte de Thétys were placed.

 

Revolution

 

In 1792, under order from the National Convention, some of the trees in the gardens were felled, while parts of the Grand Parc were parcelled and dispersed.

 

Sensing the potential threat to Versailles, Louis Claude Marie Richard (1754–1821) – director of the Jardins Botaniques and grandson of Claude Richard – lobbied the government to save Versailles. He succeeded in preventing further dispersing of the Grand Parc, and threats to destroy the Petit Parc were abolished by suggesting that the parterres could be used to plant vegetable gardens, and that orchards could occupy the open areas of the garden.

 

These plans were never put into action; however, the gardens were opened to the public - it was not uncommon to see people washing their laundry in the fountains and spreading it on the shrubbery to dry.

 

Napoléon I

 

The Napoleonic era largely ignored Versailles. In the château, a suite of rooms was arranged for the use of the empress Marie-Louise, but the gardens were left unchanged, save for the disastrous felling of trees in the Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe and the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines. Massive soil erosion necessitated planting of new trees.

 

Restoration

 

With the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, the gardens of Versailles witnessed the first modifications since the Revolution. In 1817, Louis XVIII ordered the conversion of the Île du Roi and the Miroir d'Eau into an English-style garden - the Jardin du Roi.

 

The July Monarchy; The Second Empire

 

While much of the château's interior was irreparably altered to accommodate the Museum of the History of France (inaugurated by Louis-Philippe on the 10th. June 1837), the gardens, by contrast, remained untouched.

 

With the exception of the state visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1855, at which time the gardens were a setting for a gala fête that recalled the fêtes of Louis XIV, Napoléon III ignored the château, preferring instead the château of Compiègne.

 

Pierre de Nolhac

With the arrival of Pierre de Nolhac as director of the museum in 1892, a new era of historical research began at Versailles. Nolhac, an ardent archivist and scholar, began to piece together the history of Versailles, and subsequently established the criteria for restoration of the château and preservation of the gardens, which are ongoing to this day.

 

Bosquets of the Gardens

 

Owing to the many modifications made to the gardens between the 17th. and the 19th. centuries, many of the bosquets have undergone multiple modifications, which were often accompanied by name changes.

 

Deux Bosquets - Bosquet de la Girondole - Bosquet du Dauphin - Quinconce du Nord - Quinconce du Midi

 

These two bosquets were first laid out in 1663. They were arranged as a series of paths around four salles de verdure and which converged on a central "room" that contained a fountain.

 

In 1682, the southern bosquet was remodeled as the Bosquet de la Girondole, thus named due to spoke-like arrangement of the central fountain. The northern bosquet was rebuilt in 1696 as the Bosquet du Dauphin with a fountain that featured a dolphin.

 

During the replantation of 1774–1775, both the bosquets were destroyed. The areas were replanted with lime trees and were rechristened the Quinconce du Nord and the Quinconce du Midi.

 

Labyrinthe - Bosquet de la Reine

 

In 1665, André Le Nôtre planned a hedge maze of unadorned paths in an area south of the Latona Fountain near the Orangerie. In 1669, Charles Perrault - author of the Mother Goose Tales - advised Louis XIV to remodel the Labyrinthe in such a way as to serve the Dauphin's education.

 

Between 1672 and 1677, Le Nôtre redesigned the Labyrinthe to feature thirty-nine fountains that depicted stories from Aesop's Fables. The sculptors Jean-Baptiste Tuby, Étienne Le Hongre, Pierre Le Gros, and the brothers Gaspard and Balthazard Marsy worked on these thirty-nine fountains, each of which was accompanied by a plaque on which the fable was printed, with verse written by Isaac de Benserade; from these plaques, Louis XIV's son learned to read.

 

Once completed in 1677, the Labyrinthe contained thirty-nine fountains with 333 painted metal animal sculptures. The water for the elaborate waterworks was conveyed from the Seine by the Machine de Marly.

 

The Labyrinthe contained fourteen water-wheels driving 253 pumps, some of which worked at a distance of three-quarters of a mile.

 

Citing repair and maintenance costs, Louis XVI ordered the Labyrinthe demolished in 1778. In its place, an arboretum of exotic trees was planted as an English-styled garden.

 

Rechristened Bosquet de la Reine, it would be in this part of the garden that an episode of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which compromised Marie-Antoinette, transpired in 1785.

 

Bosquet de la Montagne d'Eau - Bosquet de l'Étoile

 

Originally designed by André Le Nôtre in 1661 as a salle de verdure, this bosquet contained a path encircling a central pentagonal area. In 1671, the bosquet was enlarged with a more elaborate system of paths that served to enhance the new central water feature, a fountain that resembled a mountain, hence the bosquets new name: Bosquet de la Montagne d'Eau.

 

The bosquet was completely remodeled in 1704 at which time it was rechristened Bosquet de l'Étoile.

 

Bosquet du Marais - Bosquet du Chêne Vert - Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon - Grotte des Bains d'Apollon

 

Created in 1670, this bosquet originally contained a central rectangular pool surrounded by a turf border. Edging the pool were metal reeds that concealed numerous jets for water; a swan that had water jetting from its beak occupied each corner.

 

The centre of the pool featured an iron tree with painted tin leaves that sprouted water from its branches. Because of this tree, the bosquet was also known as the Bosquet du Chêne Vert.

 

In 1705, this bosquet was destroyed in order to allow for the creation of the Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon, which was created to house the statues had once stood in the Grotte de Thétys.

 

During the reign of Louis XVI, Hubert Robert remodeled the bosquet, creating a cave-like setting for the Marsy statues. The bosquet was renamed the Grotte des Bains d'Apollon.

 

Île du Roi - Miroir d'Eau - Jardin du Roi

 

Originally designed in 1671 as two separate water features, the larger - Île du Roi - contained an island that formed the focal point of a system of elaborate fountains.

 

The Île du Roi was separated from the Miroir d'Eau by a causeway that featured twenty-four water jets. In 1684, the island was removed and the total number of water jets in the bosquet was significantly reduced.

 

The year 1704 witnessed a major renovation of the bosquet, at which time the causeway was remodelled and most of the water jets were removed.

 

A century later, in 1817, Louis XVIII ordered the Île du Roi and the Miroir d'Eau to be completely remodeled as an English-style garden. At this time, the bosquet was rechristened Jardin du Roi.

 

Salle des Festins - Salle du Conseil - Bosquet de l'Obélisque

 

In 1671, André Le Nôtre conceived a bosquet - originally christened Salle des Festins and later called Salle du Conseil - that featured a quatrefoil island surrounded by a channel containing fifty water jets. Access to the island was obtained by two swing bridges.

 

Beyond the channel and placed at the cardinal points within the bosquet were four additional fountains. Under the direction of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the bosquet was completely remodeled in 1706. The central island was replaced by a large basin raised on five steps, which was surrounded by a canal. The central fountain contained 230 jets that, when in play, formed an obelisk – hence the new name Bosquet de l'Obélisque.

 

Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau - Bosquet du Rond-Vert

 

The central feature of this bosquet, which was designed by Le Nôtre between 1671 and 1674, was an auditorium/theatre sided by three tiers of turf seating that faced a stage decorated with four fountains alternating with three radiating cascades.

 

Between 1680 and Louis XIV's death in 1715, there was near-constant rearranging of the statues that decorated the bosquet.

 

In 1709, the bosquet was rearranged with the addition of the Fontaine de l'Île aux Enfants. As part of the replantation of the gardens ordered by Louis XVI during the winter of 1774–1775, the Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau was destroyed and replaced with the unadorned Bosquet du Rond-Vert. The Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau was recreated in 2014, with South Korean businessman and photographer Yoo Byung-eun being the sole patron, donating €1.4 million.

 

Bosquet des Trois Fontaines - Berceau d'Eau

 

Situated to the west of the Allée des Marmousets and replacing the short-lived Berceau d'Eau (a long and narrow bosquet created in 1671 that featured a water bower made by numerous jets of water), the enlarged bosquet was transformed by Le Nôtre in 1677 into a series of three linked rooms.

 

Each room contained a number of fountains that played with special effects. The fountains survived the modifications that Louis XIV ordered for other fountains in the gardens in the early 18th. century and were subsequently spared during the 1774–1775 replantation of the gardens.

 

In 1830, the bosquet was replanted, at which time the fountains were suppressed. Due to storm damage in the park in 1990 and then again in 1999, the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines was restored and re-inaugurated on the 12th. June 2004.

 

Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe

 

This bosquet was originally planned in 1672 as a simple pavillon d'eau - a round open expanse with a square fountain in the centre. In 1676, this bosquet was enlarged and redecorated along political lines that alluded to French military victories over Spain and Austria, at which time the triumphal arch was added - hence the name.

 

As with the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines, this bosquet survived the modifications of the 18th. century, but was replanted in 1830, at which time the fountains were removed.

 

Bosquet de la Renommée - Bosquet des Dômes

 

Built in 1675, the Bosquet de la Renommée featured a fountain statue of Fame. With the relocation of the statues from the Grotte de Thétys in 1684, the bosquet was remodelled to accommodate the statues, and the Fame fountain was removed.

 

At this time the bosquet was rechristened Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon. As part of the reorganisation of the garden that was ordered by Louis XIV in the early part of the 18th. century, the Apollo grouping was moved once again to the site of the Bosquet du Marais - located near the Latona Fountain - which was destroyed and was replaced by the new Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon.

 

The statues were installed on marble plinths from which water issued; and each statue grouping was protected by an intricately carved and gilded baldachin.

 

The old Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon was renamed Bosquet des Dômes due to two domed pavilions built in the bosquet.

 

Bosquet de l'Encélade

 

Created in 1675 at the same time as the Bosquet de la Renommée, the fountain of this bosquet depicts Enceladus, a fallen Giant who was condemned to live below Mount Etna, being consumed by volcanic lava.

 

From its conception, this fountain was conceived as an allegory of Louis XIV's victory over the Fronde. In 1678, an octagonal ring of turf and eight rocaille fountains surrounding the central fountain were added. These additions were removed in 1708.

 

When in play, this fountain has the tallest jet of all the fountains in the gardens of Versailles - 25 metres.

 

Bosquet des Sources - La Colonnade

 

Designed as a simple unadorned salle de verdure by Le Nôtre in 1678, the landscape architect enhanced and incorporated an existing stream to create a bosquet that featured rivulets that twisted among nine islets.

 

In 1684, Jules Hardouin-Mansart completely redesigned the bosquet by constructing a circular arched double peristyle. The Colonnade, as it was renamed, originally featured thirty-two arches and thirty-one fountains – a single jet of water splashed into a basin center under the arch.

 

In 1704, three additional entrances to the Colonnade were added, which reduced the number of fountains from thirty-one to twenty-eight. The statue that currently occupies the centre of the Colonnade - the Abduction of Persephone - (from the Grande Commande of 1664) was set in place in 1696.

 

Galerie d'Eau - Galerie des Antiques - Salle des Marronniers

 

Occupying the site of the Galerie d'Eau (1678), the Galerie des Antiques was designed in 1680 to house the collection of antique statues and copies of antique statues acquired by the Académie de France in Rome.

 

Surrounding a central area paved with colored stone, a channel was decorated with twenty statues on plinths, each separated by three jets of water.

 

The Galerie was completely remodeled in 1704 when the statues were transferred to Marly and the bosquet was replanted with horse chestnut trees - hence the current name Salle des Marronniers.

 

Salle de Bal

 

This bosquet, which was designed by Le Nôtre and built between 1681 and 1683, features a semi-circular cascade that forms the backdrop for a salle de verdure.

 

Interspersed with gilt lead torchères, which supported candelabra for illumination, the Salle de Bal was inaugurated in 1683 by Louis XIV's son, the Grand Dauphin, with a dance party.

 

The Salle de Bal was remodeled in 1707 when the central island was removed and an additional entrance was added.

 

Replantations of the Gardens

 

Common to any long-lived garden is replantation, and Versailles is no exception. In their history, the gardens of Versailles have undergone no less than five major replantations, which have been executed for practical and aesthetic reasons.

 

During the winter of 1774–1775, Louis XVI ordered the replanting of the gardens on the grounds that many of the trees were diseased or overgrown, and needed to be replaced.

 

Also, as the formality of the 17th.-century garden had fallen out of fashion, this replantation sought to establish a new informality in the gardens - that would also be less expensive to maintain.

 

This, however, was not achieved, as the topology of the gardens favored the Jardin à la Française over an English-style garden.

 

Then, in 1860, much of the old growth from Louis XVI's replanting was removed and replaced. In 1870, a violent storm struck the area, damaging and uprooting scores of trees, which necessitated a massive replantation program.

 

However, owing to the Franco-Prussian War, which toppled Napoléon III, and the Commune de Paris, replantation of the garden did not get underway until 1883.

 

The most recent replantations of the gardens were precipitated by two storms that battered Versailles in 1990 and then again in 1999. The storm damage at Versailles and Trianon amounted to the loss of thousands of trees - the worst such damage in the history of Versailles.

 

The replantations have allowed museum and governmental authorities to restore and rebuild some of the bosquets that were abandoned during the reign of Louis XVI, such as the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines, which was restored in 2004.

 

Catherine Pégard, the head of the public establishment which administers Versailles, has stated that the intention is to return the gardens to their appearance under Louis XIV, specifically as he described them in his 1704 description, Manière de Montrer les Jardins de Versailles.

 

This involves restoring some of the parterres like the Parterre du Midi to their original formal layout, as they appeared under Le Nôtre. This was achieved in the Parterre de Latone in 2013, when the 19th. century lawns and flower beds were torn up and replaced with boxwood-enclosed turf and gravel paths to create a formal arabesque design.

 

Pruning is also done to keep trees at between 17 and 23 metres (56 to 75 feet), so as not to spoil the carefully designed perspectives of the gardens.

 

Owing to the natural cycle of replantations that has occurred at Versailles, it is safe to state that no trees dating from the time of Louis XIV are to be found in the gardens.

 

Problems With Water

 

The marvel of the gardens of Versailles - then as now - is the fountains. Yet, the very element that animates the gardens, water, has proven to be the affliction of the gardens since the time of Louis XIV.

 

The gardens of Louis XIII required water, and local ponds provided an adequate supply. However, once Louis XIV began expanding the gardens with more and more fountains, supplying the gardens with water became a critical challenge.

 

To meet the needs of the early expansions of the gardens under Louis XIV, water was pumped to the gardens from ponds near the château, with the Clagny pond serving as the principal source.

 

Water from the pond was pumped to the reservoir on top of the Grotte de Thétys, which fed the fountains in the garden by means of gravitational hydraulics. Other sources included a series of reservoirs located on the Satory Plateau south of the château.

 

The Grand Canal

 

By 1664, increased demand for water necessitated additional sources. In that year, Louis Le Vau designed the Pompe, a water tower built north of the château. The Pompe drew water from the Clagny pond using a system of windmills and horsepower to a cistern housed in the Pompe's building. The capacity of the Pompe 600 cubic metres per day - alleviated some of the water shortages in the garden.

 

With the completion of the Grand Canal in 1671, which served as drainage for the fountains of the garden, water, via a system of windmills, was pumped back to the reservoir on top of the Grotte de Thétys.

 

While this system solved some of the water supply problems, there was never enough water to keep all of the fountains running in the garden in full-play all of the time.

 

While it was possible to keep the fountains in view from the château running, those concealed in the bosquets and in the farther reaches of the garden were run on an as-needed basis.

 

In 1672, Jean-Baptiste Colbert devised a system by which the fountaineers in the gardens would signal each other with whistles upon the approach of the king, indicating that their fountain needed to be turned on. Once the king had passed a fountain in play, it would be turned off and the fountaineer would signal that the next fountain could be turned on.

 

In 1674, the Pompe was enlarged, and subsequently referred to as the Grande Pompe. Pumping capacity was increased via increased power and the number of pistons used for lifting the water. These improvements increased the water capacity to nearly 3,000 cubic metres of water per day; however, the increased capacity of the Grande Pompe often left the Clagny pond dry.

 

The increasing demand for water and the stress placed on existing systems of water supply necessitated newer measures to increase the water supplied to Versailles. Between 1668 and 1674, a project was undertaken to divert the water of the Bièvre river to Versailles. By damming the river and with a pumping system of five windmills, water was brought to the reservoirs located on the Satory Plateau. This system brought an additional 72,000 cubic metres water to the gardens on a daily basis.

 

Despite the water from the Bièvre, the gardens needed still more water, which necessitated more projects. In 1681, one of the most ambitious water projects conceived during the reign of Louis XIV was undertaken.

 

Owing to the proximity of the Seine to Versailles, a project was proposed to raise the water from the river to be delivered to Versailles. Seizing upon the success of a system devised in 1680 that raised water from the Seine to the gardens of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, construction of the Machine de Marly began the following year.

 

The Machine de Marly was designed to lift water from the Seine in three stages to the Aqueduc de Louveciennes some 100 metres above the level of the river. A series of huge waterwheels was constructed in the river, which raised the water via a system of 64 pumps to a reservoir 48 metres above the river. From this first reservoir, water was raised an additional 56 metres to a second reservoir by a system of 79 pumps. Finally, 78 additional pumps raised the water to the aqueduct, which carried the water to Versailles and Marly.

 

In 1685, the Machine de Marly came into full operation. However, owing to leakage in the conduits and breakdowns of the mechanism, the machine was only able to deliver 3,200 cubic metres of water per day - approximately one-half the expected output. The machine was nevertheless a must-see for visitors. Despite the fact that the gardens consumed more water per day than the entire city of Paris, the Machine de Marly remained in operation until 1817.

 

During Louis XIV's reign, water supply systems represented one-third of the building costs of Versailles. Even with the additional output from the Machine de Marly, fountains in the garden could only be run à l'ordinaire - which is to say at half-pressure.

 

With this measure of economy, the fountains still consumed 12,800 cubic metres of water per day, far above the capacity of the existing supplies. In the case of the Grandes Eaux - when all the fountains played to their maximum - more than 10,000 cubic metres of water was needed for one afternoon's display.

 

Accordingly, the Grandes Eaux were reserved for special occasions such as the Siamese Embassy visit of 1685–1686.

 

The Canal de l'Eure

 

One final attempt to solve water shortage problems was undertaken in 1685. In this year it was proposed to divert the water of the Eure river, located 160 km. south of Versailles and at a level 26 m above the garden reservoirs.

 

The project called not only for digging a canal and for the construction of an aqueduct, it also necessitated the construction of shipping channels and locks to supply the workers on the main canal.

 

Between 9,000 to 10,000 troops were pressed into service in 1685; the next year, more than 20,000 soldiers were engaged in construction. Between 1686 and 1689, when the Nine Years' War began, one-tenth of France's military was at work on the Canal de l'Eure project.

 

However with the outbreak of the war, the project was abandoned, never to be completed. Had the aqueduct been completed, some 50,000 cubic metres of water would have been sent to Versailles - more than enough to solve the water problem of the gardens.

 

Today, the museum of Versailles is still faced with water problems. During the Grandes Eaux, water is circulated by means of modern pumps from the Grand Canal to the reservoirs. Replenishment of the water lost due to evaporation comes from rainwater, which is collected in cisterns that are located throughout the gardens and diverted to the reservoirs and the Grand Canal.

 

Assiduous husbanding of this resource by museum officials prevents the need to tap into the supply of potable water of the city of Versailles.

 

The Versailles Gardens In Popular Culture

 

The creation of the gardens of Versailles is the context for the film 'A Little Chaos', directed by Alan Rickman and released in 2015, in which Kate Winslet plays a fictional landscape gardener and Rickman plays King Louis XIV.

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This chart shows two phylogenies of Hominidae, one synthesized from studies of anatomy (including fossils) and another synthesized from studies of mitochondrial DNA (including ancient DNA retrieved from fossils of near-humans). The age of mitochondrial ancestors has been calculated using observed generational mutation rates rather than fossil calibration, where possible. As can be seen, the independent types of data both indicate the same phylogenetic pattern. The age estimates for inferred ancestors are also consistent.

 

Data compiled from Argue, Morwood & al. (2009); Berger, Ruiter & al. (2010); Cruciani, Trombetta & al. (2011); Fu, Mittnik & al. (2013); Gibbs, Collard & Wood (2002); Harrison (2010); Langergraber, Prüfer & al. (2012); Mallegni, Carnieri & al. (2003); Meyer, Fu & al. (2014); Steiper & Young (2006); and Zhi, Karesh & al. (1996).

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Model: Stevie

 

Location: GPG Studio, Albuquerque New Mexico. USA

  

Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography

  

© 2009 2020 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group

All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.

 

No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.

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Overturned cross-bedding in the Pennsylvanian of Ohio, USA.

 

Cross-bedding is a common sedimentary structure - it refers to tilted layers between horizontal layers. Crossbeds form in a one-direction current by wind or water. They are common in many sandstones.

 

Overturned cross-bedding is a rare sedimentary structure - the upper parts of a crossbed set are tilted upside down. It forms by one-directional shear by the same process that produced the crossbeds in the first place (e.g., 1-directional stream current or 1-direction water current). Overturned crossbeds may often be formed in nature, but subsequent, partial erosion of crossbed sets usually removes all traces of their presence.

 

I've seen overturned cross-bedding in the field in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Utah. The best examples I've ever seen are in the Lower Pennsylvanian Sharon Formation of northeastern Ohio. Seen above is an outcrop at Virginia Kendall Ledges in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. They can also be seen at Cuyahoga Gorge in the town of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

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(Synthesized from info. provided by several geologists during the 2003 Annual Field Conference of the Great Lakes Section, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists):

 

The Lower Pennsylvanian Sharon Formation is a 10-15 meter thick, ledge-forming, erosion-resistant unit. The Sharon is paleovalley-filling in places, so it is thicker than 10-15 meters in some spots. The jointing patterns of the Sharon Formation allow for 3-D examination around large blocks of outcrop - can see the 3-D architecture of sedimentary structures. The Pottsville Group lies over a major unconformity, which was formed by eustatic sealevel fall & erosion. The Sharon Formation is the basal unit of the Pottsville sediments over this unconformity. In terms of the tectonic setting, this is in the Appalachian Foreland Basin. What influenced sedimentation and sediment supply of the Sharon Formation during the Early Pennsylvanian? Probably a migrating forebulge and Early Pennsylvanian climatic changes. The Sharon is correlatable with the Olean Conglomerate in Pennsylvania. Both the Sharon and the Olean are time-equivalent to the Tumbling Hill Member & the Huylkill Member of the lower Pottsville Formation of central Pennsylvania (both of those members are below the major unconformity in Pennsylvania, unlike in northeastern Ohio). The Sharon Conglomerate/Formation & the Olean Conglomerate were deposited under strong north-to-south paleoflow conditions.

 

About twelve lithofacies can be seen in the Sharon Formation in the Akron, Ohio area. The Sharon Formation is dominantly conglomerate and sandstone, with lots of sedimentary structures. It is light on fine-grained materials. The Sharon has horizontally bedded gravels, cross-bedded gravels (including trough and tabular cross bedding), deformed/overturned cross-bed sets, basal scours up to 2 meters deep (but typically 0.5 to 1 meter deep; scours are backfilled by dune/bar back migration), whole channel fills, chute fills, and gravel bar platform deposits (usually 1-2 meters thick in the Sharon; these include bar head deposits, bar core deposits, bar tail deposits, and bar margin deposits - can usually use the presence of imbricated clasts to ID bar-head & bar-core portions of gravel bar platforms, but in the Sharon, clasts are mostly spheroidal, so it is difficult to tell specific portions of gravel platforms here). In the gravel-rich Sharon deposits, get calculated average bankfull depths of 2.1 meters, 19.9 meter average paleochannel widths, and 34.3 meter maximum paleochannel widths. Get different numbers for the sandy Sharon deposits. The Sharon is typically more conglomeratic at the base & more sandy near the top. The Sharon’s interpreted depositional environment is gravel & sand bedload streams. Paleovalleys underneath the Sharon Formation were formed when the subsidence rate was greater than the sediment supply. Paleovalley backfilling (i.e., Sharon deposits) occurred when the subsidence rate was less than the sediment supply. The change in fluvial style seen in Sharon deposits is probably due to filling & overtopping of paleovalleys.

 

Beds of the Sharon Formation are usually cliff-forming. The Sharon in the Akron area consists of quartz-pebble conglomerate & quartzose sandstone & pebbly quartzose sandstone & sandy quartz-pebble conglomerate & some lenses or thin intervals of granulestone. The basal Sharon is conglomeratic - the “lower conglomerate”. An “upper conglomerate” can be seen in places - it is usually quite thin (1-2 pebbles thick in places), and in some places, it splits into two horizons; in some places it’s not there at all. Pebbles are almost entirely white vein quartz, with an uncertain source from the north. Detrital muscovite in the Sharon has been dated to about 370 and 406 Ma (Devonian), so the source area includes Acadian Orogeny materials. The Sharon has relatively common cross-bedding, with a few overturned cross-beds visible in areas. Abundant iron oxide staining is present in the Sharon sandstones, with a variety of morphologies - this can weather out as resistant ridges or as 3-D surfaces. Many vugs have thick goethite linings. Many goethite-stained quartz pebbles are present. Seeps & springs occur sporadically along the sandstones of the lower Sharon Formation in places. These spring waters have widely variable pH and TDS (total dissolved solids). Some dry springs are present - conduits without water emerging. A few places in basal Sharon strata have obvious rip-up shale clasts, derived from uppermost Meadville Shale beds (below the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian unconformity). One outcrop is known with many Meadville Shale clasts mixed in with Sharon quartz pebbles - this appears to represent paleobank failure of Meadville material during near-earliest Sharon deposition.

 

Virginia Kendall Ledges is an isolated platform of Sharon Formation, surrounded by a lower land surface of Lower Mississippian Cuyahoga Formation shales & siltstones & sandstones. The lower Sharon Formation at this site is quite pebbly - many pebble-filled channelform features are present. Upon 3-D examination of their architecture, these are not channels or chutes, but are interpreted by Professor Neil Wells as bar confluence scours with subsequent pebble fills. The edges of the Virginia Kendall Ledges platform have large Sharon blocks separating from the rest of the platform. Abundant overturned recumbent cross beds are present - some of the world's best developed and best exposed examples. The mechanism by which crossbeds get overturned seems straightforward (unidirectional shear by fluvial currents), but the cause is not clearly understood - some cohesive agent may be required? Someone suggested biomats. Some of the scour pits in this area seem to have fairly steep margins - perhaps whatever cohesive agent was responsible for simple deformation of crossbeds was also responsible for overly steep, stable margins of depressions/chutes/channels/scours.

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Stratigraphy: Sharon Formation (also known as Sharon Sandstone or Sharon Conglomerate or Sharon Member), lower Pottsville Group, upper Lower Pennsylvanian

 

Locality: Virginia Kendall Ledges, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, north of Akron, northern Summit County, northeastern Ohio, USA (~~vicinity of 41° 13' 44.76" North latitude, 81° 30' 37.76" West longitude)

Kinetic Light Sculptures 2015.

Agate-filled geode from the Eocene of Mexico. (Jeff Smith collection)

 

This agate nodule is from Mexico's famous Las Choyas Geode Deposit. At this locality, geodes occur in structurally-folded, rhyolitic volcanic tuffs (ash flow tuffs) of Middle to Late Eocene age (~35 to 44 Ma). The geodes were originally cavities in the rhyolitic rock. These cavities (lithophysae) formed before the rock completely lithified. The original ash flow deposit had some subspherical structures known as spherulites, composed of glassy to cryptocrystalline material (many felsic extrusive igneous rocks have these). Expanding gases in the spherulites destroyed the material, resulting in empty spaces. In the near-latest Eocene (~35 Ma), regional rhyolite dome intrusions resulted in hot groundwater percolating through the rocks, leaching out silica and precipitating quartz in the lithophysae/cavities.

 

About eighty percent of the geodes mined at this site are solid agate/quartz nodules.

 

Locality: Las Choyas Geode Deposit, northern Aldama County, north-central Chihuahua State, northern Mexico

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

Info. synthesized from:

 

Keller (1977) - Quartz geodes from near the Sierra Gallego area, Chihuahua, Mexico. Mineralogical Record 10: 207-212.

 

Smith (2010) - The Las Choyas Geode Deposit, Chihuahua, Mexico. Rocks & Minerals 85: 112-122.

 

Freeze frame from video shot by Linden Hudson. (amateur photographer, cheap cameras, photo fluorescent lights, just having fun)

 

Who is Linden Hudson?

 

CLASSICBANDS DOT COM said: “According to former roadie David Blayney in his book SHARP DRESSED MEN: sound engineer Linden Hudson co-wrote much of the material on the ZZ Top ELIMINATOR album.” (end quote)

 

(ZZ Top never opted to give Linden credit, which would have been THE decent thing to do. It would have helped Linden's career as well. The band and management worked ruthlessly to take FULL credit for the hugely successful album which Linden had spent a good deal of time working on. Linden works daily to tell this story. Also, the band did not opt to pay Linden, they worked to keep all the money and they treated Linden like dirt. It was abuse. Linden launched a limited lawsuit, brought about using his limited resources which brought limited results and took years. No one should treat the co-writer of their most successful album like this. It's just deeply fucked up.)

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Hear the original ZZ Top ELIMINATOR writing/rehearsal tapes made by Linden Hudson and Billy Gibbons at: youtu.be/2QZ8WUTaS18

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Read Linden's story of the making of the super-famous ZZ Top ELIMINATOR album at: www.flickr.com/people/152350852@N02/

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Follow this Wikipedia link and find Linden's name throughout the article & read the album songwriter credits about halfway down at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminator_%28album%29

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LICKLIBRARY DOT COM (2013 Billy Gibbons interview) ZZ TOP'S BILLY GIBBONS FINALLY ADMITTED: “the Eliminator sessions in 1983 were guided largely by another one of our associates, Linden Hudson, a gifted engineer, during the development of those compositions.” (end quote) (Gibbons admits this after 30 years, but offers Linden no apology or reparations for lack of credit/royalties)

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MUSICRADAR DOT COM (2013 interview with ZZ Top's guitarist Billy Gibbons broke 30 years of silence about Linden Hudson introducing synthesizers into ZZ Top's sound.) Gibbons said: “This was a really interesting turning point. We had befriended somebody who would become an influential associate, a guy named Linden Hudson. He was a gifted songwriter and had production skills that were leading the pack at times. He brought some elements to the forefront that helped reshape what ZZ Top were doing, starting in the studio and eventually to the live stage. Linden had no fear and was eager to experiment in ways that would frighten most bands. But we followed suit, and the synthesizers started to show up on record.” (once again, there was no apology from ZZ Top or Billy Gibbons after this revelation).

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TEXAS MONTHLY MAGAZINE (Dec 1996, By Joe Nick Patoski): "Linden Hudson floated the notion that the ideal dance music had 124 beats per minute; then he and Gibbons conceived, wrote, and recorded what amounted to a rough draft of an album before the band had set foot inside Ardent Studios."

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FROM THE BOOK: SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP (By David Blayney) : "Probably the most dramatic development in ZZ Top recording approaches came about as Eliminator was constructed. What had gone on before evolutionary; this change was revolutionary. ZZ Top got what amounted to a new bandsman (Linden) for the album, unknown to the world at large and at first even to Dusty and Frank."

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CNET DOT COM: (question posed to ZZ Top): Sound engineer Linden Hudson was described as a high-tech music teacher on your highly successful "Eliminator" album. How much did the band experiment with electronic instruments prior to that album?

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THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, MARCH 2018: "Eliminator" had a tremendous impact on us and the people who listen to us," says ZZ Top’s bass player. Common band lore points to production engineer Linden Hudson suggesting that 120 beats per minute was the perfect rock tempo, or "the people's tempo" as it came to be known.

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FROM THE BOOK: SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP by David Blayney: (page 227): "...the song LEGS Linden Hudson introduced the pumping synthesizer effect."

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(Search Linden Hudson in the various ZZ Top Wikipedia pages which are related to the ELIMINATOR album and you will find bits about Linden. Also the main ZZ Top Wikipedia page mentions Linden. He's mentioned in at least 7 ZZ Top related Wikipedia pages.)

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FROM THE BOOK: SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP By David Blayney: "Linden found himself in the position of being Billy's (Billy Gibbons, ZZ Top guitarist) closest collaborator on Eliminator. In fact, he wound up spending more time on the album than anybody except Billy. While the two of them spent day after day in the studio, they were mostly alone with the equipment and the ideas."

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FROM THE BOOK: BEER DRINKERS & HELL RAISERS: A ZZ TOP GUIDE (By Neil Daniels, released 2014): "Hudson reportedly had a significant role to play during the planning stages of the release (ELIMINATOR)."

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FROM THE BOOK: ZZ TOP - BAD AND WORLDWIDE (ROLLING STONE PRESS, WRITTEN BY DEBORAH FROST): "Linden was always doing computer studies. It was something that fascinated him, like studio technology. He thought he might understand the components of popular songs better if he fed certain data into his computer. It might help him understand what hits (song releases) of any given period share. He first found out about speed; all the songs he studied deviated no more than one beat from 120 beats per minute. Billy immediately started to write some songs with 120 beats per minute. Linden helped out with a couple, like UNDER PRESSURE and SHARP DRESSED MAN. Someone had to help Billy out. Dusty and Frank didn't even like to rehearse much. Their studio absence wasn't really a problem though. The bass and drum parts were easily played with a synthesizer or Linn drum machine." (end quote)

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FROM THE BOOK: "SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP" BY DAVID BLAYNEY: "After his quantitative revelations, Linden informally but instantly became ZZ Top's rehearsal hall theoretician, producer, and engineer." (end quote)

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FROM THE BOOK: "ZZ TOP - BAD AND WORLDWIDE" (ROLLING STONE PRESS, BY DEBORAH FROST): "With the release of their ninth album, ELIMINATOR, in 1983, these hairy, unlikely rock heroes had become a pop phenomenon. This had something to do with the discoveries of a young preproduction engineer (Linden Hudson) whose contributions, like those of many associated with the band over the years, were never acknowledged."

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FROM THE BOOK: ​SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP (By DAVID BLAYNEY) : "The integral position Linden occupied in the process of building El​iminator was demonstrated eloquently in the case of song Under Pressure. Billy and Linden, the studio wizards, did the whole song all in one afternoon without either the bass player or drummer even knowing it had been written and recorded on a demo tape. Linden synthesized the bass and drums and helped write the lyrics; Billy did the guitars and vocals."

+++

FROM THE BOOK: "TRES HOMBRES - THE STORY OF ZZ TOP" BY DAVID SINCLAIR (Writer for the Times Of London): "Linden Hudson, the engineer/producer who lived at Beard's house (ZZ's drummer) had drawn their attention to the possibilities of the new recording technology and specifically to the charms of the straight drumming pattern, as used on a programmed drum machine. On ELIMINATOR ZZ Top unveiled a simple new musical combination that cracked open a vast worldwide market.

+++

FROM THE BOOK: "SHARP DRESS MEN - ZZ TOP" BY DAVID BLAYNEY: "ELIMINATOR went on to become a multi-platinum album, just as Linden had predicted when he and Billy were setting up the 124-beat tempos and arranging all the material. Rolling Stone eventually picked the album as number 39 out of the top 100 of the 80's. Linden Hudson in a fair world shoud have had his name all over ELIMINATOR and gotten the just compensation he deserved. Instead he got ostracized."

+++

FROM THE BOOK: ​SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP by DAVID BLAYNEY: "He (Linden) went back with the boys to 1970 when he was working as a radio disc jocky aliased Jack Smack. He was emcee for a show ZZ did around that time, and even sang an encore tune with the band, perhaps the only person ever to have that honor." (side note: this was ZZ Top's very first show).

+++

FROM THE BOOK: "SHARP DRESSED MEN - ZZ TOP" BY DAVID BLAYNEY: "Linden remained at Frank's (ZZ Top drummer) place as ZZ's live-in engineer throughout the whole period of ELIMINATOR rehearsals, and was like one of the family... as he (Linden) worked at the controls day after day, watching the album (ELIMINATOR) take shape, his hopes for a big step forward in his production career undoubtably soared. ELIMINATOR marked the first time that ZZ Top was able to rehearse an entire album with the recording studio gadgetry that Billy so loved. With Linden Hudson around all the time, it also was the first time the band could write, rehearse, and record with someone who knew the men and the machines. ZZ Top was free to go musically crazy, but also musically crazy like a fox. Linden made that possible too."

+++

FROM THE BOOK "ZZ TOP - BAD AND WORLDWIDE" (ROLLING STONE PRESS, BY DEBORAH FROST, WRITER FOR ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE): "... SHARP DRESSED MAN which employed Hudson's 120 beat-per-minute theory. The feel, the enthusiasm, the snappy beat and crisp clean sound propelled ELIMINATOR into the ears and hearts of 5 million people who previously could have cared less about the boogie band of RIO GRANDE MUD."

+++

THE GREATEST ROCK REBRAND OF ALL TIME (by Jason Miller): "Sound engineer Linden Hudson researched the tempos at which the most popular rock tracks in the charts had been recorded. His data showed that there was something very special about 120 beats to a minute. Gibbons decided to record pretty much the whole of ZZ Top’s new album at that tempo. The result? 1983’s Eliminator. It was named after Gibbons’ Ford Coupé; it had been created through a unique combination of creative collaboration and data mining. And it was about to take the world by storm."

+++

ULTIMATECLASSICROCK DOT COM: "This new melding of styles was encouraged by Hudson, who served as a kind of pre-producer for ​EL LOCO ... ... Hudson helped construct ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard's home studio, and had lived with him for a time. That led to these initial sessions, and then a closer collaboration on 1983's ​ELIMINATOR.

+++

FIREDOGLAKE DOT COM: "I like Billy Gibbons' guitar tone quite a lot, but I lost all respect for them after reading how badly they fucked over Linden Hudson (the guy who was the brains behind their move to include synthesizers and co-wrote most of their career-defining Eliminator record)."

+++

EMAIL FROM A ZZ TOP FAN TO LINDEN (One Of Many): "I write you today about broken hearts, one is mine and one is for you. I have been a ZZ Top fan since I was 6 years old. I purchased ELIMINATOR vinyl from Caldors in Connecticut with the $20 my grandma gave me for my birthday. I will spare the #1 fan epic saga of tee shirts, harassing Noreen at the fan club via phone weekly for years, over 40 shows attended. Posters, non stop conversation about the time I have spent idolizing this band, but more Billy G, as he has seemed to break free of the Lone Wolf shackles and it became more clear this was his baby. In baseball I was Don Mattingly's #1 fan, Hershel Walker in football, Billy Gibbons in music. What do these individuals have in common? They were role models. Not a DUI, not a spousal abuse, not a drug overdose, not a cheater. Until I read your web page. I read Blayney's book around 1992 or so, I was in middle school and I was familiar with your name for a long time. I didn't realize you suffered so greatly or that your involvement was so significant. It pains me to learn my idol not only cheated but did something so wrong to another being. I now know this is where tall tales and fun loving bullshit and poor morals and ethics are distinguished and where I would no longer consider myself to look up to Billy. I love to joke and I love credit but I have always prided myself on ethics and principles... I hold them dear. I wanted to say, the snippet of UNDER PRESSURE you played sounded very new wave and I may like it more than the finished product. Well that's all. You have reached ZZ Top's biggest fan and I can let others know. Bummer. Cheers and good luck. James."​

+++

VINYLSTYLUS DOT COM: Much of Eliminator was recorded at 124bpm, the tempo that considered perfect for dance music by the band’s associate Linden Hudson. An aspiring songwriter, former DJ and – at the time – drummer Frank Beard’s house-sitter, Hudson’s involvement in the recording of the album would come back to haunt them. Despite assisting Gibbons with the pre-production and developing of the material that would end up on both El Loco and Eliminator, his contribution wasn’t credited when either record was released.

+++

INFOMORY DOT COM: ‘Eliminator’ is a studio album of the American rock band ZZ Top. It was released on March 23, 1983 and topped the charts worldwide. Its lyrics were co-written by the band’s sound engineer Linden Hudson while the band denied it.

+++

MUSICMISCELLANEOUS DOT COM: (ELIMINATOR ALBUM):

However, despite the album credits bass-player Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard were replaced during the recording process by synthesizers and a drum machine programmed by engineer Linden Hudson, who allegedly co-wrote much of the music with Gibbons despite receiving no credit at the time. Gibbons would later say of Hudson that “he was a gifted songwriter and had production skills that were leading the pack at times. He brought some elements to the forefront that helped reshape what ZZ Top were doing”. Hudson did no less than show the band how to stay relevant in an age where three guys from Texas with long beards (except famously for Frank Beard) and blues licks were one of the last things the contemporary market was demanding.

 

Merumite from Guyana (British Guiana). (the long axis of the largest specimen is 8.5 millimeters across)

 

Merumite is the "rarest rock on Earth". It only occurs as small, loose alluvial grains in the upper branches of Director Creek in northwestern Guyana (= northern South America).

 

Merumite rocks are finely crystalline mixes of chromium minerals of inferred hydrothermal origin. The principal minerals in merumite are eskolaite (Cr2O3), guyanaite (CrO·OH), bracewellite (CrO·OH), grimaldiite (CrO·OH), mcconellite (CuCrO2), chromian pyrophyllite, and quartz. Trace minerals include chromium gahnite (Zn(Al0.7Cr0.3)2O4) and native gold (Au).

 

The geologic provenance of merumite rocks is uncertain, but they are possibly derived from the Roraima Formation, a Paleozoic? succession of coarse-grained siliciclastic sedimentary rocks and volcanic ash beds. The Roraima Formation is now eroded away in the Director Creek area.

 

Locality: loose alluvial grains in the upper branches of Director Creek (a small tributary of the Merume River) (possibly from a 3 to 4.5 meter wide & 3 kilometer long stretch of Director Creek along the eastern base of Robello Ridge), north of the Pakaraima Plateau/Karanang Mountains, ~16 km southwest of Kamakusa, northwestern Guyana (British Guiana), northern South America

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

Info. synthesized from:

 

Milton et al. (1976) - Merumite - a complex assemblage of chromium minerals from Guyana. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 887. 29 pp. 6 pls.

 

"Verde Bamboo Granite" - epidote-rich metasandstone from the Precambrian of Brazil.

 

This beautiful, green-and-black decorative stone is an odd metamorphic rock that was originally a siliciclastic deposit (the Ipuçaba Formation) in a deltaic-lacustrine environment, interpreted in part as turbiditic rhythmites. The Ipuçaba Formation principally consists of metamorphosed arkoses, calcareous arkoses, and rhythmites (= alternating sandstones & fine-grained siliciclastic beds). Hornfels-grade metamorphism (high-temperature, low-pressure) occurred at ~1.5 Ga during the intrusion of nearby mafic igneous rocks. Subsequent regional metamorphism occurred during the Brazilian-Pan African Orogenies in the late Neoproterozoic (550-650 Ma). The rock is rich in metamorphic minerals - epidote (= pistachio green), actinolite, tremolite, chlorite, muscovite mica, and biotite mica. Despite the metamorphism, the original sedimentary structures are preserved - ripple marks are sometimes present.

 

Stratigraphy: Ipuçaba Formation, middle Pajeú Synthem, Oliveira dos Brejinhos Group, Espinhaço Supergroup, Mesoproterozoic, ~1.6 to 1.7 Ga

 

Locality: commercial quarry in Bahia State, eastern Brazil

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

Info. synthesized from:

 

Arcanjo (2008) - O Grupo Oliveira dos Brejinhos no setor norte da Serra do Espinhaço, com enfase aos hornfelses da Formação Pajeú, Bahia.

 

Danderfer et al. (2009) - New geochronological constraints on the geological evolution of Espinhaço Basin within the São Francisco Craton - Brazil. Precambrian Research 170: 116-128.

 

Siddall (2016) - There's an awful lot of conglomerates in Brazil: 'Monolith & Shadow' revisited. Geology Today 32: 205-207.

 

Deservedly one of the most famous places in the world, the Sistine Chapel is the site where the conclave for the election of the popes and other solemn pontifical ceremonies are held.

 

Built to the design of Baccio Pontelli by Giovannino de Dolci between 1475 and 1481, the chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who commissioned it.

 

It is a large rectangle with a barrel-vaulted ceiling and it is divided into two unequal parts by a marble screen.

 

The screen and the transenna were built by Mino da Fiesole and other artists.

 

The frescoes on the long walls illustrate parallel events in the Lives of Moses and Christ and constitute a complex of extraordinary interest executed between 1481 and 1483 by Perugino, Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli and Domenico Ghirlandaio, with their respective groups of assistants, who included Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and others; later Luca Signorelli also joined the group.

 

The barrel-vaulted ceiling is entirely covered by the famous frescoes which Michelangelo painted between 1508 and 1512 for Julius II.

 

The original design was only to have represented the Apostles, but was modified at the artist's insistence to encompass an enormously complex iconographic theme which may be synthesized as the representation of mankind waiting for the coming of the Messiah.

 

More than twenty years later, Michelangelo was summoned back by Paul III (1534-49) to paint the Last Judgement on the wall behind the altar. He worked on it from 1536 to 1541.

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Enter to win a TEAM REDLINE XTREME VIP 500 experience of a lifetime: www.vpxsports.com/contest-giveaway/redline-xtreme-racing-...

  

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Rigor and experience, says science, and triumphs. Today we write MATERIAL and ENERGY in capital letters; EVOLUTION has also long since suspended fate. Hades brings the light of the souls out of the underworld and transposes their radiance into chemical luminescence. While the light glows, people’s assumptions about the world are synthesized in an artificial neural network (ANN) and modified into a machine discourse.

 

credit: Maex Decker

The genetically modified soy, glyphosate containing impossible burger would be considered a NOVA Classification Group 4: Ultra-processed food, defined as:

 

"Ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch, and proteins), derived from food constituents (hydrogenated fats and modified starch), or synthesized in laboratories from food substrates or other organic sources (flavor enhancers, colors, and several food additives used to make the product hyper-palatable). Manufacturing techniques include extrusion, moulding, and preprocessing by means of frying. Beverages may be ultra-processed. Group 1 foods are a small proportion of, or are even absent from, ultra-processed products."

Analog of LSD developed by the team led by David E. Nichols at Purdue University. It was developed as a rigid analog of LSD with the diethylamide group constrained into an azetidine ring in order to map the binding site at the 5-HT2A receptor. There are three possible stereoisomers around the azetidine ring, with the (S,S)-(+) isomer being the most active, slightly more potent than LSD itself in drug discrimination tests using trained rats.

  

There have been several unconfirmed reports of lysergic acid 2,4-dimethylazetidide being synthesized in illicit laboratories and distributed on blotter paper or in liquid solution under names such as "diazedine" and "λ"

 

Blotters bought from online vendor based in the Untied Kingdom

 

LSZ - 3 x 150mcg Blotters

 

vintage-blotter-acid.blogspot.co.uk/

"A Voice In The Desert", 2012, by Roberto Pugliese as part of "Data Deluge" at Ballroom Marfa

 

Robert Pugliese

A Voice in the Desert, 2012

Steel, speakers, aluminum cables, audio wire, computer, custom software

10 x 10 x 26 feet

Commissioned by Ballroom Marfa

Courtesy of the artist

 

The sculptural "bio-acoustic" installations of artist Roberto Pugliese explore the phenomena of sound and the relationship between man, art and technology. In a work commissioned for the exhibition, Pugliese has created an outdoor sculpture that transforms Marfa’s current weather conditions—temperature, humidity, wind speed, barometric pressure—into digital sound.

 

Variously arranged within large steel frames that evoke the Minimalist forms of Donald Judd, the audio speakers emit what Pugliese describes as a “sound-carpet,” which is synthesized by software that collects real-time weather data from the Web. The program for A Voice in the Desert was created using Max, a visual programming language for music and multimedia, and MSP, a Max add-on that allows digital audio signals to be manipulated in real-time.

 

Data Deluge, March 3 – July 8, 2012

Curated by Rachel Gugelberger & Reynard Loki

Photograph(s) by Fredrik Nilsen

Courtesy of Ballroom Marfa

ballroommarfa.org/archive/event/data-deluge-2/

Merumite from Guyana (British Guiana). (the long axis of the largest specimen is 8.5 millimeters across)

 

Merumite is the "rarest rock on Earth". It only occurs as small, loose alluvial grains in the upper branches of Director Creek in northwestern Guyana (= northern South America).

 

Merumite rocks are finely crystalline mixes of chromium minerals of inferred hydrothermal origin. The principal minerals in merumite are eskolaite (Cr2O3), guyanaite (CrO·OH), bracewellite (CrO·OH), grimaldiite (CrO·OH), mcconellite (CuCrO2), chromian pyrophyllite, and quartz. Trace minerals include chromium gahnite (Zn(Al0.7Cr0.3)2O4) and native gold (Au).

 

The geologic provenance of merumite rocks is uncertain, but they are possibly derived from the Roraima Formation, a Paleozoic? succession of coarse-grained siliciclastic sedimentary rocks and volcanic ash beds. The Roraima Formation is now eroded away in the Director Creek area.

 

Locality: loose alluvial grains in the upper branches of Director Creek (a small tributary of the Merume River) (possibly from a 3 to 4.5 meter wide & 3 kilometer long stretch of Director Creek along the eastern base of Robello Ridge), north of the Pakaraima Plateau/Karanang Mountains, ~16 km southwest of Kamakusa, northwestern Guyana (British Guiana), northern South America

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

Info. synthesized from:

 

Milton et al. (1976) - Merumite - a complex assemblage of chromium minerals from Guyana. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 887. 29 pp. 6 pls.

 

Flammulina velutipes (Curtis) Singer

Velvet Shank, DE: Gemeiner Samtfussrübling, Gewonlicher Samtfüssrubling

Slo.: zimska panjevka

 

Dat.: Nov. 28. 2014

Lat.: 46.36066 Long.: 13.70907

Code: Bot_851/2014_DSC4924

 

Habitat: at the bottom of alpine valley, sawmill depot, next to the main road, flat terrain, full sun, humid place next to a river, exposed to direct rain, average precipitations ~ 3.000 mm/year, average temperature 7 - 9 deg C, elevation 550 m (1.800 feet), alpine phytogeographical region.

 

Substratum: a big log of Juglans regia lying on ground in a pile of timber in a sawmill depot.

 

Place: Lower Trenta valley, between villages Soča and Trenta, sawmill Otokar, Trenta 4, East Julian Alps, Posočje, Slovenia EC

 

Comments: Flammulina velutipes is a striking fungus in several senses in spite of the fact that it is a widespread, common and easy to recognize. First, it is very beautiful mushroom displaying a vibrant contrast between its like fire orange, shiny and half translucent hut and deep black velvety stipe. Its rich colors exemplify an eye-catching contrast to often dull gray-brown mood of late autumn and winter nature in my country or to snow covered habitats. Its pilei withstand very low temperatures. Even completely frozen they recover and grow and sporulate after temperature again rises above freezing point. One can find them from October to March being most frequent in January (Ref.:2.). Another interesting thing is that they need short wavelength light (blue 470 nm and above) to develop pilei and to sporulate (Ref.:2.). I haven't found an explanation why they need it. Generally fungi do not need light since they have no chlorophyll to synthesize their own food.

 

Flammulina velutipes grows as a saprobiont on wood of wide range of broadleaf trees, vast majority of them on Salix sp. and Fagus sylvatica. Fungi I found grew on Juglans regia, which is very seldom recorded. Only four of about thousand observations analyzed in Ref.:2. state Juglans regia as substratum. Taxonomy of this species is complex. Several taxa on f. and var. levels have been described. But, authors do not agree on them and Index Fungorum does not recognize them as valid names. The situation is well illustrated by the fact that there exist about 40 synonyms out of six genera. Also large differences in spore dimensions one can find in literature (see Fig. 2M) somehow confirm this.

 

Pilei photographed grew in several clusters, more than 80 pilei altogether were present; pileus diameter 1.8 - 4.5 cm and height 1.2 - 1.8 cm, upper surface very slimy, stipe diameter 3 - 4 mm above and 3.5 - 7 mm at the base, hollow when mature, tough, fairly fibrous and often flattened or twisted; taste mild slightly on soap; smell very mild but distinct, on bleach?, SP abundant white, oac909.

 

Spores dimensions: 7,0 [7,7 ; 8] 8,7 x 4,2 [4,6 ; 4,8] 5,2 microns; Q = 1,5 [1,6 ; 1,7] 1,8; N = 33; C = 95%; Me = 7,9 x 4,7 microns; Qe = 1,7. Olympus CH20, NEA 100x/1.25, magnification 1.000 x, oil, in water, Congo red. AmScope MA500 digital camera.

 

Herbarium: Mycotheca and lichen herbarium (LJU-Li) of Slovenian Forestry Institute, Večna pot 2, Ljubljana, Index Herbariorum LJF

 

Ref.:

(1) C. Bas, Flammulina in Western Europe, Persoonia (1983) 12 (1), pp 51-66 (cited in Ref.:2.)

(2) G.J. Krieglsteiner (Hrsg.), Die Grosspilze Baden-Württembergs, Band 3., Ulmer (2001), p 245.

(3) M. Bon, Parey's Buch der Pilze, Kosmos (2005), p 170.

(4) R. M. Dähncke, 1200 Pilze in Farbfotos, AT Verlag (2009), p 389.

(5) S. Buczacki, Collins Fungi Guide, Collins (2012), p 192.

(6) R. Lueder, Grundkurs Pilzbestimmung, Quelle & Meyer (2008), p 388.

(7) trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&...

   

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Integrated Stereo Amplifier.

Digital Synthesized AM/FM Stereo Tuner.

Digital High Speed Dubbing Stereo Cassette Deck.

 

The radio plays great with the amplifier with no problem.

I haven't tested the cassette deck yet, i don't think i have any tapes.

The speakers are Realistic-Optimus 600 with a 8" Subwoofer, 2" Tweeter, and 4" Midrange, only thing they need is refoaming for the subwoofers

 

I only paid 35 dollars for all of it. Including the CD player.

 

Astro-Tech 65EDQ 65mm f/6.5 telescope, Starlight Xpress MX-716 CCD camera, Astronomik H-Alpha and OIII filters, Losmandy G11 mount. Guided using an Orion StarShoot autoguider attached to a 9x50 finderscope and PHD software.

 

21 x 10 minute integrations for H-Alpha, 16x10 minute integrations for OIII, 10 x 10 minute darks, 10 x 1/10th second bias frames.

 

Color image synthesized using the OIII data for both the blue and green channels and the clipping layer mask tutorial at the following link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aIT_FAH_sI&x-yt-cl=84503534&...

 

This 2-day workshop brought representatives from countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America in order to share their experiences in developing plans for the agriculture and livestock sector, in order to synthesize lessons learned and identify future research and capacity needs for national adaptation plans (NAPs). The workshop discussed lessons from the CCAFS’ report, “Meta Synthesis of National Adaptation Plans and Policies: West and East Africa and South Asia,” testing an analytical framework to measure country needs and progress. The key audience included national-level adaptation and agriculture decision-makers.

 

More information on the CCAFS report can be found here: New report highlights lessons from national adaptation planning .

 

Photo: C. Peterson (CCAFS)

 

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Model Alexandria Morrow

www.imdb.com/media/rm274904576/nm3019118

 

© 2009 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group

 

Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography

 

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Blocked image for comment, is part of the series on 11 June 2012 -

 

There are several species known as cotton tree in Brazil, almost all belonging to the genus Ceiba (formerly Chorisia family Malvaceae (previously Bombacaceae)In all, the best known species is the cotton tree Ceiba speciosa (St.-Hill.) Ravenna, native forests of Brazil and Bolivia, initially described as Chorisia speciosa St. Hilaire 1828.FEATURES: -It is a tree with up to twenty feet tall, gray-green stem with grooves and photosynthetic strong blunt spines, very sharp in the younger branches.The trunk of Painswick has a good ability to synthesize chlorophyll (photosynthesis) and greenish to have when you have a good size, that helps growth even when the tree is bare of leaves, is also common Paineiras present a kind of enlargement on base of the stem, hence the nickname "paunchy". Detail of the trunk, with photosynthetic tissues (photographed in Portugal)The leaves are composed slaps and fall during flowering. The flowers are large, with five pink petals with red spots and white edges. There are a variety of less common, with white flowers. Paineira-white, less common variety, with white flowers in the park Ceret, in Sao Paulo, Brazil Their reproductive organs are united in a long androginóforo.The fruits are green capsules which, when ripe, burst (dehiscent), exposing the seeds wrapped in fine white fibers that aid in flotation and which are called kapok. From twenty years old, approximately (southeastern Brazil), the spines usually start to fall in the lower stem and gradually also fall in the higher parts of the tree, with thickening of the shell. It is said, in Brazil, this allows the tree to get birds' nests, which would be impossible to happen when it had long, sharp thorns, so flowers and fruits are no longer present, but the tree continues to give its contribution to Nature hosting the birds. This is not a rule for all Painswick, Painswick some with more than twenty meters, for example, still have very large thorns on the lower, probably as a defense of the local insects.

 

Há várias espécies conhecidas como paineira no Brasil, quase todas pertencendo ao gênero Ceiba (antes, Chorisia da família Malvaceae (antes, Bombacaceae)

De todas, a mais conhecida é a paineira da espécie Ceiba speciosa (St.-Hill.) Ravenna, nativa das florestas brasileiras e da Bolívia, inicialmente descrita como Chorisia speciosa St. Hilaire 1828.

 

CARACTERÍSTICAS:-

É uma árvore com até vinte metros de altura, tronco cinzento-esverdeado com estrias fotossintéticas e fortes acúleos rombudos, muito afiados nos ramos mais jovens.

O tronco das paineiras tem boa capacidade de sintetizar clorofila (fazer fotossíntese) e tem coloração esverdeada até quando tem um bom porte; isto auxilia o crescimento mesmo quando a árvore está despida de folhas; é comum, também, paineiras apresentarem uma espécie de alargamento na base do caule, daí o apelido "barriguda".

Detalhe do tronco, com tecidos fotossintéticos (fotografada em Portugal)

As folhas são compostas palmadas e caem na época da floração. As flores são grandes, com cinco pétalas rosadas com pintas vermelhas e bordas brancas. Há uma variedade menos comum, com flores brancas.

Paineira-branca, variedade menos comum, com flores brancas, no parque Ceret, em São Paulo, no Brasil

Seus órgãos reprodutivos encontram-se unidos em um longo androginóforo.

Os frutos são cápsulas verdes, que, quando maduras, rebentam (deiscentes), expondo as sementes envoltas em fibras finas e brancas que auxiliam na flutuação e que são chamadas paina.

A partir dos vinte anos de idade, aproximadamente (sudeste brasileiro), os espinhos costumam começar a cair na parte baixa do caule e, gradualmente, também caem nas partes mais altas da árvore, com o engrossamento da casca. Diz-se, no Brasil, que isto permite à árvore receber ninhos de pássaros, o que seria impossível de acontecer quando esta tinha espinhos longos e pontiagudos; assim, flores e frutos já não estão presentes, mas a árvore continua a dar sua contribuição à natureza hospedando os passarinhos. Esta não é uma regra para todas as paineiras; algumas paineiras com mais de vinte metros, por exemplo, continuam com espinhos muito grandes na parte baixa, provavelmente como defesa de insetos do local.

From: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paineira

60 x 55 x 40 cm, aluminium, wood, programmed light 2017.

Himeji.

 

Synthesized IRG-->RGB cross-sampled image from a single exposure. Converted camera, Steinheil 50mm lens, Tiffen #12 filter. Worked up in Pixelbender and Photoshop.

Cellular vesicles in homogenate of spruce needles. With permission of co-authors: Jeran M, Hočevar M, Novak U, Božič D, Romolo A, Iglič A, Kralj-Iglič V; European spruce (Picea abies) as a possible sustainable source of extracellular vesicles and biologically active compounds, in preparation.

 

Plants have an incredible power and ability to synthesize many of the active ingredients on which today’s medicines and therapies are based. Large scale production of vesicles requires simple, robust and low cost procedures. Here we report on preliminary results on vesicles from spruce needles. By homogenization of fresh spruce needles (A) we produced amorphous material and sub-micron sized particles that are likely to be colloidal cellular vesicles (yellow arrows). The isolates were obtained by centrifugation and post-treated by ultrasound (B, C). Addition of lecithin in the process increased the amount of colloidal material (D, E).

© 2009 2024 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group

 

Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography

 

All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.

 

No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.

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Visit us at: www.redlinextremeracing.com/

 

Enter to win a TEAM REDLINE XTREME VIP 500 experience of a lifetime: www.vpxsports.com/contest-giveaway/redline-xtreme-racing-...

  

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Detail view of the window display at the Old World Imports shop in the Nob Hill Distric in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Night shot.

 

Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography

 

10 years in the same location next to the LOBO theatre...

www.oldworldimports.net

 

© 2009 Photo by Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group

All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.

 

No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.

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Where the feck did these ones come from?

 

Ununpentium is the temporary name of a synthetic superheavy element in the periodic table that has the temporary symbol Uup and has the atomic number 115.

It is placed as a heavier homologue to bismuth and the heaviest member of group 15 (VA). It was first observed in 2003 and about 50 atoms of ununpentium have been synthesized to date, with about 25 direct decays of the parent element having been detected. Four consecutive isotopes are currently known, 287–290Uup, with 289Uup having the longest measured half-life of ~200 ms.[4] On August 27, 2013, researchers at GSI from Lund University in Sweden reported confirming the existence of the element.[5][6] On September 10, 2013, researchers from the same research group working in Darmstadt, Germany reported synthesis as well.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium

 

Ununseptium is the superheavy artificial chemical element with temporary symbol Uus and atomic number 117. The element, also known as eka-astatine or simply element 117, is the second-heaviest of all the elements that have been created so far and is the second-to-last element of the 7th period of the periodic table. Its discovery was first announced in 2010—synthesis was claimed in Dubna, Russia, by a joint Russian-American collaboration, thus making it the most recently discovered element. Another experiment in 2011 created one of its daughter isotopes directly, partially confirming the results of the discovery experiment, and the original experiment was repeated successfully in 2012. However, the IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party (JWP), which is in charge of examining claims of discovery of superheavy elements, has made no comment yet on whether the element can be recognized as discovered. Once it is so recognized, it may receive a permanent name which will be suggested for the element by its discoverers; "ununseptium" is a temporary systematic element name that is intended to be used before a permanent one is established. It is commonly called "element 117" by researchers and in the literature instead of "ununseptium".

In the periodic table, ununseptium is located in group 17,[a] all previous members of which are halogens. However, ununseptium is likely to have significantly different properties from the halogens, although a few key properties such as the melting and boiling points, as well as the first ionization energy are expected to follow the periodic trends.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununseptium

 

Ununoctium is the temporary IUPAC name[11] for the transactinide element having the atomic number 118 and temporary element symbol Uuo. It is also known as eka-radon or element 118, and on the periodic table of the elements it is a p-block element and the last one of the 7th period. Ununoctium is currently the only synthetic member of group 18. It has the highest atomic number and highest atomic mass of all the elements discovered so far.

The radioactive ununoctium atom is very unstable, due to its high mass, and since 2005, only three or possibly four atoms of the isotope 294Uuo have been detected.[12] While this allowed for very little experimental characterization of its properties and possible compounds, theoretical calculations have resulted in many predictions, including some unexpected ones. For example, although ununoctium is a member of Group 18, it may possibly not be a noble gas, unlike all the other Group 18 elements.[1] It was formerly thought to be a gas but is now predicted to be a solid under normal conditions due to relativistic effects.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununoctium

Joseph Stella ( 1877 – 1946 )

 

Spring (The Procession), ca. 1914–1916

Oil on canvas

Yale University Art Gallery, gift of Collection Société Anonyme, 1941.692

 

This painting’s arabesques and kaleidoscopic composition announced Stella’s embrace of the new modes of abstraction he encountered in Paris. Although the glamor of the modern American city became a natural muse for his new style, with Spring, he turned unexpectedly to nostalgic themes of pastoral Italy. The painting evoked his childhood memories of the festive religious processions that wound through the village streets, flowers everywhere, and is among his earliest efforts to synthesize themes of Italy and nature, a recipe he would follow throughout the next twenty years of his career.

________________________________________________

Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature

February 24 – May 21, 2023

 

Italian-born American modernist Joseph Stella (1877–1946) is primarily recognized for his dynamic Futurist-inspired paintings of New York, especially the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island. Lesser known, but equally as ambitious, is his work dedicated to the natural world, a theme that served as a lifelong inspiration. Throughout his career, Stella produced an extraordinary number of works—in many formats and in diverse media—that take nature as their subject. These lush and colorful works are filled with flowers, trees, birds, and fish—some of which he encountered on his travels across continents or during his visits to botanical gardens, while others are abstracted and fantastical. Through these pictures, he created a rich and variegated portrait of nature, a sanctuary for a painter in a modern world.

 

Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature is co-organized by the High and the Brandywine River Museum of Art and is the first major museum exhibition to exclusively examine Stella’s nature-based works. The exhibition features more than one hundred paintings and works on paper that reveal the complexity and spirituality that drove Stella’s nature-based works and the breadth of his artistic vision. Through expanded in-gallery didactics, including a graphic timeline of Stella’s career and a short film, the exhibition digs deeply into the context of the works, exploring their inspirations, meanings, and stylistic influences.

 

Touring Dates:

Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida (October 15, 2022–January 15, 2023)

Brandywine Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania (June 17, 2023–September 24, 2023)

 

www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/arts/design/joseph-stella-flor...

 

www.forbes.com/sites/natashagural/2022/12/21/joseph-stell...

 

www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/joseph-stel...

 

If you know the painter Joseph Stella, it’s probably from his famous urban landscapes like Brooklyn Bridge (1921), a futurist interpretation of New York’s dramatic 20th-century industrialization. But Stella was just as captivated by the botanical world as he was by cityscapes, and today, Atlantans can see that side of the artist in vivid color. Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature, an explosive new exhibit at the High Museum of Art, features dozens of his flower and plant-filled paintings and drawings. In Atlanta through May 21, the exhibit travels chronologically through Stella’s lifelong love-affair with the natural world, from an early study of a piece of bark to the epic, intricate Tree of My Life.

 

Visionary Nature was a joint effort between the High; the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida; and the Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where it heads next. “They were really focused on [Stella’s] nature works, and we have a great work by Stella here at the High,” said Stephanie Heydt, the museum’s Margaret and Terry Stent Curator of American Art. “It was a great collaboration.”

 

Stella was born in 1877 in Muro Lucano, a hilly city in southern Italy. He immigrated to New York originally intending to follow his brother into medicine, but after a uninspired stint in medical school, he pivoted to painting. Stella studied briefly under the impressionist painter William Merritt Chase at the New York School of Art and soon developed a reputation as a sensitive interpreter of the urban working class.

 

The High’s exhibit features of some of these early works, in which the natural world spills out amidst the smokestacks and steel mills of America’s industrial revolution. “This is the Progressive Era at the turn of the twentieth century,” Heydt explained. “And he’s looking at the people in his own community, specifically the Italian immigrants.”

 

Traveling back in Europe, Stella was inspired by the contemporary artists he saw there: the cubism of Pablo Picasso and early futurism of Umberto Boccioni. He drew on these sources back in the U.S, earning acclaim for his dynamic geometric paintings of the metropolis; several choice selections, including American Landscape (1929), and Smoke Stacks (1921), are on view in this exhibit.

 

But even as Stella built his career on the towering achievements of urban industry, he yearned for the sunny landscapes of his youth. He frequented havens like the Bronx Botanical Gardens, which opened in 1891 and offered escape from New York’s sooty streets. Walking through Brooklyn one day, he later wrote in an essay, he stumbled across a sapling.

 

“This little tree is coming up from a crack in the sidewalk, shadowed by a factory, and he sees himself in this tree,” Heydt said. “He says, This is me.”

 

That encounter inspired Tree of My Life (1919) a florid aria sung to the natural world. A sturdy olive tree—Stella himself—anchors the canvas, surrounded by a vortex of tropical plants, birds, and, in the background, Stella’s native Italian hills. Brandywine Museum Director Thomas Padon envisaged the exhibit after seeing Tree of My Life in a private collection. “I was transfixed,” Padon told the New York Times.

 

Stella painted Tree of My Life and Brooklyn Bridge within a year of each other, announcing a duality that would define the rest of this career. While he painted flowers throughout his life, it was his moody, futurist treatments of New York that made him an art-world celebrity. European artists fleeing World War I were landing in New York in droves, sparking a new creative fascination with the cutting-edge American city. “(Marcel) Duchamp says the art of Europe is dead, and this century is about America,” explained Heydt. “Stella’s understood to be one of the first American-based painters to figure out . . . how to paint the new modern city.”

 

But Stella’s love of the natural world—and of Europe—endured. He returned to botanical themes throughout his life, infused with the Old Master styles of the Italian Renaissance. Many works in this exhibit invoke the sun-drenched vistas and towering cathedrals of Italy, overrun by sumptuous flowers that are decidedly not native to the Iberian peninsula. Stella—a native turned immigrant—seems to delight in the contradiction: in Dance of Spring (1924), tropical orchids and calla lilies burst open in a beam of beatific light, like Jesus rising to the heavens in a Raphael. Purissima (1927), part of the High’s own collection, evokes the iconic Renaissance Madonna, here transformed by Stella’s whimsy: the stamens of a lily serve as her celestial crown, while snowy egrets (the Florida kind) grace her sides.

 

With saturations of color abounding in every room, Visionary Nature enjoys an added depth through words. Stella was a prolific writer, and the exhibit makes canny use of text to explore his passion for the living world. “My devout wish,” reads one such diary segment on view, “That my every working day might begin and end . . . with the light, gay painting of a flower.” In a unique addition to their exhibition, the High created a short video featuring more of Stella’s own thoughts. “We wanted to end with his voice telling us how he felt about various paintings in the show . . . or his ideas about art,” explained Heydt.

 

Stella, who died in 1946, spent the last years of his life in ill health, largely confined to his studio. He never stopped painting the natural world; a few of those last works, modest trees still full of flair, are on view here. A few years before his death, his friend and fellow artist Charmion von Wiegand paid a visit to his studio. She found Stella amidst a riot of color, studiously painting his favorite subject. “Flower studies of all kinds litter the floor,” wrote von Wiegand, “and turn it into a growing garden.”

The lagging strand is synthesized in pieces called Okazaki fragments. Each starts with an RNA primer.

What a fun day we had at Tinker Town in Sandia Park, New Mexico. USA.

 

Lloyd-Thrap-Creative-Photography

 

Community is our reason to exist, the most essential element to Talking Fountain flow, letting expression go where ever it wants to.From arts&crafts with receptions, fundraising& weekly events, our doors and arms are open to the needs of our people.

TalkingFountain (12.01.11)

www.thetalkingfountain.com

  

© 2011 Lloyd Thrap Photography for Halo Media Group

All works subject to applicable copyright laws. This intellectual property MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED except by normal viewing process of the browser. The intellectual property may not be copied to another computer, transmitted , published, reproduced, stored, manipulated, projected, or altered in any way, including without limitation any digitization or synthesizing of the images, alone or with any other material, by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Lloyd Thrap and payment of a fee or arrangement thereof.

 

No images are within Public Domain. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration is a violation of copyright.

 

tinkertown.com/

  

See Beadle and Tatum Experiment: 1 and Beadle and Tatum Experiment: 2.

 

Having established that the mutant is an amino acid auxotroph, to determine which amino acid it was unable to synthesize, they cultured spores on minimal media supplemented with individual amino acids. The mutant shown grew only when arginine was added to the medium, indicating that it was an arginine auxotroph.

 

Like this figure? Check out the others in my Teaching set. Use them for any non-commercial purpose, but please provide a link back to the Flickr image.

This is an ionized HII region sorrounding the star HIP 35378, a WN Wolf-Rayet star, located closed to the bubble on the "fore-head" of the helmet, shinning with magnitude 11.0.

The visible nebula is part of a large neutral gas cloud, the HII region is due to the ionizing radiation from the Wolf-Rayet star. By the way, the stellar wind of this star has blown out the mentioned bubble in the HII region.

The distance of the nebula to Earth is around 16 thousands light years and its apparent size is 10 x 5 arc minutes.

 

Image taken during Full Moon using narrowband filtering centered in Ha and O3, unbinned, 18 frames of 17 minutes for each channel. The green channel has been synthesized.

Tao Wei, ChE PhD Student, synthesizes proteins in the NCRC on North Campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI on May 26, 2017.

 

Wei is part of Timothy Scott's, Assistant ChE Professor, laboratory that focuses on polymer synthesis. This device helps synthesize proteins quickly and efficiently.

 

Photo: Joseph Xu/Michigan Engineering Senior Producer, University of Michigan

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55 x 55 x 55 cm, aluminium, pine wood, programmed lighting, 2015.

Opening scene

 

It is late in the 22nd Century. United Planet cruiser C57D a year out from Earth base on the way to Altair for a special mission. Commander J.J Adams (Leslie Neilsen) orders the crew to the deceleration booths as the ship drops from light speed to normal space.

 

Adams orders pilot Jerry Farman (Jack Kelly) to lay in a course for the fourth planet. The captain then briefs the crew that they are at their destination, and that they are to look for survivors from the Bellerophon expedition 20 years earlier.

 

As they orbit the planet looking for signs of life, the ship is scanned by a radar facility some 20 square miles in area. Morbius (Walter Pigeon) contacts the ship from the planet asking why the ship is here. Morbius goes on to explain he requires nothing, no rescue is required and he can't guarantee the safety of the ship or its crew.

 

Adams confirms that Morbius was a member of the original crew, but is puzzled at the cryptic warning Morbius realizes the ship is going to land regardless, and gives the pilot coordinates in a desert region of the planet. The ship lands and security details deploy. Within minutes a high speed dust cloud approaches the ship. Adams realizes it is a vehicle, and as it arrives the driver is discovered to be a robot (Robby). Robby welcomes the crew to Altair 4 and invites members of the crew to Morbious residence.

 

Adams, Farman and Doc Ostrow (Warren Stevens) arrive at the residence and are greeted by Morbius. They sit down to a meal prepared by Robbys food synthesizer and Morbius shows the visitors Robbys other abilities, including his unwavering obedience. Morbius then gives Robby a blaster with orders to shoot Adams. Robby refuses and goes into a mechanical mind lock, disabling him till the order is changed.

 

Morbius then shows the men the defense system of the house (A series of steel shutters). When questioned, Morbius admits that the Belleraphon crew is dead, Morbius and his wife being the only original survivors. Morbius's wife has also died, but months after the others and from natural causes. Morbius goes on to explain many of the crew were torn limb from limb by a strange creature or force living on the planet. The Belleraphon herself was destroyed when the final three surviving members tried to take off for Earth.

 

Adams wonders why this force has remained dormant all these years and never attacked Morbius. As discussions continue, a young woman Altaira (Anne Francis) introduces herself as Morbius daughter. Farman takes an immediate interest in Altaira, and begins to flirt with her . Altaira then shows the men her ability to control wild animals by petting a wild tiger. During this display the ship checks in on the safety of the away party. Adams explains he will need to check in with Earth for further orders and begins preparations for sending a signal. Because of the power needed the ship will be disabled for up to 10 days. Morbius is mortified by this extended period and offers Robby's services in building the communication facility

 

The next day Robby arrives at ship as the crew unloads the engine to power the transmitter. To lighten the tense moment the commander instructs the crane driver to pick up Cookie (Earl Holliman) and move him out of the way. Quinn interrupts the practical joke to report that the assembly is complete and they can transmit in the morning.

 

Meanwhile Cookie goes looking for Robby and organizes for the robot to synthesize some bourbon. Robby takes a sample and tells Cookie he can have 60 gallons ready the next morning for him.

 

Farman continues to court Altair by teaching her how to kiss, and the health benefits of kissing. Adams interrupts the exercise, and is clearly annoyed with a mix of jealous. He then explains to Altair that the clothes she wears are inappropriate around his crew. Altair tries to argue till Adams looses patience and order Altair to leave the area.

 

That night, Altair, still furious, explains to her father what occurred. Altair takes Adams advice to heart and orders Robby to run up a less revealing dress. Meanwhile back at the ship two security guards think they hear breathing in the darkness but see nothing.

 

Inside the ship, one of the crew half asleep sees the inner hatch opened and some material moved around. Next morning the Captain holds court on the events of the night before. Quinn advises the captain that most of the missing and damaged equipment can be replaced except for the Clystron monitor. Angry the Capt and Doc go back to Morbius to confront him about what has occurred.

 

Morbius is unavailable, so the two men settle in to wait. Outside Adams sees Altair swimming and goes to speak to her. Thinking she is naked, Adams becomes flustered and unsettled till he realizes she wants him to see her new dress. Altair asks why Adams wont kiss her like everyone else has. He gives in and plants one on her. Behind them a tiger emerges from the forest and attacks Altair, Adams reacts by shooting it. Altair is badly troubled by the incident, the tiger had been her friend, but she can't understand why acted as if she was an enemy.

 

Returning to the house, Doc and Adams accidently open Morbius office. They find a series of strange drawings but no sign of Morbius. He appears through a secret door and is outraged at the intrusion. Adams explains the damage done to the ship the previous night and his concern that Morbius was behind the attack.

 

Morbius admits it is time for explanations. He goes on to tell them about a race of creatures that lived on the planet called the Krell. In the past they had visited Earth, which explains why there are Earth animals on the planet. Morbius believes the Krell civilization collapsed in a single night, right on the verge of their greatest discovery. Today 2000 centuries later, nothing of their cities exists above ground.

 

Morbius then takes them on a tour of the Krell underground installation. Morbius first shows them a device for projecting their knowledge; he explains how he began to piece together information. Then an education device that projects images formed in the mind. Finally he explains what the Krell were expected to do, and how much lower human intelligence is in comparison.

 

Doc tries the intelligence tester but is confused when it does not register as high as Morbius. Morbius then explains it can also boost intelligence, and that the captain of the Belleraphon died using it. Morbius himself was badly injured but when he recovered his IQ had doubled.

 

Adams questions why all the equipment looks brand new. It is explained that all the machines left on the planet are self repairing and Morbius takes them on a tour of the rest of the installation. First they inspect a giant air vent that leads to the core of the planet. There are 400 other such shafts in the area and 9200 thermal reactors spread through the facilities 8000 cubic miles.

 

Later that night the crew has completed the security arrangements and tests the force field fence. Cookie asks permission to go outside the fence. He meets Robby who gives him the 60 gallons of bourbon. Outside, something hits the fence and shorts it out. The security team checks the breach but finds nothing. A series of foot like depressions begin forming leading to the ship. Something unseen enters the ship. A scream echos through the compound.

 

Back at the Morbius residence he argues that only he should be allowed to control the flow of Krell technology back to Earth. In the middle of the discussion, Adams is paged and told that the Chief Quinn has been murdered. Adams breaks of his discussions and heads back to the ship.

 

Later that night Doc finds the footprints and makes a cast. The foot makes no evolutionary sense. It seems to have elements of a four footed and biped creature; also it seems a predator and herbivore. Adams questions Cookie who was with the robot during the test and decides the robot was not responsible.

 

The next day at the funeral for Chief Morbius again warns him of impending doom facing the ship and crew. Adams considers this a challenge and spends the day fortifying the position around the ship. After testing the weapons and satisfied all that could be done has, the radar station suddenly reports movement in the distance moving slowly towards the ship.

 

No one sees anything despite the weapons being under radar fire control. The controller confirms a direct hit, but the object is still moving towards the ship. Suddenly something hits the force field fence, and a huge monster appears outlined in the energy flux. The crew open fire, but seem to do little good. A number of men move forward but a quickly killed.

 

Morbious wakes hearing the screams of Altair. Shes had a dream mimicking the attack that has just occurred. As Morbious is waking the creature in the force field disappears. Doc theories that the creature is made of some sort of energy, renewing itself second by second.

 

Adams takes Doc in the tractor to visit Morbius intending to evacuate him from the planet. He leaves orders for the ship to be readied for lift off. If he and Doc dont get back, the ship is to leave without them. They also want to try and break into Morbious office and take the brain booster test.

 

They are met at the door by Robby, who disarms them. Altair appears and countermands the orders given to Robby by her father. Seeing a chance Doc sneaks into the office. Altair argues with Adams about trying to make Morbius return home, she ultimately declares her love for him.

 

Robby appears carrying the injured Doc. Struggling to speak and heavy pain, Doc explains that the Krell succeeded in their great experiment. However they forgot about the sub conscious monsters they would release. Monsters from the id.

 

Morbius sees the dead body of Doc, and makes a series of ugly comments. His daughter reminds him that Doc is dead. Morbius lack of care convinces Altair she is better off going with Adams. Morbius tries to talk Adams out of taking Altair.

 

Adams demands an explanation of the id. Morbius realizes he is the source of the creature killing everyone. The machine the Krell built was able to release his inner beast, the sub conscious monster dwelling deep inside his ancestral mind.

 

Robby interrupts the debate to report something approaching the house. Morbius triggers the defensive shields of the house, which the creature begins to destroy. Morbius then orders Robby to destroy the creature, however Robby short circuits. Adams explained that it was useless; Robby knew it was Morbius self.

 

Adams, Altair and Morbius retreat to the Krell lab and sealed themselves in by sealing a special indestructible door. Adams convinces Morbius that he is really the monster, and that Morbius can not actually control his subconscious desires.

 

The group watch as the creature beings the slow process of burning through the door. Panicked Morbius implores Altair to say it is not so. Suddenly the full realization comes, and he understands that he could endanger or even kill Altair.

 

As the creature breaks through Morbius rushes forward and denies its existence. Suddenly the creature disappears but Morbius is mortally wounded. With his dying breath he instructs Adams to trigger a self destruct mechanism linked to the reactors of the great machine. The ship and crew have 24 hours to get as far away from the planet as possible

 

The next day we see the ship deep in space. Robby and Altair are onboard watching as the planet brightens and is destroyed. Adams assures Altair that her fathers memory will shine like a beacon.

bioLogic is growing living actuators and synthesizing responsive bio-skin in the era where bio is the new interface. Natto bacteria are harvested in a bio lab, assembled by a micron-resolution bio-printing system, and transformed into responsive fashion, a “Second Skin”. The synthetic bio-skin reacts to body heat and sweat, causing flaps around heat zones to open, enabling sweat to evaporate and cool down the body through an organic material flux.

 

credit: Florian Voggeneder

www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/james-turrell-9/

 

James Turrell’s recent Constellation works, the focal point of this exhibition, are the culmination of Turrell's lifelong pursuit. Generating what the artist has called “spaces within space,” these luminous portals are instruments for altering our perception; gazing into them results in the slow dissolution of the boundaries of the surrounding room, enveloping the viewer in the radiance of pure color. Fusing the temporal, sensuous, and illusory qualities of his projection works and architectural installations, the Constellations synthesize several aspects of Turrell’s practice. Unlike his early projection pieces, however, they are not about generating an illusion; instead, they greet the viewer with the actual materiality of light, what Turrell calls “the physical manifestation of light, which we have trained our eyes too readily to look through rather than to look at.”

65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, Lindau, Germany, Picture/Credit: Adrian Schröder/Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, 1 July 2015

 

Ei-ichi Negishi: How to Synthesize a Wide Variety of Optically Active Organic and Bioorganic Compounds of >99% Optical Purity. Lecture at the Stadttheater

 

No Model Release. No Property Release. Free use only in connection with media coverage of the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. For all other purposes subject to approval.