The Allure of Vanished Worlds

IF 1.8 4区 地球科学 Q3 GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Andrew Kerr
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So let my first statement this year be one of sincere thanks to Cindy and to all who assist us every year in smaller ways to produce the journal. In previous editorials, I have outlined some of the challenges that we face, and especially the need for the submission of good papers on diverse topics. This is the only viable route towards raising our profile and impact in a world dominated by corporate publishing. I have discussed the open-access concept, and its possible benefits to journals like us, even with the additional fiscal challenges that it implies. In 2020, I even ventured into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the lives and work of Earth Scientists, mostly in an effort to find silver linings in a large bank of clouds. I doubt that many readers really want to hear more on that subject after two more years, as it is all too familiar. All of these topics are important to Geoscience Canada, and some are clearly vital, and many will come back in future years. Hopefully, Covid will not be in that latter group. So, the search for topics suited to a 2022 editorial seemed fruitless for quite some time. In the end, I decided to avoid all the obvious but well-worn subjects and will spend a few pages to instead contemplate the past. Not the recent past, or even some historical past, but the distant and mysterious geological past that lies at the very heart of our chosen calling. Those who read to the end of this might well feel that this is no more than an escapist flight into imagination, and perhaps just a diversion from the many serious issues confronting our world in the spring of 2022. There may be indeed some truth in this perspective. The two technical papers featured in this first issue for 2022 have much in common, although this is certainly not by our design. Both articles focus on the use of detrital zircon U– Pb geochronology to solve geological problems, but they also share a deeper theme. Superficially, they include statistics, probability density charts and tables of data, but they are in the end delving into something more fundamental. Both papers seek to recreate vanished worlds places that existed tens to hundreds of millions of years ago on an Earth that was simultaneously familiar and alien. Earth Scientists are uniquely privileged to be aware of a multitude of vanished worlds, to the extent that we may take them for granted. It is just part of geoscience thinking in the broad sense, and we do not often pause to contemplate the enormity of such concepts. But I believe it serves us well to indulge our fascination for this far greater picture. Like many of us, I started out intending to study something else in my teens, but then ended up in some first-year geology classes. I was lucky enough to encounter young and passionate instructors, and the heady combination of the new global tectonics and visions of long-vanished worlds that they gave me led to a different academic path. It was like being exposed to the speculative breadth of science fiction buried within the scope of a vast historical adventure, and fifty years later, I still feel exactly that way. Earth Science truly gives us multiple worlds to explore, although at times we wish for even more. The paper by James Sears and Luke Beranek is built from measurements on thousands of nearly invisible zircon grains, but it transports us well beyond such details. It returns us to a pre-glacial North America that had a very different geography and climate, and a great river that rivalled our modern Amazon. Robert Bell of the Geological Survey of Canada speculated in 1895 that most of North America once drained into Arctic waters, before huge ice sheets remodelled our geography. The story of the “Bell River”, as it later came to be called, is now stored in the sands and silts of a vast delta beneath the frigid Labrador Sea, and by scattered residual outcrops on the Great Plains. This concept is astonishing enough, but it seems that this vanished northern Amazon once had headwaters in the desert southwest of our continent, although it was likely not arid in those times. James and Luke suggest that the development of the Colorado Plateau, including the early Grand Canyon, might be part of the Bell River’s long story. 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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Over the years, it has become a tradition that the first issue of Geoscience Canada contains some sort of editorial piece. When the deadline looms in March, I regret that this precedent was ever established. What can I possibly write that has relevance and interest to readers? We are still here, obviously, and we plan to continue as best we can and serve our Geoscience Community in Canada. Surviving as a small scientific journal in a large pond has more than its fair share of challenges, but our long-term goal is to grow and prosper, not just to persist. Our ongoing efforts would not be possible without the support of volunteers and GAC members, and of course the invaluable work of managing editor Cindy Murphy. So let my first statement this year be one of sincere thanks to Cindy and to all who assist us every year in smaller ways to produce the journal. In previous editorials, I have outlined some of the challenges that we face, and especially the need for the submission of good papers on diverse topics. This is the only viable route towards raising our profile and impact in a world dominated by corporate publishing. I have discussed the open-access concept, and its possible benefits to journals like us, even with the additional fiscal challenges that it implies. In 2020, I even ventured into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the lives and work of Earth Scientists, mostly in an effort to find silver linings in a large bank of clouds. I doubt that many readers really want to hear more on that subject after two more years, as it is all too familiar. All of these topics are important to Geoscience Canada, and some are clearly vital, and many will come back in future years. Hopefully, Covid will not be in that latter group. So, the search for topics suited to a 2022 editorial seemed fruitless for quite some time. In the end, I decided to avoid all the obvious but well-worn subjects and will spend a few pages to instead contemplate the past. Not the recent past, or even some historical past, but the distant and mysterious geological past that lies at the very heart of our chosen calling. Those who read to the end of this might well feel that this is no more than an escapist flight into imagination, and perhaps just a diversion from the many serious issues confronting our world in the spring of 2022. There may be indeed some truth in this perspective. The two technical papers featured in this first issue for 2022 have much in common, although this is certainly not by our design. Both articles focus on the use of detrital zircon U– Pb geochronology to solve geological problems, but they also share a deeper theme. Superficially, they include statistics, probability density charts and tables of data, but they are in the end delving into something more fundamental. Both papers seek to recreate vanished worlds places that existed tens to hundreds of millions of years ago on an Earth that was simultaneously familiar and alien. Earth Scientists are uniquely privileged to be aware of a multitude of vanished worlds, to the extent that we may take them for granted. It is just part of geoscience thinking in the broad sense, and we do not often pause to contemplate the enormity of such concepts. But I believe it serves us well to indulge our fascination for this far greater picture. Like many of us, I started out intending to study something else in my teens, but then ended up in some first-year geology classes. I was lucky enough to encounter young and passionate instructors, and the heady combination of the new global tectonics and visions of long-vanished worlds that they gave me led to a different academic path. It was like being exposed to the speculative breadth of science fiction buried within the scope of a vast historical adventure, and fifty years later, I still feel exactly that way. Earth Science truly gives us multiple worlds to explore, although at times we wish for even more. The paper by James Sears and Luke Beranek is built from measurements on thousands of nearly invisible zircon grains, but it transports us well beyond such details. It returns us to a pre-glacial North America that had a very different geography and climate, and a great river that rivalled our modern Amazon. Robert Bell of the Geological Survey of Canada speculated in 1895 that most of North America once drained into Arctic waters, before huge ice sheets remodelled our geography. The story of the “Bell River”, as it later came to be called, is now stored in the sands and silts of a vast delta beneath the frigid Labrador Sea, and by scattered residual outcrops on the Great Plains. This concept is astonishing enough, but it seems that this vanished northern Amazon once had headwaters in the desert southwest of our continent, although it was likely not arid in those times. James and Luke suggest that the development of the Colorado Plateau, including the early Grand Canyon, might be part of the Bell River’s long story. After 50 years, I still marvel at how Earth processes link such distant Volume 49 2022 1
消失世界的诱惑
多年来,《加拿大地球科学》第一期包含某种社论已经成为一种传统。当最后期限在3月份临近时,我对这一先例的确立感到遗憾。我能写些对读者有意义和兴趣的东西吗?显然,我们仍然在这里,我们计划继续尽我们所能,为我们在加拿大的地球科学社区服务。作为一份在大池塘里生存的小型科学期刊,面临着相当多的挑战,但我们的长期目标是成长和繁荣,而不仅仅是坚持。如果没有志愿者和GAC成员的支持,当然还有总编辑Cindy Murphy的宝贵工作,我们的持续努力是不可能的。因此,让我今年的第一句话真诚地感谢Cindy和所有每年以较小的方式帮助我们制作这本杂志的人。在之前的社论中,我概述了我们面临的一些挑战,特别是提交关于不同主题的优秀论文的必要性。在一个由企业出版主导的世界里,这是提高我们的知名度和影响力的唯一可行途径。我已经讨论了开放获取的概念,以及它对像我们这样的期刊可能带来的好处,即使它意味着额外的财政挑战。2020年,我甚至冒险探讨了新冠肺炎大流行对地球科学家生活和工作的影响,主要是为了在一大群云层中寻找一线希望。我怀疑许多读者在两年后是否真的想听到更多关于这个主题的消息,因为这太熟悉了。所有这些主题对加拿大地球科学都很重要,其中一些显然至关重要,许多将在未来几年再次出现。希望新冠肺炎不会出现在后一组。因此,在相当长的一段时间内,寻找适合2022年社论的主题似乎毫无结果。最后,我决定避开所有显而易见但老生常谈的话题,花几页时间思考过去。不是最近的过去,甚至是一些历史的过去,而是遥远而神秘的地质过去,这正是我们所选择的使命的核心。那些读到最后的人可能会觉得,这只不过是一次逃避现实的想象,也许只是对2022年春天我们世界面临的许多严重问题的转移。从这个角度来看,可能确实有一些道理。2022年第一期中的两篇技术论文有很多共同点,尽管这肯定不是我们的设计。这两篇文章都集中在利用碎屑锆石U–Pb地质年代学来解决地质问题,但它们也有更深层次的主题。从表面上看,它们包括统计数据、概率密度图和数据表,但它们最终还是在深入研究一些更基本的东西。这两篇论文都试图在一个既熟悉又陌生的地球上重现数千万至数亿年前存在的消失的世界。地球科学家有着独特的特权,能够意识到许多消失的世界,以至于我们可能认为它们是理所当然的。这只是广义地球科学思维的一部分,我们不会经常停下来思考这些概念的巨大性。但我相信,放纵我们对这幅更大图景的迷恋是有益的。和我们许多人一样,我在十几岁的时候就开始打算学习其他东西,但后来上了一些一年级的地质学课。我很幸运遇到了年轻而热情的导师,他们给我的新的全球构造和对早已消失的世界的愿景的令人兴奋的结合,让我走上了一条不同的学术道路。这就像是暴露在一场巨大的历史冒险中,科幻小说的思辨广度,五十年后,我仍然有这种感觉。地球科学确实为我们提供了多个可以探索的世界,尽管有时我们希望更多。詹姆斯·西尔斯(James Sears)和卢克·贝拉内克(Luke Beranek)的这篇论文是根据数千个几乎看不见的锆石颗粒的测量结果构建的,但它让我们远远超出了这些细节。它让我们回到了冰川前的北美,那里有着截然不同的地理和气候,还有一条可以与现代亚马逊相媲美的大河。加拿大地质调查局的罗伯特·贝尔在1895年推测,在巨大的冰盖重塑我们的地理之前,北美大部分地区曾经流入北极水域。后来被称为“贝尔河”的故事,现在被储存在寒冷的拉布拉多海下一个巨大三角洲的沙子和淤泥中,以及大平原上零星的残留露头中。这个概念已经足够令人惊讶了,但这个消失的亚马逊北部似乎曾经在我们大陆西南部的沙漠中有水源,尽管当时可能并不干旱。詹姆斯和卢克认为,科罗拉多高原的发展,包括早期的大峡谷,可能是贝尔河漫长故事的一部分。
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来源期刊
Geoscience Canada
Geoscience Canada 地学-地球科学综合
CiteScore
3.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
9
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: Established in 1974, Geoscience Canada is the main technical publication of the Geological Association of Canada (GAC). We are a quarterly journal that emphasizes diversity of material, and also the presentation of informative technical articles that can be understood not only by specialist research workers, but by non-specialists in other branches of the Earth Sciences. We aim to be a journal that you want to read, and which will leave you better informed, rather than more confused.
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