A biologic and geologic survey of Saint Kitt Islands.

Krogstad A, Nicholas K.
A biologic and geologic survey of Saint Kitt Islands.
Proc Royal Soc 1898 ; 5.
The Royal Society for the Advancement of Knowledge in the Natural Sciences, Tamrannoch, Caledon.


Introduction
Saint Kitt Islands is a newly-discovered crown colony of the Independent State of Caledon. The area is composed of a volcanic crater and surrounding atoll, and comprises approximately 65,000 square metres (16 acres, or 0.025 square miles) of land and surrounding sea. Despite its relatively close geographic proximity to Caledon proper, its climate and indigenous plant life is quite distinct from that of the Independent State. In this paper we present the initial descriptions of the island and its biology.

Methods
The islands were surveyed by the authors on 11 and 12 May, 1898, funded by an unrestricted grant from the Royal Society for the Advancement of Knowledge in the Natural Sciences. One of the authors (AK) obtained oceanographic information to include sea bed depth, water temperature, currents, and a biologic survey. The other author (KN) was responsible for the geophysical data collection (AK performed the volcanic crater survey). Both authors participated in cataloguing the land-based biodiversity

Geography
The atoll itself is 146 metres in maximum north-south dimension, and 100m east-west. The topology is irregular, however, and gives a maximum contiguous straight-line distance (“widest point”) of 142m north-south and 56m east-west. The mean elevation is 2m above sea level at the beachfront. The mountain range running north-south in the atoll is at 11m for the southern-most plateau. Three peaks make up the mountain range proper: 30m at the southern peak, 28m at the centre, and 30m at the northern peak. The peaks are of igneous rock, with lower elevations (i.e. within 5m of sea level) covered in sandy soil and vegetation.



The volcano lies across the atoll to the east, and measures approximately 65 metres in diameter. Maximum elevations are as follows: 32m north rim, 31m southern rim, and 47-50m eastern rim. The rim measures approximately 55m in diameter north-south, and 36m east-west. The crater floor is 20m below sea level, and the cauldron is flooded to sea level. The crater itself is devoid of contents. No lava tunnels or other structures were identified.

The sea depth is -11m in the atoll, near the boat mooring, and -13m elsewhere. The sea bed appears to be uniformly sand, with little ejecta field, lava flows, or other evidence of recent volcanic activity.



In general, the surface conditions are those expected for a volcanic island. The exposed rock is igneous, and the soil is sandy, though rich enough to support vegetation. Sand is the typical pumice-based variety, and is uniformly fine, without larger elements of lava fragments.
Despite the relatively close geographic proximity to Caledon, the climate is an oceanic climate in the Köppen climate classification scheme. Winds appear to move west-to-east, though there is considerable surface-level variability. The day-night cycle is the same as in Caledon. Seismic activity was monitored; those data will be published at a later date.

Biology
For a young island, plant biodiversity is greatly important in establishing the biome. On Saint Kitt, two species of palm trees (Arecaceae spp.) and plumeria (Plumeria rubra) are found on the flat coastal regions, facing the atoll. No grasses or flowers were found. The usual ground cover was evident up to 5m or so above sea level, then giving way to igneous rock.

No terrestrial or aquatic animal species were noted despite extensive observations. No bird life was sighted.

Conclusions
Saint Kitt Islands were formed from volcanic activity resulting in an island and atoll. The weathering patterns on the volcano itself suggest a young age, perhaps under 50 years. Seismic activity predicts potential surrounding activity, consistent with known patterns of island-building volcanic activity. Seawater temperatures surrounding the island (unpublished data) point towards other submarine volcanic activity in the area. Further geophysical studies will be required to determine the amount and extent of landmass building that has occurred in the region.

Despite a tropical climate and the amount of plant biodiversity, there is a lack of animal species. This corroborates the geologic weathering-based age of the island, favouring a young landmass. Care must be taken not to introduce foreign plant or animal species if the original species are to be conserved. Caution is also advised regarding wide-scale tourist activity, as the native biome has a potential for serious disruption if faced with unchecked human intervention.

Saint Kitt Islands represent a major find for biologists, geophysicists, vulcanologists, and conservationists. Ongoing investigations would be expected to provide a wealth of information in those fields.

Enough levity for a fortnight: The Bard on Fark

Today I stumbled across a pearl in the midst of swine. No offense to other Fark regulars, but iambic pentameter is not among the average Farker's skills (and don't get me started on those knaves over on 4chan).

But some well-above-average Farkers stepped up to wax eloquent on a particular theme: what if the Bard himself wrote the screenplay for Pulp Fiction?

So, I had the great fortune to combine several of my favourite things over coffee this morning: fun with language, Shakespeare, and Pulp Fiction.

Here are the links: first, the Fark thread itself
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3552350
then the sources for the epic banter:
http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/6644038.html
http://www.metafilter.com/70997/Pulp-Shakespeare

Here I will reproduce a few of the better verses ... and as a treat for those who read the whole post, a rendition of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire" done in early Norman-English on a faux Bayeux Tapestry.

Honestly, this, dear readers, is the pinnacle of internet culture!

First: Jules addresses Ringo in the coffee shop.

I have for years recited thus. If thou didst but hear,
It was as clear a sign of your demise
As found in any witches' scry.
Yet never had I ponder'd its intent;
T'was simply fiendish sounds I could thus speak
Before I dealt my foes the final stroke
That sent them on to God's Own Realm.
But just this morrow hence, I saw such things
That lead me to reflect upon my words
And divine what the meaning was therein.
Perchance, I guessed, you are the evil man,
And I the righteous man. As for the shepherd,
Methought it could have then stood for my blade.
Anon, perhaps the righteous man is you;
I then may be the shepherd, and the evil and the selfish
Is all that stands about us in this world.
Such is a pleasing thought. But such is also false.
In truth, you are the weak.
And I, the tyranny of evil men.
Yet, henceforth, I assure you, I shall try
In all my ways to now become the shepherd.

Next, Jules and Brett have an erudite discussion on language and semiotics over a Big Kahuna burger.

J: My pardon; did I break thy concentration?
Continue! Ah, but now thy tongue is still.
Allow me then to offer a response.
Describe Marsellus Wallace to me, pray.
B: What?
J: What country dost thou hail from?
B: What?
J: How passing strange, for I have traveled far,
And never have I heard tell of this What.
What language speak they in the land of What?
B: What?
J: The Queen's own English, base knave, dost thou speak it?
B: Aye!
J: Then hearken to my words and answer them!
Describe to me Marsellus Wallace!
B: What?
JULES presses his knife to BRETT's throat
J: Speak 'What' again! Thou cur, cry 'What' again!
I dare thee utter 'What' again but once!
I dare thee twice and spit upon thy name!
Now, paint for me a portraiture in words,
If thou hast any in thy head but 'What',
Of Marsellus Wallace!
B: He is dark.
J: Aye, and what more?
B: His head is shaven bald.
J: Has he the semblance of a harlot?
B: What?
JULES strikes and BRETT cries out
J: Has he the semblance of a harlot?
B: Nay!
J: Then why didst thou attempt to bed him thus?
B: I did not!
J: Aye, thou didst! O, aye, thou didst!
Thou hoped to rape him like a chattel whore,
And sooth, Lord Wallace is displeased to bed
With anyone but she to whom he wed.

And finally, as promised, the Fresh Prince's own story told anew. (N.b.: I haven't gone through and checked the text for accuracy. Get back to me, say, oh, next week.)

The Earliest Audio Recording (at least as far as we know).

Two of my favourite news sources today referenced a particularly interesting bit of Victorian-era technology. Both the BBC and Edward Pearse are reporting on a device which, I must confess, I really had never learned of before: the phonautograph.

While I encourage the reader to browse the links above, I shall give a condensed version of the story here.

In 1857, Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville patented the phonautograph. The device used a stylus, connected to a receiving horn or bell, to inscribe a visual representation of the sound on to a recording medium (originally, a lamp-blackened glass plate; later, blackened paper). The purpose was to create a visual representation of sound -- not to provide for reproduction of that sound. And that is the key point to this story.

In April of 1860, a 10-second recording was made of "Au Claire de la Lune". This recording was recently found in the archives of the Académie des Sciences of the Institut de France.

Scientists working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California created a method to reproduce the originally-recorded sounds from their sooty spectra. In short, an optical scan of the recording paper was made, and then computer software decoded the transcription to reproduce the sounds which originally drove the recording stylus.

The scientists are part of a collaborative, First Sounds. According to their web site:

First Sounds is an informal collaborative of audio historians, recording engineers, sound archivists, scientists, other individuals, and organizations who aim to make mankind's earliest sound recordings available to all people for all time.

David Giovannoni examines one of Scott's 1860 phonautograms in the archives of the Académie des Sciences of the Institut de France, where it was deposited in 1861.

Photos by Isabelle Trocheris

(courtesy firstsounds.org)

So: these scientists took a visual representation of sound, which was never meant to be played back, and turned it back into sound.

Go back, and re-read that last sentence, considering the technology involved, and I think you would agree that this work is remarkable.

Are there more inadvertently-saved sounds waiting to be re-discovered? All that is needed, in theory, to record a sound is (1) a moving medium, and (2) a stylus which reacts to sound waves.

As is often the case, I am not the first to have such a fanciful notion. An episode of a popular American television science-fiction television series from the 1990s pondered what would happen if, say, sounds from 2000 years ago were recorded into a wet clay pot as a stick was being used to carve decorative grooves in it.

A little more research reveals that the concept was also the heart of an April Fools Day prank by a certain Bilge Sehir a few years ago, as nicely described on the Language Log blog. I mean, really: a 6500-year-old recording? Too good to be true.

Still, it does make for a nice gedanken experiment.

For quality sound reproduction, stick with Mr Edison's cylinders ... and beware of pseudoarchaeologists and/or April Fools pranksters.

A non-scientific announcement.

Some of my readership have learned of my recent inheritance of a bit of land in Winterfell. While the details of the matter do not require discussion here, suffice it to say that dear old Uncle Alexii will be greatly missed (sniff).

Before I get down to the necessary business on the estate (archæological excavations, mineral deposit analyses, and such like that), it would please me greatly to open up the area to let my dear friends, neighbours, and colleagues have a go at it.

So, it is with great pleasure that I am opening up Winterfell Eventide as a sandbox, at least for a week (Friday, March 28*), and I reserve the right to extend that offer if, say, really good builds appear. Feel free to use the land as well as the water; Viking longboats, anyone?

The caveats? Mediæval-style external themes. No floppy dongs. You have 3000-some-odd prims to play with.


The proclamation above is based on a charter from 1790 in which Catherine the Great promotes a certain Alexsandr Murkhanov to Secund-Rotmistr (Lieutenant-Captain) in the Horse-Mounted Guards.

And, if anyone has an interest in Alexander Nevsky-era uniforms, weaponry, or such accoutrements, please send me a notecard!

Regards,

Катя

--
* That is Friday, March 28, New Style, that is, using the Gregorian calendar, as opposed to Old Style Julian calendar dates. When one is dealing with mediæval dates, and Slavic matters in general, the Old vs New Style distinction is important.

Failure analysis of the Loch Avie Cryogenic Seasonal Support Engine

Nicholas K, Bellambi E. Failure analysis of the Loch Avie Cryogenic Seasonal Support Engine (CSSE). Proc Royal Soc 1898;3.

Abstract.
The Loch Avie Cryogenic Seasonal Support Engine (CSSE) unexpectedly failed in February 1898, with resultant thermal destabilisation of the terrain. This analysis was conducted to determine the cause of failure, as well as to identify other potential failure modes of the engine. The root cause appears to be geothermal anomalous events triggered by plate tectonic movements. Various preventative strategies are discussed.

Background.
The CSSE was implemented during the current winter season in Caledon to support and enhance the ground and air temperature cooling needed to ensure persistent snow cover (maximum -3.5 degrees Centigrade) and precipitation occurring as snow (maximum -2.2 degrees C.) The system exhibited a meta-effect of allowing shallow-water ice to form to depths of up to 1 metre. (Fig. 1.)





The system was controlled from a certain location within Loch Avie. Electromagnetic relays were used to control various aspects of the system. Coolant temperature, flows, and hydraulic pressure were measured at the control panel. (Fig. 2.)





At various locations around the Loch, coolant pipes were exposed to the water and atmosphere to enable convective heat exchange to occur. Figure 3 demonstrates one such submerged pipe.



Note that the combination of the amount of dissolved solutes and particulate matter in the Loch water have dropped the freezing point to below the coolant temperature, as no ice build-up is seen. (Fig. 3a.)


Figure 4 demonstrates one of the above-ground heat-exchange mechanisms, which were used in tandem with the exposed pipe apparatus used for submersible cooling.

The details of the design of the cryogenic plant itself, and the method for dissipating heat from the system remain classified, as they were commissioned originally for The Security Service (Box 500, Loch Avie, Caledon).

System failure.
During the week of February 21, ambient air temperatures and soil temperatures began climbing by an average of 0.17 degrees C. per day, from their prior stable baselines of -3.5 and -2.2 degrees C. respectively. Snow cover began to dissipate immediately due to solar heating, and new precipitation fell as rain and freezing rain by February 26. By the first week in March, existing snow cover had vanished, and there was no contiguous ice remaining on the Loch.

During the warming event, the cryogenic fluid production remained constant, with nominal temperatures. (Fig. 5.) Readings from the heat dissipation system showed increasingly-warmer effluent.







Flow and pressure monitors recorded no pressure drops or coolant leaks. (Fig. 6.)


Analysis.
The data support that the system encountered increased ambient heat which could not be effectively dissipated, resulting in increasingly less-efficient cooling. While available readings from surrounding areas are scant, the data suggest increased energy deposition into the air, water, and soil. Electromagnetic (EM) sensors did not indicate any change in background EM or radio-frequency energies. Seismic readings, though, showed low-level activity beginning and increasing in a temporally-associated fashion with the warming event. One hydrothermal vent which is routinely monitored indicated increased output of geothermal energy.

Conclusions.
The CSSE failure was a result of its heat-exchanging system being overwhelmed by an unusual increase in hydrothermal energy. The increase in seismic activity in the area is the most likely etiology. The CSSE operated as designed, without any loss of system integrity . Based on the system design, and the observed mode of failure, the CSSE failed safely. The design could not have been modified on-line to accomodate the increased need for heat dissipation. The authors recommend that the system, now off-line, be re-engineered to increase heat transfer and dissipation, and that seismic monitoring be instituted to allow for better prediction of the need for increased efficiency. Finally, a further study of the unusual seismic events should be undertaken, as the increased geothermal activity provides demonstrable evidence of a change in tectonic interactions.

Shameless advertisement: Mainland expedition site.

On behalf of my colleague, Prof. Krogstad (who appears to be blogless), I would like to announce* that he is divesting himself of a mainland expedition site, way up in the mountains of Livigno, one of the snow sims.

He cites a clear lack of Yeti, Sasquatch, and Abominable Creatures Other Than Mainlanders as reasons for abandoning the site in question. There was also something about using up all his grant funding buying questionable trinkets, but I didn't get that part of the conversation.

So if anyone is interested in a Yeti-free mountain parcel, please contact Adso Krogstad in-world.


--
* Disclaimer: I report that I have no conflict of interest in the sale of this property, nor am on the payroll of the Yeti, Sasquatch, and Abominable Snowman Council of SL.

Victorian LEGOpunk Adventurers Meet Cthulhu.

I introduce today's missive with five words that, I am sure, have never appeared together before. My very own hapax legomenon, if you will.

And with that subtle pun, I segue into a most fascinating picture in honour of the fiftieth birthday of LEGO bricks.



Using today's vernacular, I ask you: could that scene be any more full of win? I argue that it could not.

The original picture is from here.


Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to see if I can find a surplus LEGO set that contains a TARDIS, a dirigible, and skeletons.


Regards,


Kate Nicholas, FRS