Ray Wiggers' February 2005 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

I begin this edition with hearty thanks to all of you who have recently become members of my new educational organization, the Natural History Exploration Guild. My previous experiences -- everything from researching and writing books to setting up a horticultural business -- have taught me that patience and optimism are the most crucial and indispensable traits for anyone doing what I'm attempting. But this time, to my pleasant surprise, the positive response to my efforts began almost at once and continues strong through the dead of this snowy winter. Not only has the Guild's membership doubled since the new year began; it now includes individuals from all Midwestern states where I will be running tours and other events in the first half of 2005.

There's no thrill in the world like that of making an idea into a living, breathing enterprise involving other people as well as oneself. The challenges are many and range from the peevishly mundane to the stratospherically philosophic. Here's one example that falls somewhere between the two extremes: when I first launched the Guild's website, www.nheg.org, I was instinctively drawn toward making it a not-for-profit organization. However, I quickly learned that to do so would be the accountant's equivalent of opening Pandora's box. The bookkeeping is just too byzantine, at least at this stage.

So, in the understanding that the Guild was starting in a more streamlined way as a for-profit entity, I wondered if the website's URL should be changed from .org to .com -- at the risk of confusing everyone already used to the original address. But apparently that's a non-issue, after all. My research into the arcanities of the Internet revealed that while the .org tag originally was intended primarily for not-for-profits, it is now an "unrestricted domain." And so the tech-support division of my Web host has clearly stated. So, in the spirit of the old New England adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," I'll keep www.nheg.org as it is for the time being. But if any of you have informed insight into this symbolically significant game of letters, please let me know.

In the meantime, take a look at the new, expanded Guild website. In common with the Courses and Tours pages of this website, there have been some significant changes. For one thing, you can very conveniently and securely become a Guild member and enroll for Guild events on line using your credit card or PayPal account.

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Here are a few reminders about upcoming events of interest to Guild members and other naturalists:

- Registration is already well underway for Lake Forest Open Lands' Winter Tree Indentification mini-course this 26 February. (More information.) Coming soon: listings for other courses to be held in June: The Science and Care of Orchids (Oasis Program, Northfield, IL) and Plants and People: Ethnobotany of the Chicago Region (Lake Forest Open Lands). Farther down the road, in the fall: The Botany of Architecture (Chicago Architecture Foundation).

PART I. NONLINEAR SOLILOQUIES & SERMONS

A. Under the Super-Slipper's Yoke

The ancient Romans had a flair for symbolic hauteur. One manifestation of this was their practice of making their captured enemies walk sub jugum, under the yoke -- the yoke being a set of spears lashed together in such a way that they formed a sort of low doorframe. According to the third-century historian Dio Cassius, captives subjected to this humiliation were forced to walk through the frame, and by doing so they bowed their heads low in obeisance to their conquerors. Hence the origin of our word subjugate.

This archaic practice has been much on my mind, because one of my many indoor orchids, which resides in the room I'm currently writing this text, has subjected me to the same sort of ritual for the past eight months. The plant, which has a taxonomic name as long as a freight train, is Phragmipedium czerwiakianum x Katerum -- an impressive if unruly specimen, with a leaf spread as great as the sideways span of my arms. Orchid fanciers refer to such plants as "phrags"; they're the lesser-known, South American relatives of both the Cypripedium ladyslippers that grace the woodlands of North America and the Old World Paphiopedilum ladyslippers now grown by hobbyists the world over. Unlike the majority of their cousins, though, phrags can become truly hefty plants. In fact, if you come across a mature specimen in full bloom you'll be tempted to think it's a ladyslipper on steroids.

B. Owning Up to Our Faults

When most nongeologists think of geology, they think of rocks. That's not a bad first-order approximation; for centuries, geologists have interpreted our planet's rock record and have have profited greatly by doing so. Rocks, mere inanimate objects to the underappreciative, are in reality amazingly revealing history texts, each of which are written in at least several different languages -- the language of the minerals they're made of, the language of the flow marks or gas bubbles or depositional patterns they contain, the language of the fossils embedded in them, and so forth.

But geology is also the study of patterns, processes, and structures that manifest themselves on in a grander way -- in landforms, in sediments, in rocks on a regional and even planetary scale. The field of structural geology concerns itself with the geometry of changes in the Earth's crust -- and in particular with how the crust is deformed by the forces of tension (the act of pulling objects apart) and compression (the act of pushing objects together). The crust, seemingly so rigid and unyielding, is affected by these forces in two basic ways. One is through flexure, where rock units are warped, contorted, bent, or squeezed as though they were bread dough or saltwater taffy. The other is faulting, where the forces have proven so overwhelming that an outright rupture occurs.

PART II. REVIEWS IN THE REALM OF NATURAL HISTORY

A. Books: Exploration

Ever since my junior-high-school days, when I read my first account of Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Imperial Transantarctic Expedition, I have been fascinated by the history of polar exploration. Two works that stand out in that genre are Roland Huntford's The Last Place on Earth and Shackleton. More recently, there has been a spate of books written by people who attempt to apply aspects of Shackleton's genius for leadership to modern business- management practices. While my patience with these spinoff books is considerably less, I have nothing but highest praise for Caroline Alexander's The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition (Alfred A. Knopf; hardback; ISBN 0375404031). At first wary that this was nothing more than one of those well-designed and intellectually depauperate coffee-table books written as companion sales items for museum exhibits, I soon discovered that Alexander's prose was superb and that the book's content, which includes fine psychological insights and many of expedition photographer Frank Hurley's finest images, is indeed meaty enough to make an excellent introduction to this mythic adventure.

B. Books: Geology, Evolution, & Exobiology

I have always a little skeptical of the endlessly repeated Carl-Saganism that life must be abundant elsewhere in the universe. For that reason, I eagerly read Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee's Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (Copernicus Books; paperback; ISBN 0387952896) as soon as I learned of its existence. The authors' central hypothesis is that Earth is a remarkably unusual planet, and that life, while perhaps readily arising in many places in its simplest forms, is much too fragile to survive for billions of years on any one world unless very special conditions -- plate tectonics, for example -- exist. To be honest, I found the arguments a bit repetitive and overwrought in places. Still, there are so many thought-provoking ideas that I wholeheartedly recommend this accessible work to anyone interested in the origin and history of life.

C. Books: Mycology & Ethnobotany

Fungiphobia is serious psychological condition affecting millions of Americans. The symptoms: an irrational fear of one of the most fascinating, ecologically important, and misunderstood groups of organisms on the planet. (And, incidentally, they're often beautiful, too. Yes, beautiful.) In Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds (Princeton University Press, Paperback; ISBN 0691070164) Cornell University professor George Hudler has does much to alleviate this troubling condition. Written in an avuncular, nontechnical style, this book recounts the various ways in which the fungi have had a major impact on human society -- from our eager appreciation of tasty morels and the chemical byproducts of brewers' yeasts to the ergot disease of grain, the hallucinogenic toxins of which may have prompted the Salem witchcraft mania.

Once More onto a Breach, Dear Friends. I admit it; I'm getting obsessive here. Geologic faults are this issue's idee fixe. This shot was taken from the dry stream bed at the base of Tuff Canyon, Big Bend National Park, Texas. Here the rock is lapilli tuff -- material deposited by ash falls produced by nearby volcanic eruptions a few million years ago. In the midst of this cliff face yet another fault is beautifully displayed: its trace runs from upper left to lower right. Can you tell which side is the down-dropped block (footwall)? And while you're at it, is this a normal fault or a thrust fault? Here's one hint: match up the displaced rock layers. If after a decent effort you're still stumped, take a look at # 27 in my Southwestern Geology Gallery. It's the same photo with an accompanying description.

No Slave to Fashion. While they went out of human fashion a very long time ago, petti-coats are still considered quite stylish in the palm family (Arecaceae). This Califor-nia Fan Palm (Washingtonia filifera) shows the characteristic natural form of this species when its withered lower leaves are not pruned away. Despite frequently over-cast skies, this plant thrives in the Mitchell Domes greenhouse complex in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a botanically and architectural-ly significant facility that is one of three venues along the western Lake Michigan shore that are especially heartening places for the naturalist to visit in the depth of the northern winter. By the way, the other two places are in Chicago: the magnificent Garfield Park Conservatory and the Lincoln Park Conservatory.

My Pet Microglacier. In an attempt to more vividly illustrate the interesting properties of glaciers I devised this rather simple, low-tech way of de-monstrating that ice has some rather unusual properties. Though it is of course a solid, it bends and flows, albeit at a speed that most of us find uninspiring, when subjected to a relatively gentle but insistent force. At my request, Lake Forest College student Colin Danley, supervised by Biology Department lab supervisor Beth Herbert, created a thin, flat sheet of ice and then loaded it in the middle with weights. The result: a distinct sag (analogous to the process of flexure cited in the second Part I piece) rather than rupture (some-what similar to faulting).

- I am now also taking registrations for my two Guild-sponsored "Nature's Classroom" courses

scheduled for spring -- Woodlands in Spring and The Awakening Savanna and Prairie. (More information.)

- My two Spring 2005 weekend tours, April's Redbud Special to Southern Illinois (Shawnee National Forest, the Forest of the Wabash, Cave-in-Rock, etc.) and a May trip to Wisconsin's Kettle Moraine and Door Peninsula, have a few available berths. Prospectuses for both are available. (More information.)

- My two Spring Mini-Treks, to Starved Rock and Matthiessen State Parks in Illinois, are almost full; let me know soon if you haven't signed up yet but want to! (More information.)

My phrag began its latest blooming period in mid-June 2004. Its rapidly lengthening inflores-cence stretched ever farther toward my south-facing windowsill. In doing so, it formed a sort of a yoke about six feet long, under which I must pass whenever I have to get to my supply closet for a new book or a printer cartridge.

I accept such subjugation gladly. Though I often joke about my orchids being my overlords, they are in fact my co-conspirators, and by displaying judicious growth and blooming at just the right times, they have added grace to my happy times and a needed example of stubborn creativity in less joyful seasons. So this is one type of yoke, provided by nature rather than by human hubris, that I hope I'll always be willing pass under.

About ten days ago, my phrag's very last flower -- the thirty-fourth on that one spike -- opened. It won't last much longer, but when it goes it will go in typically dignified phrag style: without warning it will suddenly drop, still unwilted and perfectly formed, onto the waiting branches of my Chinese fir. And then I will take care to put that intricate little structure in an airtight vasculum so that I can show it to my current botany class.

The photos directly above illustrate classic examples of the latter type of deformation. At Boquillas Canyon, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, the left side of the canyon wall has moved down relative to the right side -- just the way gravity would dictate when the two sides are pulled apart. This is what geologists call a normal fault or gravity fault. On the other hand, the Douglas Fault in northwestern Wisconsin is a thrust fault or reverse fault -- the wedge of somewhat darker basalt at right has been driven upward to the left over the sedimentary rocks on which the steps and railing rest. We know this because the sedimentary rocks are somewhat younger, and normally would sit atop the basalt!

The photo below shows something even more intriguing: both faulting and flexure. This structure revealed at a roadcut in eastern Tennessee is a thrust fault -- which makes sense, given the fact it was formed by the immense compressional force of Africa colliding with ancestral North America some 300 million years ago. The term for the lower block at the left is the footwall; the upper is called the hanging wall. But note how the act of sliding up the plane of contact has severely folded the hanging wall. It resembles the crumpled hood of a car after a front-end collision.