It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, December 09, 2021
New US energy standards would reverse Trump’s war on lightbulbs
Trump’s energy department blocked a rule intended to phase out less efficient bulbs. Now Biden plans to move forward, slowly
Trump once said that LED bulbs were ‘very dangerous with all the gases’.
The Biden administration has moved to reverse the depredations endured by one of the more unusual targets of Donald Trump’s culture wars during his time as US president: the humble lightbulb.
The US Department of Energy has put forward a new standard for the energy efficiency of lightbulbs that would essentially banish the era of older, incandescent technology in favor of LED lighting.
The absence of lightbulb regulations helps worsen the climate crisis and wastes households money, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. The group has found the use of wasteful incandescent lights is costing Americans nearly $300m a month in needless electricity bills and releasing 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide over the lifetimes of the inefficient bulbs sold each month.
Trump, however, was not enamored by LED lights while he was in the White House. The twice-impeached president said that he looks “better under an incandescent light than these crazy lights that are beaming down”, complaining in 2019 that he “always looks orange” under LED lights. He claimed that if LEDs break they become “a hazardous waste site” and are “very dangerous with all of the gases”.
Trump, who also used his position at the zenith of global power to voice outrage over toilets that he said required flushing “10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once”, vowed to bring back the older lightbulbs, with the White House declaring that the real estate developer and former Apprentice host was allowing Americans to “go ahead and decorate your house with whatever lights you want”.
Trump’s Department of Energy followed this lead, blocking a rule that would have led to the phase-out of incandescent lightbulbs. The move, the administration said, would save consumers money and remove unnecessary government inference in the market.
The Department of Energy has consistently found, however, that installing LED bulbs in light fixtures can save people hundreds of dollars over the lifetime of the bulbs. While LEDs have traditionally been more expensive than incandescents, which are based upon a technology devised by Thomas Edison, their cost has dropped by nearly 90% over the past decade.
Incandescent lightbulbs still make up about a third of all bulb sales in the US and the department of energy said the new standard, which will go through a period of public comment, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 222m metric tons over the next 30 years and save consumers nearly $3bn in annual net costs.
The new standard will be implemented in staggered fashion after lobbying from manufacturers, however, which could lead to several years of further incandescent sales. “This progress is welcome news for consumers and for the planet, but the administration is not acting here with the urgency needed to address the climate crisis,” said Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, added: “It’s time to get this done. The manufacturers have already received a couple extra years beyond Congress’s deadline to sell bulbs that have a short lifespan and waste a lot of energy. Now they’re pushing for more. The department needs to remember that any extra time it takes and compliance flexibility it gives come at the expense of consumers and the climate.”
America's 'Maximum Pressure' Policy On Venezuela Has Failed
U.S. sanctions have a long history of failing to initiate regime change
Sanctions from both the Obama and Trump Administrations have failed to have a material impact on Venezuela’s regime
The dire situation in Venezuela has provided Russia, China and Iran to expand their influence in the crisis-stricken country
Two decades of malfeasance and corruption coupled with sharply weaker crude oil prices and ever stricter U.S. sanctions have precipitated the worst modern economic collapse outside of war in Venezuela. The crisis-riven Latin American country, which was once considered the wealthiest and most stable democracy in its region, is on the verge of collapse. While U.S. policymakers continue to believe that tough sanctions will bring the autocratic Maduro government to its knees and trigger regime change there are increasing signs that they are failing and have in fact strengthened his position. This is supported by events that have occurred since sanctions were ratcheted up by the Obama administration in 2015 with Venezuela described as an " unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”. Unexpectedly former President Trump’s policy of maximum pressure, which saw his administration enact the harshest sanctions ever against Venezuela cutting the country off from international energy markets, has failed. Even the near-collapse of Venezuela’s economy due to harsh U.S. sanctions and growing lawlessness in the stricken Latin American country has done little if anything to erode Maduro’s grip on power.
The latest event highlighting the strength of Maduro’s grip on power has become since that declaration is the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela’s recent sweeping victory in regional elections. Coalition led by the party, which is controlled by Maduro, won 20 of the 23 governorships available and the mayoralty of Caracas. This comes after Maduro was able to secure control of Venezuela’s National Assembly, winning 256 of the body’s 277 seats during the December 2020 elections. That success essentially destroyed Washington’s recognized interim President Juan Guaido’s legitimacy because he lost not only his leadership of the lawmaking body but his seat. As a result, the European Union ceased recognizing Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president, instead bestowing the title of privileged interlocutor.
U.S. sanctions have a long history of failing to initiate regime change unless they are accompanied by other forms of overt pressure including military action. They were unsuccessful in removing Saddam Hussein from power, which was only accomplished through direct military action, have failed to curb the activities of a fundamentalist Shia Iran nor caused the communist regime in Cuba to collapse. Indeed, sanctions tend to fortify authoritarian governments by adding to the scarcity of goods and services thereby handing greater control to authorities for their provision and distribution while providing a handy scapegoat for the hardships they create. Harsh U.S. sanctions precipitated Venezuela’s economic meltdown which bolstered the Maduro regime’s power, making it the key provider of essential goods and services.
The targets of the sanctions typically find a way of dulling their impact or avoiding them altogether by finding alternate sources of capital, markets, and crucial resources. Maduro has been extremely successful in this regard, obtaining considerable support from countries opposed or antagonistic to the U.S, notably Russia, China, Iran and Cuba. Moscow and Beijing are both lenders of last resort for a near-bankrupt Caracas providing oil backed loans and even investing in Venezuela’s rapidly corroding hydrocarbon sector. During late-March 2020 Russian energy company Rosneft announced it had transferred its Venezuelan energy assets to a series of Russian government-controlled entities to avoid the impact of U.S. sanctions on its operations. That gave the Kremlin ownership of interests in a series of joint ventures with Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA, including oilfields and infrastructure. Beijing along with Moscow has loaned billions to the financially crippled petrostate. It is estimated that Caracas owes Beijing anywhere up to and in excess of $50 billion with another $17 billion payable to Moscow. While that debt is proving to be a crippling burden for a nearly bankrupt Venezuela it has done little to weaken Maduro’s grip on power.
Events in Venezuela have provided Beijing with the opportunity to significantly expand its influence in Venezuela. State-controlled China National Petroleum Corp. is ramping up its presence in Venezuela sending engineers and technicians to the petrostate as it discusses with PDVSA how to boost oil production at their joint projects. Beijing is also a key facilitator for shipping Venezuelan crude oil. Logistics company China Concord Petroleum Co. was identified as a key facilitator in organizing shipments of Venezuelan crude oil. According to Reuters, the Hong Kong-registered firm charted tankers that in April and May 2021 were responsible for transporting a fifth of Venezuela’s crude oil exports for those months. Beijing is focused on more than obtaining repayment of outstanding loans. Caracas’ desperation for capital is being fully exploited by a Beijing determined to build influence and presence in Latin America as a direct challenge to Washington. A resource-hungry China has also secured extremely favorable terms for a series of loans not only for petroleum but other commodities including iron ore, leaving an increasingly financially desperate Venezuela with backbreaking debt. This strategy is an increasingly important plank in China’s economic and societal conflict with the U.S as it seeks to secure vital raw materials and gain greater geopolitical influence.
Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, are becoming increasingly important supporters of the Maduro regime. Teheran is providing considerable assistance to PDVSA including materials, technicians, and engineers to rebuild its severely dilapidated refineries. According to Reuters, in 2020 Iran sent more than 20 flights, carrying parts and technicians, to Venezuela to restart the 310,000 barrels per day Cardon Refinery which is part of the 971,000 barrels per day Paraguana refinery complex. Then in February 2021 further airlifts of materials including catalysts bound for Paraguana were identified. Iran is also sending shipments of urgently needed condensate to Venezuela, This is critical to PDVSA’s operations because it is mixed with the extra-heavy crude produced in the Orinoco Belt so that it can be transported, processed, and exported.
The growing influence of Iran, which is also subject to strict U.S. sanctions, has allowed Hezbollah to establish a sizeable foothold in Venezuela where it engages in a range of illicit activities including cocaine and arms smuggling as well as money laundering. Hezbollah has also established terrorist training camps in Venezuela, meaning it poses an existential terrorist threat to the U.S. its citizens and allies in Latin America. The militant Shia group was responsible for the 1992 car bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and then the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in that city. The combined attacks claimed 116 lives, were the worst-ever terrorist attacks in Argentina, and highlight eh threat posed by Hezbollah in Latin America. Hezbollah is conducting all those activities with the approval of the Maduro regime. The Shia militant organization’s presence in Venezuela is only fueling further regional instability, with the militant U.S.-designated terrorist organization engaged in relationships with local illegal armed groups such as the ELN and FARC dissidents.
The autocratic Maduro regime’s ability to overcome or avoid strict U.S. sanctions has allowed crude oil output to steadily rise since June 2020 reaching 590,000 barrels per day for October 2021. That coupled with Maduro’s reluctant reforms, the economy bottoming out and its steady unofficial dollarization leading to lower inflation sees international financial institutions predicting that Venezuela’s economy will grow during 2021. Investment bank Credit Suisse has forecast that Venezuela’s gross domestic product during 2021 will expand by 5.5% after contracting every year since 2014. Whereas economists estimate Venezuela’s economy will grow by anywhere between 5% and 10% this year. If that occurs it will further fortify Maduros’ position making it even more difficult for his regime to be toppled by current U.S. policy.
Washington’s unwavering faith in strict economic and other sanctions has failed to trigger regime change in Venezuela. In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that over time the utility of sanctions gradually diminishes to the point where they no longer have any material impact on the target regime. This is the point that has been reached regarding Washington’s approach to Venezuela. Not only have those measures failed but they are creating a range of undesirable side effects which are harming U.S. interests in Latin America. One of the most worrying is that they are creating an opportunity for Russia, China, and Iran to bolster their footprint and influence in the region, challenging Washington’s traditional hegemony. This is particularly worrying because Venezuela’s vast natural resources, notably its colossal petroleum reserves are gradually falling under foreign control. Washington’s policy is also allowing illegal armed groups and designated terrorist organizations to prosper in a lawless Venezuela which is nearly a failed state. That not only further inflames regional instability and creates greater opportunities for criminal groups to engage in harmful illicit activities such as cocaine smuggling but heightens the risk of terrorist attacks. Aside from the considerable humanitarian suffering occurring in Venezuela, it is for these reasons that Washington needs to reappraise its approach towards the authoritarian regime and the crisis-riven country.
By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com
New research makes waves tackling the future of tsunami monitoring and modeling
Fralin Life Scientes Institutes' Tina Dura (right) conducts research with colleagues Richard Briggs (United States Geological Survey) and Simon Engelhart (Durham University) on an island off the coast of Alaska. Photo courtesy of Rich Koehler for Virginia Tech. Credit: Virginia Tech
The coastal zone is home to over a billion people. Rising sea levels are already impacting coastal residents and aggravating existing coastal hazards, such as flooding during high tides and storm surges.
However, new research by assistant professor Tina Dura and professor Robert Weiss in the College of Science's Department of Geosciences indicates that future sea-level rise will also have impacts on the heights of future tsunamis.
"In 50 to 70 years, sea level is going to be significantly higher around the world," said Dura, who is also an affiliate of the Center for Coastal Studies, an arm of the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. "If a tsunami strikes in that time frame, the impacts that you're estimating for today are going to be greater. I think that coastal geologists and modelers alike need to consider sea-level rise in future models and hazards assessments."
Their findings were published in Nature Communications.
Around the colloquial Ring of Fire, tectonic plates are colliding with the massive Pacific plate, resulting in seismic and volcanic activity. Because the Ring of Fire encircles the Pacific Ocean, large earthquakes on its boundaries produce regional tsunamis and also distant-source tsunamis that propagate across the Pacific Ocean and affect coastlines thousands of miles away.
Off the coast of Alaska, colliding tectonic plates create a 2500-mile-long fault known as the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone. Research shows that the subduction zone can produce distant-source tsunamis that strike the west coast of the United States, and in particular, Southern California.
In 2013, the United States Geological Survey initiated a Science Application for Risk Reduction project focused on a distant-source tsunami originating along the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone and its impacts in California.
The project found that a magnitude 9.1 earthquake could produce a distant-source tsunami with an amplitude of 3.2 feet at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, larger than any historical distant-source tsunami at the ports, causing losses of up to $4.2 billion.
a) Map of Alaska showing the sections of the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone, earthquake boundaries, and approximate historical earthquake extents. b) Light gray shaded area shows the U.S. Geological Survey Science Application for Risk Reduction scenario magnitude 9.1 Semidi section earthquake. c) Map of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach showing the location of gauges that measure water levels at the ports and maximum nearshore tsunami heights. d) Plot showing modeled earthquake magnitudes in the year 2000 with no tidal variability included (blue histogram), with tidal variability (green histogram), and the combined tsunami heights and tidal variability (red histogram).
However, due to rising sea levels, this tsunami scenario at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will not be accurate in the long run.
Observations show that the world's temperatures are rising and sea levels are following suit. It's not a question of whether sea level will continue to rise but by how much.
Dura and Weiss, along with colleagues from Rowan University, Rutgers University, Durham University, Nanyang Technological University, and the United States Geological Survey, joined forces to combine distant-source tsunami modeling with future sea-level rise projections to see how rising sea levels will influence tsunami heights in Southern California.
The group projected sea-level rise for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach based on scenarios that factor in both low and high estimates of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change mitigation strategies.
One scenario included mitigation strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that resulted in minimal temperature and sea-level rise. Another scenario reflects a future with no mitigation efforts and high emissions, leading to a faster rise in temperatures and higher sea levels.
The group found that today, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake can produce tsunami heights that exceed 3.2 feet at the ports. However, by 2100, under high-emissions sea-level rise projections, a much smaller magnitude 8 earthquake will be able to produce a tsunami that exceeds 3.2 feet.
In other words, higher sea levels will make the ports more vulnerable to tsunamis produced by less powerful earthquakes. The results are especially concerning given the higher frequency of magnitude 8 earthquakes.
"A 9.1 is very, very rare," said Dura. "So today, the chances of having a tsunami exceeding 3.2 feet at the ports is pretty small because a very rare, very large earthquake would be required. But in 2100, a magnitude 8, which happens around the Pacific Rim quite often, will be able to exceed the same tsunami heights due to higher sea levels."
"This work really illustrates the potential for future tsunamis to become far more destructive as sea levels rise, especially if we fail to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions," said co-author Andra Garner, who is an assistant professor studying sea-level rise at Rowan University. "The good news is that the work also illustrates our ability to minimize future hazards, if we act to limit future warming and the amount by which future sea levels increase."
But knowing about these potentially devastating tsunamis entails not just looking ahead, but looking back as well.
The United States Geological Survey Science Application for Risk Reduction project only considered an earthquake that occurred within the Semidi section of the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone. But since that initial work, Dura and colleagues have published research that suggests other sections of the subduction zone should be considered as well.
The Semidi section and the adjacent Kodiak section of the subduction zone have produced historical earthquakes. In 1938, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake struck the Semidi section. In 1964, a magnitude 9.2—the largest recorded earthquake to occur on the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone—struck the Kodiak section and other sections to the east.
Because the earthquakes of 1938 and 1964 did not overlap, seismic hazard maps labeled the area between them as a "persistent earthquake boundary." In other words, the risk of the region's greatest, multi-section earthquakes was thought to be quite low.
"Although the 1964 earthquake rupture did not cross into the rupture area of the 1938 earthquake, it is unclear if this has been the case for earthquakes hundreds to thousands of years in the past. Should this be considered a persistent boundary between earthquakes, or can there be very large, multi-section earthquakes in this region? We wanted to find out," said Dura.
To learn more about the seismic history of the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone, Dura and colleagues used 5 centimeter cookie-cutter-like cylinders to collect core samples from wetlands that are peppered across the proposed earthquake boundary.
The group then analyzed the soil layers contained in the cores to identify instances of land-level change and tsunami inundation from past earthquakes. Through radiocarbon, cesium, and lead dating, the group was able to build a timeline of past large earthquakes in the region.
Their research showed that multiple large earthquakes had spanned the proposed earthquake boundary, which means that earthquakes that ruptured both the Semidi and Kodiak sections of the subduction zone had occurred multiple times in the past.
"Our geologic data shows that earthquakes can span the Semidi and Kodiak sections," said Dura. "For this reason, we incorporated both single and multi-section earthquakes into our distant-source tsunami modeling for the ports. By including multi-section earthquakes in our modeling, we believe the range of tsunami heights we estimate for the ports is a step forward in our understanding of impacts of future tsunamis there."
The group's data will be included in hazard maps for southern Alaska to help improve future modelling scenarios for the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone.
"Collaborations like ours that aim to integrate coastal geology, earthquake modeling, and future projections of sea level are crucial in developing a complete picture of future tsunami impacts at ports," said Weiss, director of the Center for Coastal Studies. "Increasing interdisciplinary research capacity, meaning the integration of scientific fields with each other that follow different governing paradigms, will be the key to understanding the impacts that the changing Earth has on our well-being and prosperity. Building interdisciplinary research teams is difficult, and Virginia Tech's Center for Coastal Studies fulfills a pivotal role bringing such teams together. Fulfilling this team-building role not only enables studies such as ours, but also helps Virginia Tech remain true to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve)."
In future projects, Dura, Weiss, and colleagues plan to incorporate distant-source tsunamis originating from other subduction zones around the Ring of Fire into their modeling of tsunami impacts on other coasts as well as the economic consequences of coastal inundation.
"With our new study, we provide an important framework for incorporating sea-level rise into distant-source tsunami modeling, and we're excited to continue building on these initial results," Dura said.Weird earthquake reveals hidden mechanism
$450M flood bill costliest in B.C.'s history, still climbing
The nearly half-billion dollars in insurance claims makes November's flooding the costliest natural disaster in B.C.'s history. But with the government yet to release its damage estimates, it comes nowhere near the true financial toll.
Princeton, B.C., residents float and wade through floodwaters, Nov. 15, 2021. Reader submission via Castanet
The flooding that sank several B.C. communities underwater last month is now estimated to have caused $450 million in insurable damage, making it the most costly weather event in the province’s history, says the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC).
The record bill comes nowhere close to capturing the full damage to people’s homes and businesses. The B.C. government has yet to tally the full cost of both disaster assistance relief and repairs to damaged infrastructure.
Part of the reason that government bill is expected to stretch into the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, is because only roughly half of British Columbians are covered by flood insurance. In high-risk areas, like Abbotsford’s Sumas Prairie or parts of Merritt, flood insurance simply wasn’t available.
“This is a fraction of the total cost,” says Aaron Sutherland, IBC’s vice-president for Canada’s Pacific region.
“If you lived in these areas that have been impacted by these floods, insurance for your home would have been… either very expensive or the insurers just simply don't offer it because they can't make it affordable.”
Sutherland says IBC does not yet have a grasp on what proportion of homes and businesses impacted by November’s flooding had insurance, but so far roughly 6,000 homes have filed claims.
That comes nowhere near the $4 billion (adjusted for inflation) claimed in the wake of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire; to date, it's Canada’s most costly insurance payout due to natural disaster. But because fire is always covered in insurance policies and flood damage requires homeowners to opt in, the full cost of B.C.’s flooding could be much higher.
Sutherland says 90 per cent of B.C. homeowners with insurance pay no more than $300 per year. It’s the remaining 10 per cent, who live in places expected to flood every 10 or 20 years, that face massive insurance premiums. And as climate change makes the risk of flood more likely, those costs are only expected to climb.
Every year, the insurance industry pays out roughly $40 billion across Canada, of which $6 billion is payed out in B.C. That’s still nowhere near a breaking point, says Sutherland.
The growing sense of urgency rests with home and business owners who can’t foot the rising cost of premiums. To that end, IBC is part of a federal, provincial and territorial task force looking to create a low-cost residential flood insurance program for those highest at risk.
At the same time, Sutherland says more needs to be done to protect communities from the effects of climate change in the first place — whether from wildfire or floodwaters.
“Insurance is just one piece of what is a much bigger challenge we’re facing,” he says. “The impact it’s having on people living and working in these areas, you can’t quantify that with a dollar value.”
Roadside geology in three billion years on the back roads
(7 photos)
This week Back Roads Bill asks us to look at roadside rock cuts to learn about what makes up Northern Ontario and there is a guidebook to help
Rock cuts are found throughout Northern Ontario remember to pull well off the road for safety's sake.
Bill Steer for Village Media
When driving along the main or the back roads, a multitude of colours, interesting wavy patterns and lines are visible within the rock cuts in some locations. There are three billion years of history to discover and understand at these stops.
In Northern Ontario, road builders don't always take the path of least resistance they go straight through the Canadian Shield creating accidental geologic classroom lessons. We know the exposed rock faces as rock or road cuts. It is a great way to see the rocks that are normally hidden.
Most of us are neophytes when it comes to rocks but they can reveal different layers of rock, faults, igneous intrusions, and many other geologic structures that are normally difficult to see.
In basic terms, geology is the study of the earth, the materials of which it is made, the structure of those materials, and the processes acting upon them over time. It also includes the study of organisms that have inhabited our planet like fossils, Manitoulin is famous for that. Where to start
Mark Hall, lives within the City of Greater Sudbury and he is a 'professional landman,' an industry term not so familiar.
He is a mining landman specializing in hard rock mineral prospects and project development with more than 20 years of experience in acquiring and managing mineral lands, for both the government and private companies in Canada and the USA.
He said the rocks of Northern Ontario tell many stories and hold even more secrets. Most of that secret information is covered by dirt and plants and will never be revealed to humans, but we do get a glimpse of the Canadian Shield geology whenever we travel the highways.
Every rock cut along the road is a tiny window into the hidden bedrock that we drive by.
One must be able to see the rocks to understand them, and our road cuts can provide wonderful exposures of what lies beneath. A great example is the road cut on Hwy. 69 at the Bowes Street exit at Parry Sound.
This road cut is like a first-year structural geology course in one picture.
Next time you pass by (not for the driver) look to see the way the rocks are layered, then notice that they are not flat but bent and folded like children’s play dough. That folding is the result of enormous tectonic forces twisting the rock layers into what you see today.
When the rock can bend no more, it snaps.
See where the layers are interrupted along straight lines? These are faults where one side has slid past the other. You would not want to be there when that happened because that movement is what causes earthquakes.
Don’t worry, that earthquake because it likely happened billions of years ago.
This sounds rock solid but I think I need a tutorial.
One of the geological features in 'Road Rocks' is the dynamic Ouimet Canyon near Dorion.
Bill Steer for Village Media
Road Rocks Ontario
The best way is to stop and look at all those rock cuts up close and personal. It was like a gold discovery I found the definitive guidebook written by a geologist who has spent a lifetime looking at the roadside rocks.
Dr. Nick Eyles has been teaching geology at the University of Toronto for almost forty years.
He is an award-winning author of the best-selling geology books Road Rocks Ontario and Ontario Rocks.
After completing a five-part series with CBC on the geology of Canada that aired in 2008, Nick was on the road with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for seven months in 2009-10 as host of Geologic Journey – World a five-part Nature of Things series with David Suzuki. Rock on with Nick.
The ripple rocks just west of Desbarats is one of the most interesting roadside geology locations.
Bill Steer for Village Medi
The province of Ontario contains many sites of outstanding geological importance. Many are internationally well known and attract visitors from around the globe. Others no less important remain hidden in plain sight. This is what I have been searching for.
"During the last three billion years Ontario has been witness to giant tectonic collisions as North America collided in turn with South America and Africa creating huge mountains now long gone," Nick said. "Many of Ontario's northern rocks originated as magma on ancient ocean floors long before life flourished. The province has been dented by fiery meteorites, drifted across the equator, been flooded by tropical seas rich in marine life and scraped bare by ice sheets."
As an addendum to another recent Back Roads Bill story, he said, “ Many rocks are sacred to First Nations peoples who believe that rocks are inhabited by may maymaygwayshiwuk who appear every now and again to torment humans.”
There is a lot of rock in Ontario and this book offers only a glimpse of what can be found in the thousands of outcrops by side of the road. Armed with what you learn from this guide you’ll pretty soon figure what that other stuff might be.
And besides that, he said, “Most of the stops are close to coffee stops.”
There is hope for me now.
As drive the northern route of Highway 11, west of Beardmore and east of Nipigon you will see these magnificent palisades; and there is hiking trail to the top.
Bill Steer for Village Media
See the map for some of the book’s locations and page numbers with Back Roads Bill photos.
Nick recommends stopping by the Rock Walk in Haileybury to get a primer on the rocks you will see; that’s on page 440.
In the easy-to-read Road Rocks Ontario book, there are more than 250 geological wonders to discover. It has GPS coordinates for each site and a location map. This guidebook has been on the back roads since its publication in 2013.
And while you are at it here are a few free government publications on roadside rocks in a printable .pdf format that will help you with your schooling and a field guide to the Sudbury area and an entire series of Northern Ontario geo tours.
Always remember to pull off the road as the apron allows.
Now, if I can just figure out how to drive the back roads and read the guide at the same time?
Santa knows I won’t do that because I don’t want that lump of coal again, we have peat but not coal in Northern Ontario. I do not have rocks in my head others may say differently.
Dinosaur faces and feet may have popped with color
Extinct dinosaurs may have had bright color on their skin, scales and beaks in a manner similar to modern birds. Credit: Sarah Davis
Most birds aren't as colorful as parrots or peacocks. But if you look beyond the feathers, bright colors on birds aren't hard to find: Think pink pigeon feet, red rooster combs and yellow pelican pouches.
There's a good chance that extinct dinosaurs rocked pops of color on similar body parts and may have flashed their colors to entice mates, just as birds do today, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
"Living birds use an array of pigments and can be very colorful on their beaks, legs, and around their eyes," said Sarah Davis, a doctoral candidate at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who led the study. "We could expect that extinct dinosaurs expressed the same colors."
The research was published in the journal Evolution on Dec. 6.
The takeaway on potential dinosaur color schemes comes from broader findings about skin and tissue color in the common ancestor of living birds and extinct dinosaurs, an ancient archosaur that lived near the beginning of the Triassic period. By analyzing whether bright body color was present in living dinosaur relatives—including turtles, crocodiles and over 4,000 bird species—the researchers determined that the common ancestor had a 50% chance of having bright colors in the soft tissues of its body.
The bright colors examined in the study typically come from carotenoids—a class of colorful red, orange and yellow pigments that birds extract from their food. Carotenoids do not fossilize as well as brown and black pigments, which means scientists must study color in living animals to look for clues about color expression in their extinct ancestors.
A simplified evolutionary tree showing where bright colors appear on birds and other living species from this studyand where these colors may have appeared on their extinct relatives, including dinosaurs. Skin (shown in orange), and scalesand beak keratin (yellow) could have been brightly pigmented in extinct groups, whereasfeathers and claws would probablynot have been. Areas without bright color are shown in gray. Credit: Sarah Davis / The University of Texas at Austin
The researchers used the data collected from birds and other animals to make phylogenic reconstructions, a scientific method used to investigate the evolutionary histories of species. The 50% estimate for bright color applies equally to skin, beaks and scales of the ancient archosaur. In contrast, the research found that there was a 0% chance that claws and feathers were brightly colored, which is consistent with other research, Davis said.
The study also examined the connection between color and a diet high in carotenoids, with Davis finding that birds with higher carotenoid diets (plant- and invertebrate-rich) were more likely to be colorful than meat eaters. What's more, she found that plant-eating birds expressed bright colors in more places on their bodies than meat eaters or omnivores.
"The earliest dinosaurs were pony-sized and ate large, vertebrate prey," said study co-author Julia Clarke, a professor at the Jackson School. "Different groups shifted to plant-dominated or mixed diets. This shift likely led to changes in coloration of skin and non-feather tissues."
In addition to coloring the past, the research puts living birds in a new perspective. Davis said that the bird groups examined in the study have a reputation for being drab—especially in comparison to songbirds, which were excluded from the study because they are the most distantly related to their nonavian dinosaur ancestors.
But aside from their feathers, the birds turned out to be quite colorful. The study found that about 54% of the 4,022 bird species studied had bright colors. Of this group, 86% of species expressed bright color in only non-feathered tissues.
Mary Caswell Stoddard, an associate professor at Princeton University, said that the study provides important insights on bird color that often go overlooked.
"There is so much more to birds' color than their plumage—just think of the vibrant orange-yellow bill of a toco toucan—but feathers tend to get the most attention," she said. "This study unravels the evolutionary history of carotenoid-based coloration not just in plumage but also in the beaks and skin of birds and their relatives."Why some of Darwin's finch nestlings have yellow beaks
More information:Sarah N. Davis et al, Estimating the distribution of carotenoid coloration in skin and integumentary structures of birds and extinct dinosaurs,Evolution(2021).DOI: 10.1111/evo.14393
