Stal Update: More arts and crafts

 *sigh*.  Its been slow progress over the past month on the PhD front.  What with the MAT 251 breaking down, the results from dating taking forever (we outsource to another uni who do it near constantly), the PhD is crawling slowly slowly along.  The next step in the journey of the stalagmite from cave to paper is that it needs to be marked up and a decision taken as to where exactly we need to drill into the stal to get our results from.

 

 The stal known as "crusty" is marked up ready for drilling.

We want to get our results from as close to the middle of the stal as possible. Thats why we cut slabs out of them to get to the middle, with the slab direction chosen so that the central growth axis  of the stal where we want to measure can move (as they tend to do with changing drips) whilst still allowing us to access it.  First we chose the side of the slab which we believe is closest to the centre of the stal for the longest duration and that has nice banding.  Then we draw a line up the centre of the stal, keeping it roughly midway through the flat parallel layers that define the centre of the stal rather than the sloping edges.  And ideally we draw perpendicular to the growth layers to get better sample resolution and less overlap between samples.

Because the growth axis moves around over time (you wouldn't expect a drip from the ceiling of the cave to stay exactly in the same place for tens of thousands of years) this involves stopping the lines, changing angles and shifting left and right as appropriate, but ideally as little as possible to avoid any unwanted changes in isotopes that can sometimes result.  Plus we need to shift the lines near the edge of each slab so that we have overlap between the slabs and can therefore overlap our results and make sure they line up perfectly, rather than guessing! It takes a little while longer than just drawing lines would first suggest.

Next time: drilling our samples! (which will hopefully happen sometime in May if we get the new drilling machine up and running).

A close up of one of the lower slabs of crusty

MAT 251

So this is the latest machine I'm working on: The MAT 251

Isn't it great! Its an old mass spec and has all sorts of toggles and switches and push buttons to make it work.  Its brilliantly retro and when it works, it works like a treat. It is a carbonate mass spectrometer.  Carbonate samples (like stalagmite powders) 200mg in weight are put in vials.  Phosphoric acid is added and the resultant carbon dioxide gas is sent through the mass spectrometer and the proportions of each masses are recorded to give nice and shiny oxygen and carbon isotope ratios.  Or random numbers, depending on its mood.

Not that it works that often. Its been broken on and off for a long time. Its starting to run out of legs. In the last month or so its hardly run at all after a series of faults. We have a new machine waiting in the wings, the shiny, the new, the imaginatively named MAT 253, but we've yet to get it up and running (for reasons which thoroughly perplex and frequently annoy me!).  So we're stuck with this aging beauty and her temper for a little while longer.

The MAT 251 and the new 253 will run the vast majority of the analyses I will run over the course of my PhD.  Its the bread and butter of my PhD if you will.

Its not that the Australians don't have history

Its just that they're a bit rubbish at it, and don't really know what to do with it when they have it.

The Australians have this sense of guilt regarding history.  This can be manifested in a guilt as to the lack of it.  Canberra is full of sculptures, public art, an obvious attempt to make up for a lack of history in this young purpose-built town. If you can't have interesting buildings, then at least have interesting spaces.  This is fine and a good thing.  It can be quite fun finding random sculptures dotted around Canberra.  The set of spirit levels running down a hill near the lake is one of my favourites. But Australia does have history.

More often, the guilt is at what happened in the past.  Perhaps more so than other countries, the Australians feel rather guilty about their past.  The past is brutal, there are no all good nations.  Yet young countries like to believe they are, that their country is good. I don't think any Brits are under the impression that our country has been the good guys at all times, though we might believe we had overall good intentions. We know as being part of a 1,000 year old continuous country, that there are probably felons in our heritage, a few dubious characters.  Do we believe that we are partly criminals or have criminal tendancies because of this.  Not really.  Do any of the numerous Lynch's of the world, one of Ireland's more famous family names, believe they have communist revolutionary tendancies because Che Guevara was a Lynch, or at least partly one.

Yet the convict past of Australia still has a certain amount of taboo about it. The Australians feel sensitive about the idea that there is convict dna within them. Maybe this feeling is fading, something that can be joked about more as the number of generations slowly increases. Its still a touchy subject though. When you look back at the numbers of convicts that came to Australia, and the crimes that most of them committed, why is this country sensitive about the idea that maybe one of their great-grandparents came to Australia because they stole a few handkerchiefts (look at the convictions of some of those sent to the Australian prison colonies, some of them aren't for much).  Its not like most of the convicts were murderers or rapists.

This beautiful place is Port Arthur, the prison colony's prison colony's prison colony. A place with a supposedly brutal history. If only they'd tell you about it. Its alluded to, hinted at, but never mentioned, never discussed. This place is where the really bad convicts came, and those who continued to reoffend in Australia.

The biggest idea about who the convicts were came in the form of the political prisoners, some Irish separatists, English chartists and some French-Canadian separatists. (You'll be interested to learn that then as now, being a former convict didn't stop anyone from being in olitical office in later life). Not the juicy stuff.

Perhaps the most brutal part of Port Arthur's history came in 1996. The world's largest gun massacre occurred at this no tranquil site, 35 people were killed, including two children, and 21 injured.  I understand completely how they don't want to bring this up.  Its still fresh, raw and upsetting, the staff still remember it and knew some of those who died.

But I don't quite yet understand why the older stuff is quite so raw. Perhaps it is just a couple of generations too soon.  I guess time will tell.

The Asylum, where everything was bright and breezy according to the museum inside.

Visiting the Olympic stadium and site also highlighted this issue of what Australians do with their history. Whilst still known as the Olympic Park there is hardly any trace left that this place once hosted the Olympics. No Olympic rings, no Olympic flag, no museum, no gift shop. Yet around the entire site, things were happening, all the lesser stadia had people and sports taking place in them. There was a charity cycling event on.  One of the event halls had one of those motivational speaker shows on (the kind where you can improve your life with the power of thought and some colouring pencils) and allegedly a Doctor Who convention (or at least a fan looking for one). The place actually had more bustle about it than some Olympic sites.  In this way the legacy of the olympics is being realised.  There are no (or at least very few) white elephants. But why so few mentions of the Olympics? Lets have a museum please!

The ANZ stadium, not many mentions that this stadium was the centrepiece of what was regarded as the best olympics ever. Lots of stuff about the various footie teams that populate the stadium.

 These poles out the front do at least pay some kind of homage to the Olympics. This being the most interesting one, the Olympic Torch, which is kind of awesome.

 I assume this has something to do with the Olympic Flame, there being a couple of non-descript inscriptions below it.

 And a lake full of algae, with a circular walkway, and a very strong smell of dill.  Is this the Olympic legacy? An integral part of Australian history? The Australians have a lot of history, they just don't quite know what to do with it when they have it.  Instead sweeping it under the carpet and getting on with the here and now.

Summer days, winter nights, Autumn in Canberra

Its Autumn in Canberra, the city's second best season (after Spring apparently).  Leaves on the trees are turning all sorts of attractive shades of yellows, oranges and reds. But its a confusing season in Canberra at the moment.  Daytime temperatures are still pushing over the 20 degree mark every day, its t-shirt weather between eleven and three.  But the nights have turned cold, lows were around ten or so which was mild enough, but in the last week they've dropped to six or so, which is cold enough to be considered actually cold.  As opposed to the cold Australians moan about below about 15. I'm beginning to consider gloves in the mornings now and what with the lack of insulation in pretty much all of Canberra's homes (and no-one has central heating) it might be time to invest in a heater.

Paddy Melon

One of australia's non-native herbs. Useful for impromptu cricket games and throwing at things, but not eating as its very very bitter, and toxic too.

Not to be confused with the Pademelon, a group of seven small marsupials known as rat kangaroos.

photo from wikipedia

Never judge a burger by its cover

This is Brodburger, home to the best burgers in Canberra.  This fact is not disputed by any local, they are the best.

Located in a caravan on the lake on the south-side this place has a steady throng of customers every lunchtime, seven days a week. Politicians and public servants during the week, families and students at the weekend.  On a sunny saturday lunchtime its very popular. Its achieved cult status in Canberra.  Occasionally unknowing authorities try to shut it down, the popular uproar is so great it never gets far.

They only have a certain amount of stock per day, and they close once its sold, we were lucky as we were the last in the queue before they decided to stop selling.  As they make the burgers to order, and with such a long backlog of customers building up it took an entire hour to get round to our order. But if you bring along a picnic blanket and the weekend paper, its a very enjoyable wait on the grass by the lake. A perfect way to hang out with friends (in this case my housemates) at the weekend.

And the wait was worth it. The burger was brilliant. Big and filling but not oversized and stuffing.  Meaty, perfectly done and slightly pink on the inside. Crisp not soggy lettuce and tomato.  Good amounts of relish and sauce, enough to add flavour, not too much to make the burger soggy or overpower the real flavours. Good quality bread, not too doughy. You get a choice of cheese with it, brie, swiss or blue (in the form of a sauce in the case of the blue). I'm not usually a blue cheese fan, but it was just the right amount of blue cheese, enough to compliment the meat and make it cheesy, not too much to overpower.  Can you tell I loved this burger!