I went there on a trip this summer and took some photos. (I also include some older photos that I took at the same spot in 2008.)

Fig above. The Cambrian quartzite cliffs of Vik where once a part of a beach near located near the South pole. Today its as you probably know much closer to the northern pole. This tectonic journey always make me in awe of nature and the time scale of everything.

Fig above. Cross section of the cambrian quartzite. The stratigraphic sequences of the old beach are still quite clear.

Fig above. Trace fossil Diplocraterion parallellum. In local talk they are refered to as “crows kicks” (swe. “kråksparkar”) – having to do with their appearance in some way. They cover all the cliffs in the area. There are also other types of trace fossils to be found here.

Figs above. The priest’s bathtub (Swe “Prästens badkar”) is thought to be the remains of a cambrian sand volcano. There are several hundred similar known formations in the cambrian deposits around Skåne. But this one is by far the largest and most well known. As far as I know its actually unique in the world. The origin of the name “priest’s bathtub” is unknown to me, but I guess its self explanatory.

I hope that when I start on my masters thesis in a couple of weeks, then perhaps some new inspiration to blog about geology will start. So stay tuned (that is: keep me in your reader). In the mean time those of you who can speak Swedish can follow my Swedish blog on pseudoscience if they want. All you other wonderful people just have to wait. Hopefully not forever.

And there is also the really nutty people out there who sees this in a conspiratory manner. Ive already seen a lot of claims on NASA trying to raise their funds. And the real nutty cases about this being part of NASAs big announcement. Where they slowly will introduce humanity to the hidden fact of aliens among us… *sigh*

But on a less nutty perspective its still sad. It has developed in to a fight on semantics today. Pharyngula tries to make this in to a unimportant discovery where its not at all a bacteria made of arsenic.

“It’s an extremophile bacterium that can be coaxed into substiting arsenic for phosphorus in some of its basic biochemistry. It’s perfectly reasonable and interesting work in its own right, but it’s not radical, it’s not particularly surprising, and it’s especially not extraterrestrial. It’s the kind of thing that will get a sentence or three in biochemistry textbooks in the future.”

There is NO bacteria or lifeform on this planet that can incoporate arsenic in to its structure (not what I know of at least). Pharyngulua should read up on the matter if he doesn’t understand why this is important then. There is a lot of bacteria that can control and/or respire with and in an arsenic rich environment. Something COMPLETLY different. And there is a lot of microbes than can control and use several types of elements. But they don’t change their DNA.

And his headline… “its not an arsenic-based life form“.

Eh, yes it actually is. It doesn’t become less of that just because it prefers the “normal” conditions with phosphorus. The second a bacterial generation adapts and change its building blocks to include arsenic – it’s def. made of arsenic. Not completely of course. And no, its not a question of poisonous bacteria. I was told that the public could interpret it so, but the publics ignorance can hardly be an argument against this.

This IS big news. Way beyond any normal extremophile/biomineralization process and discovery. It shows us that life can exist and adapt to extremely more “alien” conditions than we previously thought. No its not a discovery of actual life on a different planet, but it is the confirmation of endless new possibilities in the search for life. Now we can start for real to look beyond the ridiculus “habitable zone”. And also learn new thing on the evolution of life on earth. This opens new doors for science.

The only real problem with this discovery (that I have seen) is that there seem to be no actual study of the DNA of the bacteria. That the results more are based on the absence and presence of arsenic and phosphorus in weight%.

Well. Its good to be skeptical. But you can actually go too far on that. And you will join ranks with the conspiracy nutcases whether you like it or not.

Update: It seems to be confirmed that it is DNA and nothing else. http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/12/bacteria-can-integrate-arsenic-into-its-dna-and-proteins.ars

(BTW, sorry for the lack of posts lately. Im not sure when it will pick up again. Got so much on my mind right now and not that much inspiration when it comes to writing posts. But fear not, the blog isnt dead)

Its evening here, the 20th of October. Where I live, in the south of Sweden we often have winters without any snow at all. And NEVER this early. This early in the fall must be close to a historical record.

The climate is usually to warm for snow here many winters for any snow at all. And if we do get snow it usually falls in december at the most earliest, most most often first in January. It rarely stays for long on the ground.

This spring I also experience snow in May.We usually have like 20C then. But not this freakish year. No. We also had temperature records. Both low in winter time and high temps in July (34.5 in Lund where I live – hottest day for 300 years of historical measurements)

The climate is seriously fucked up.

I am also quite aware of the fact that one scientific magazines dubious behaviour is not the same as the behavoiur of an entire academic discipline – so dont give too much remark to that connection – it was simply the inspiration for this post. I know for a fact that there are a lot of astrobiologist out there who are just as good scientists as anyone else. But still, it doesnt surprise me that the connection between astrobiology and a poor peer-review is on the table.

Anyway – I have noticed that it seems like astrobiologist in general try to form their own discipline, despite being a multidisciplinary field of geology, biology and astronomy from the beginning.

I have no problem with the notion of a new perspective on lets say the geology of Mars. They could very well find new things in the geology pointing to life that traditional geologists would have missed. But at the same time, there is a huge potential problem in this.

Astrobiologist very often interpet geological material on other planets as far as I have seen when looking at their papers – despite often not being schooled in geology beyond basic levels. Most astrobiologists are astronomers or astrophysicists as I have understood it all. Sure, they can bring fresh new ideas from their backgrounds, but they will miss out on a lot of geological facts.

I have a friend, and perhaps he reads this post now and no longer considers me a friend , but from the beginning I have been very sceptical of the thesis he wrote (not seeing it in full! I could be totaly wrong now) – for the simple reason that it discuss satelite photos of Mars surface, and features on the surface, without consulting proper geologists. I mean, we are talking about sand dunes and the black spots that sometimes are visible on these on Mars.

Fig. Black spots on dunes on Mars. DDS also called. Many theories exist on their origin. But as I see it, nomatter what theory you prefer, you must consult a sedimentologist or at least their knowledge when discussin sedimentology, right?

So the very first person I would have asked for an opinion on what this could have been is a geologist, a sedimentologist preferably since they are the experts on dunes and sediments. But no, they skipped that part for reasons I didnt understand. His call of course, but I dont like it in a strict scientific approach. They made a separate theory instead, based on Co2-movement in the sand I believe. Certainly plausible and possible – but without the insights from the real experts on sand dunes, on Mars or Earth, I wouldnt have approved it – no matter how good it was.

What do you guys think. Is it ok to approve and/or accept papers/thesis on topics without consulting experts of that field? Is that really good science to just ignore the existing fields on the matter? Too me it sounds that at best, the only thing you will produce is a contextual proof/theory of something, not a real proof/theory.

I asked him if he had talked with any sedimentologists on the dunes of Mars, but it seemed like he didnt at that time. I think its because he perhaps didnt know that he had stepped in to the world of geology when discussing dunes. For me that is obvious, but for many ppl its is so that geologists deal with rocks, and nothing but rocks with the pick-axe and such… Sand and how that behave is something else.

And no, this is not the only reason that I have difficulties accepting astrobiology – I have also learned that they actually also discuss the formation and construction of planets – without geologists. They say: “We look at the dynamics when a planet is formed and how it wors from a strict physics point of view” (since they are astrophysicists in general). They actually dont understand that geologists work with large scale functions of planets as well and that not understanding petrology will make any theory on the large scale of planet dynamics as useless as not understanding thermodynamics.You cannot explain how a planet works with magnetic fields and not understanding how and why we have hot spots, subduction zones and so on. Planets are geology.

It might seem like I place geologists on a ivory throne now, that only we must be asked on matters of sediments and stone and noone else, but Im not, I AM open to alternative points of view. I would like to see much more multidisciplinary science. But with one condition: That they always make sure that the leading experts of every sub field is consulted.

I could do other comparisons as well. Such as when archaeologists and historians dont consult each others theories on the same topic – that is just sad. But this is perhaps even more sad in my opinion since astrobiologists seem to not even know or care that they often work with geological questions where there are geological material and experts available.

The more I learn about astrobiology… the less I wish I knew about it… I hope that this changes for the better.

Fig. Map mainly showing paleoseismic events. Locality and chronology (yBP). From Mörner 2007.

I hope that David at History of Geology can take some critisism, because he is going to get it now from this former Swedish archaeology student at MA-level (even if he doesnt like it).

I really like his post on viking mythology and ancient seismic events connecting The Fenrir (Fenris) Wolf to earthquakes. I would really like it to be as cool as he (or rather Dr Mörner, the man behind the theory) theorizes. But Im almost completly sure that its impossible because of several facts.

Firstly. The “vikings” didnt exist as a culture or people at the time of any of the seismic events on the map. Absolutly not before 400 AD. They are a product of native iron age culture mixing with south germanic influences during what is called the “Vendel period” in Sweden (550-700 AD) but mainly of course with the Roman Iron age migrational period (400-550 AD) before that. The norse religion is mostly imported and somewhat transformed polyteistic germanic faith (and does not have its origin in the Svitjod/Svearike/Mälardalen area).

People in Scandinavia before the import most likely believed in some form of fertility and solar-religion – but no written sources exist describing it – only artefacts. It was anyway very different from the viking Asa-faith (norse religion), wich was much more focused on command and war just as all Germanic Wotan/Odin-worshiping religions were. Creatures like Fenris is seen all through all germanic religions. They are the thing in the night that scared people – the beowulf monster if you will, that someone must slay. We are talking about people living in dark forests of Northern Europe during the Iron Age – come on – theres no need to create fantastic and complicated theories on the origin of their beasts. Occham ftw! The connection theory is completly unnecessary and therefore unlikely by default.

Secondly - Connection with dated events. Without a seismic event at the time of the Viking age (or closely before it) you will have a problem with even assuming its a plausible idea even. As I said, there are no reasonable connection at all to earlier cultures and their possible experienced events – so thats hardly an argument. And even if Mörner can present paleoseismic events during the viking age – the principle of Occham still wins in my book. Its completly unnecessary to connect Fenris to earthquakes – and therefore complety unlikely.

So thirdly. Who is this Dr Mörner btw? Is the person behind the theory important when discussing it? In this case: Oh yes! He is anything but a respected scientist in Sweden. He is for example (and this is just one of many examples of why he cannot be trusted) working with the (in Sweden) famous troublemaker and pseudoscientist Bob G Lind (a militant nutcase that spawns crazy ideas on most archaeological sites in Sweden). So when Mörner comes up with a theory – all Swedish archaeologists and geologists knows that constant scepticism is required.

Something David of course could not be expected to know about (neither Mörners CV or the true history of Vikings). But I hope that he does now!

Any kind of suggestions on this is appreciated.