Jurassic Mall
Walk out the back of Boston's Hynes Convention Center, and you'll find yourself in the
Prudential Mall, an elegantly designed promenade lined with all the same stores that line less elegant malls. When I exited the Convention Center for the final time last Sunday eventing, the last full day of the 2008 AAAS annual conference, I saw strolling toward me two women, arms locked. They were moving slowly, hunched and looking at the floor, with expressions more like they were looking through an old picture album than looking for a contact lens.
Suzanne and Mary Anne were looking at an old picture album, in a sense, a limestone snapshot of events 155 million years ago in what today is southern Germany. Solnhofen Limestone, cleaved and polished, lines the floor of the Prudential Mall, tiles studded with swirls and splotches. Upon closer inspection, the swirls and splotches took on a distinct character. They are ammonite fossils, remains of long-extinct mollusks.
The fossil is about four or five inches in diameter. The Mall's central walkway has a reddish hue, a sign that the creatures lived in oxygenated waters. This central pathway was flanked by limestone studded with blackish fossils, a sign of an ecosystem depleted in oxygen. Artists rendering of ammonite, courtesy of Wikipedia, show how they might have looked when they ferried about the continental shelf.
Rich ironies pass us by every day. I think frequently of a line from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Indiana Jones has an opportunity to blow up the Lost Ark of the Covenant, so that it won't fall into Nazi hands. The twisted French archaeologist Belloq says to him something to the effect, "All your life has been spent in pursuit of archeological relics. Inside the Ark are treasures beyond your wildest aspirations. You want to see it opened as well as I. Indiana, we are simply passing through history. This, this is history."
Looking at the ammonite graveyard I had ignorantly been stepping over all week, I couldn't help but think that Suzanne, Mary Anne and I were just passing through history, but these Jurassic limestones are history. Another 155 million years will pass, and the Solnhofen fossils will become another strata in whatever sedimentary rock grows atop Boston. Usually in Earth history, rock only moves as the plates shift, carrying ossified ecosystems around the surface. Humans have gotten pretty good at accelerating plate tectonics, if western Eurasian limestone can end up outside the Hynes Center.
Dominant species of Earth's past line our malls, build our skyscrapers and fuel our vehicles. The evidence of past climates is all around us, if only we know how to look for them.
Suzanne and Mary Anne were looking at an old picture album, in a sense, a limestone snapshot of events 155 million years ago in what today is southern Germany. Solnhofen Limestone, cleaved and polished, lines the floor of the Prudential Mall, tiles studded with swirls and splotches. Upon closer inspection, the swirls and splotches took on a distinct character. They are ammonite fossils, remains of long-extinct mollusks.
The fossil is about four or five inches in diameter. The Mall's central walkway has a reddish hue, a sign that the creatures lived in oxygenated waters. This central pathway was flanked by limestone studded with blackish fossils, a sign of an ecosystem depleted in oxygen. Artists rendering of ammonite, courtesy of Wikipedia, show how they might have looked when they ferried about the continental shelf.
Rich ironies pass us by every day. I think frequently of a line from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Indiana Jones has an opportunity to blow up the Lost Ark of the Covenant, so that it won't fall into Nazi hands. The twisted French archaeologist Belloq says to him something to the effect, "All your life has been spent in pursuit of archeological relics. Inside the Ark are treasures beyond your wildest aspirations. You want to see it opened as well as I. Indiana, we are simply passing through history. This, this is history."
Looking at the ammonite graveyard I had ignorantly been stepping over all week, I couldn't help but think that Suzanne, Mary Anne and I were just passing through history, but these Jurassic limestones are history. Another 155 million years will pass, and the Solnhofen fossils will become another strata in whatever sedimentary rock grows atop Boston. Usually in Earth history, rock only moves as the plates shift, carrying ossified ecosystems around the surface. Humans have gotten pretty good at accelerating plate tectonics, if western Eurasian limestone can end up outside the Hynes Center.
Dominant species of Earth's past line our malls, build our skyscrapers and fuel our vehicles. The evidence of past climates is all around us, if only we know how to look for them.
Hey Eric -- you've hit on one of my real delights above. In response, I've whacked you with the 123 challenge. See this posts for details: http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/ive-been-tagged-reading-and-writing-and-all-that-jazz/
albest, tom l.
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