"I Have Been, and Always Shall Be, Your Fan."

Today is a loss... if I don't do this (and I really don't want to, but I need to work toward closure), I won't get anything else done. It was announced earlier that Leonard Nimoy has passed away.

I really appreciated that Barack took a moment to respond to this sad news, and even more pleased by how perfectly he hit the notes I'd like to hit:

To which I responded (from this post nearly six years ago), "Obama's statement on Spock is, of course, logical."

Star Trek TOS (The Original Series) started airing in fall of 1966, at a point in time when our family did not have a television. But I saw it occasionally at friends' houses, and of course, heard about it at school. At Christmas of 1967, when I was in 3rd grade, our family did get a small, black and white TV. Star Trek became the show I tried to never miss. The show only rarely achieved "greatness," in terms of what older me would come to require of "great" science fiction, but for 8-year-old me, it was perfect.

And as a kid who was inclined toward science from my earliest memories, Spock was the character I gravitated toward. Level-headed and knowledgeable, he was what I aspired to be.

Flash forward to the seventies, syndication and high school. Reruns reran every weekday at 5 PM... and I rarely missed them. In fact, I audio-recorded the entire series. I basically had the series memorized. And Spock became even more the center of my attention. Dealing with the emotional BS of puberty, I saw in him a model I could emulate. I could experience these intense emotions, but not let them harm me or those around me. It wasn't exactly healthy, for a human person, but it was a strategy for coping with what felt like insanity. It was one that allowed me to empathize with others, but (hopefully) spared others the pain I experienced. From "City on the Edge of Forever:"

McCoy: "You deliberately stopped me, Jim! I could have saved her! Do you know what you just did?"


Spock: "He knows, Doctor...He knows."

In that scene, you can see that Spock is intensely aware of, and is pained himself, by the grief Kirk is experiencing from witnessing the death of the woman he loved, yet remains committed to the reality of what had to happen. That was what I aspired to.

Another episode (the above is generally argued to be the "best," and I tend to agree) that was my personal favorite, was "The Devil in the Dark." Miners are being killed by some kind of ferocious beast, so the Enterprise arrives to try to protect them. It turns out, the miners are unwittingly committing xenocide against a race of intelligent, peaceful, and logical rock-burrowing creatures called "hortas." Spock mind melds with the last surviving horta, and explains the situation to the crew and the miners- which leads to a fruitful partnership for all. I have no doubt this episode played a major role in creating a positive attitude toward geology for me. Did it "inspire" me to be a geologist? Almost certainly not. Did it make geology something I was more eager to investigate when I had the opportunity? Almost certainly. I can't draw the line in there, but it was a big influence.

And once again, Spock was what I aspired to.

So...

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There is so much more to say about Leonard Nimoy as a genuine, caring, concerned, and humane human being, and all I've really talked about is his role as Spock. But that's where I'm going to stop, because that's what I knew, and that's the loss I have to cope with. Attempting to go further into the depths of his basic decency would only make it hurt more. I'll leave it with,

Kirk: "We are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead. And yet it should be noted that in the midst of our sorrow, this death takes place in the shadow of new life, the sunrise of a new world; a world that our beloved comrade gave his life to protect and nourish. He did not feel this sacrifice a vain or empty one, and we will not debate his profound wisdom at these proceedings. Of my friend, I can only say this: of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... human"

Philae: "Hey Folks, I Got You a Comet"

At some point, I'll copy over some tweets and retweets from the past couple of hours, but for the time being, science people on Twitter are being like this. And I'm one of them. I'm not sure that anything else will be happening today. Thanks, ESA!

Geo 730: April 8, Day 463: I Am Disappoint

So what should we see, walking back from the tsunami dock to Agate Beach Wayside, where we parked, but Luxurious Condos right down to the beach? The irony is strong with this one. And what is particularly infuriating/terrifying/despair-making is that this development is pretty clearly one that was constructed in the last 20-25 years... that is, since AFTER the potential for a great Cascadia Earthquake and subsequent inundation by tsunami was well-established. One can't help but wonder, of the people who reside or visit here (I don't know whether the above are residential or recreational rentals), how many made the trek to visit the dock during its several-month sojourn at the north end of the beach? I'd bet most or nearly all of them- the dock was well-publicized, and received thousands of visitors per day. How many would one guess understand that these buildings risk exactly that same kind of swamping and demolition at any time? (Granted, the estimated risk for this northern portion of the subduction zone is 12% over the next 50 years.)

On a similar note, geologists had identified the high risks in the neighborhood of the Oso landslide by the late 90's, yet people continued to build and develop there. In the middle of the last decade, hearings were discussed regarding whether to buy out property owners to prevent exactly the kind of tragedy that occurred a couple weeks ago. The general attitude of the residents? No big gummint! Just a bunch of landgrabbers! Keep your filthy mitts off our proppity! As of today, there are 34 identified fatalities, and 12 still missing and unaccounted for. Metaphorically, the dust has still not settled. But already, people are speculating about whether "the government," which they so distrusted previously, can be held responsible via lawsuits (Spoiler: it doesn't look terribly likely).

How will the aftermath in coastal developments like this one look, when there are not just a few dozen dead, and many more lives utterly disrupted, but a hundred or more times those figures? Despite countless calls for better zoning, preparedness, and resiliency planning, I have no doubt that a major theme of news reports afterward will be "Why did no one tell us?"

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location.

Geo 730: April 7, Day 462: Beating a Retreat

A final shot of the tsunami dock, ripped loose from its mooring in Japan in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake, March 11, 2011. A small section of this dock is on permanent display at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, a few miles south, on the other side of Yaquina Bay. Given the number of people seen here, coming to take a gander of this visceral reminder of the earth's power and indifference to human life and safety, one might hope that people would take the lesson to heart. One would be disappointed...

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: April 6, Day 461: Attachment Scars III

This is almost the same shot as Friday's, but just a bit lower, and with the lens cap (52 mm) for scale. See yesterday's post for my (questionable) guesses as to what sorts of organisms left these traces.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: April 5, Day 460: Attachment Scars II

Another view of attachment scars on the tsunami dock. Again, I'm not enough of a bio person to have any real idea what I'm looking at. The circular spots look as if they might be some kind of barnacle; I was thinking perhaps cnidarians, sort of like sea anemones, but I don't know if any of those precipitate a calcareous base. Just in a bit from the upper left corner, and not really visible at this scale (right-click the photo, open in new tab for full-size), it looks as if there are the remains of an encrusting bryzoan of some kind. Spots where tube worms were cemented on are visible in several places. Finally, in the bottom middle and lower right corner, it looks like the greenish splotches were a variety of calcareous algae.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: April 4, Day 459: Attachment Scars I

A variety of organisms colonized the concrete exterior of the dock while it rested in its home harbor in Japan. Many, if not most, of them survived their ride across the Pacific Ocean, a duration of about 15 months. This was unexpected. When the dock grounded at Agate Beach, it was heavily coated with these creatures. They were removed with a combination of scraping and pressurized steam. As I mentioned Sunday, my suspicion is that if they were truly aggressive invasive species, this effort may have been too little, too late. On the other hand, killing and removing them as quickly as possible does decrease the likelihood that a reproducing, expanding population can be established. So I'm not criticizing the effort, just pointing out that it guarantees nothing. Plus, I should state clearly, I'm not really any kind of authority on biology, let alone the niceties of invasive species from Japan that might become established in PNW coastal waters.

The only ones of these scars that I think I recognize with any confidence are the tubeworms. There are several good examples, lower left corner, a bit farther in from the upper left corner, and a third in the upper center.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: April 3, Day 458: Wrecked Tangle

One of the many benefits of doing this series is that it requires me to spend some time each day looking over a few photos, which not only requires me to review what I know about the location, but also, inevitably, raises new questions. On occasion, following photos can give me an insight into answering some of those questions. Had you asked me yesterday or the day before what the purpose of the I-beams (three of which were torn out during the tsunami; above is the one remaining) on the ends of the dock, I would've guessed some kind of spacers. But the photo above suggests a slightly different purpose. It still has a roller attached to it. Imagining the others had a similar configuration, I picture four sturdy poles, one at each corner, anchored in the harbor floor. The pairs of rollers on each corner would allow the dock to move up and down with the tides, but constrain horizontal motion, exactly as commenter Skinny Dennis said on Tuesday. At least until the great wave hit.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: April 2, Day 457: I Of The Storm

Here's a close-up view of the twisted remains of the only remaining I-beam on the end of the tsunami dock. There's not much for scale in this photo, but yesterday's gives a pretty good sense. The way the steel is sheared, torn and warped is humbling. Looking at the base, you can also see that this one came very close to being torn out as well; the concrete is broken, revealing the rebar reinforcement underneath.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: April 1, Day 456: Monocular

Monocular as in missing an I. Of the four I beams originally mounted on this dock, I imagine as spacers, though I'm not really confident, only this one remained. As with the two at the other end, the missing one on the right was torn out despite being anchored in a web of rebar. I don't even have a guess as to the purpose of the rollers on the dock's upper surface. The "No Trespassing" stencils were an attempt to keep visitors from climbing up onto the structure, and were not terribly successful. There were at least two kids up there during a part of our visit, who must have had a boost from parents. My recollection is that the powers that be were concerned about the dangers of falling off.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: March 31, Day 455: Trans-Pacific Express

I'll grant the post title is more than a bit hyperbolic, but there's no doubt the arrival of this dock took everyone by surprise. The arrival of tsunami debris was anticipated (and still more is expected, even now), but the dock came much more quickly than anyone guessed it might. In retrospect, if one looks at the debris that has already arrived, it tends to be high-buoyancy, high-profile objects: blocks of Styrofoam, unswamped boats- that is, ones that are still upright, with a minimum of water in their interiors, this dock, and another almost identical one near Forks, Washington. All of these objects would sit high in the water, minimizing drag with respect to the ocean, but maximizing it with respect to the wind. In other words, I suspect the reason they arrived sooner than expected was that the objects themselves acted, in a sense, as sails, increasing the speed with which they were able to traverse the largest body of water on earth.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: March 30, Day 454: Scars

The height of this dock above the waterline was about 7 or 8 feet, for a sense of scale. Here we see where the I-bars were ripped away from the rebar in the dock's interior structure. In addition to the damage wrought by the tsunami, note the ubiquitous attachment scars where marine organisms colonized the surface. One of the first things done after the dock landed was to scrape, scour and burn off these organisms, some of which may pose an invasive threat to our waters. I'm skeptical of the efficacy of this move, but no harm in trying, I guess.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: March 29, Day 453: Torn

The power of the Tohoku tsunami is beyond my comprehension. As you can see from the scale, this dock was constructed to withstand practically any contingency- but not this terrible wave. The holes in the concrete on the west end originally anchored a pair of I-beams. At this time, there was one remaining on the east end. But the force of the tsunami didn't just twist and deform those sturdy pieces of steel, it tore them right out. I'm sorry to belabor this artifact, but the fact is, it has given me a wholly new respect for- and frankly, fear of- tsunamis. This is, in part, why I just don't feel as if the small section preserved at the Hatfield Marine Science Center does the situation justice. The enormity of the whole dock, and the way the wave just wadded it up and spit it out are not captured in a way that illustrates its awful power.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: March 28, Day 452: Stranded on the Strand

The tsunami dock, torn loose from its mooring in Misawa, Japan, during the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake on March 11th, 2011, a bit more than three years ago. While many, including myself, felt that this would be best preserved in place as a historical artifact, a monument to the stupendous losses of that event, the state determined that the best course, economically and in terms of safety, would be to cut it up and remove it. A section of the dock, the closest corner, from this point of view, has been preserved as a memorial at Hatfield Marine Science Center, a free public outreach museum on the south side of Yaquina Bay. So while this site is now unrecognizably different, and missing the dock, a small representation of this slice of time remains elsewhere.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate).

Geo 730: March 26, Day 450: Yaquina Head and Agate Beach

Agate Beach is at the northern end of Newport, Oregon, and south of Yaquina Head. The latter is the headland jutting out into the ocean above, which is composed of tough, resistant Columbia River Basalt. On this trip, we were here to visit the Japanese tsunami dock. As I mentioned last January, it was a much more emotionally distressful experience than I had expected.

Photo unmodified. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Oct. 22, Day 295: Inside the Dock

Since the Tohoku tsunami dock was cut in to sections to facilitate removal, the section now displayed as a memorial to the victims of that disaster is open in the back. Here Dana stands in its cavernous interior, providing a sense of scale. Incidentally, in addition to yesterday's photo, the exterior and a better overview of the entire exhibit can be seen in the May 7 post.

Photo unmodified. May 6, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 365: Oct. 21, Day 294: The Dock

The tsunami dock that floated across the Pacific Ocean following the March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake has not lost its power to stop me in my tracks. In being cut up and put into a more formal "shrine" sort of setting, I think it lost some of its raw power, but I can't see it without being reminded of the devastation and lives lost. That said, I do wish there had been time and resources available to find a way to anchor it in the location where it actually made landfall.

Photo one unmodified. May 6, 2013. FlashEarth location. Photo two unmodified. July 7, 2012. FlashEarth Location (approximate).

25 Minutes of Agonizing Helplessness

A recently found and released video of the 2011 Japanese tsunami has got to be seen to be believed. I generally don't watch clips longer than a few minutes, but what this one illustrates is just how unbelievably long the tsunami advances. I can think of no other way to show this than actually seeing that duration. And there are some cuts, so it's not clear if we're actually seeing the whole thing.

The first arrival is about 3 minutes in, and at first it doesn't look all that bad, though the boats being swept up and along are dramatic. Obviously, the onlookers are unimpressed at first, as well; they're remarkably nonchalant. Then it gets worse.

Then it gets much worse.

And by the end, it's catastrophic.

I white-knuckled my way through it, and any geo-inclined readers are advised to do the same. The educational value of this clip is incredible.

Good Words for a Bad Day

I've already posted this to Facebook and Twitter, but there's no harm in posting it yet again here. This resonates very, very strongly with me, and I hope as many people as possible read it and feel the same way.

Geo 365: Jan. 4, Day 4: 20,000

The dock ripped out of a Japanese harbor by the tsunami following the Tohoku earthquake. It crossed the Pacific Ocean in the following year, and grounded late last spring at Agate beach, at the north end of Newport, Oregon. Dana and I visited it in July. Yaquina Head dominates the background, and the road down to the quarry cove "tidepools" can be seen over the left end of the dock.

I was not prepared for my reaction to seeing this; I kept tearing up, and had a difficult time speaking without my voice cracking. My comment to another visitor was "20,000 people died to send us this message. We should pay attention to it."

Photo unprocessed. July 10, 2012. FlashEarth location (approximate; dock has been removed now. Some sections have been saved to display as memorials.)

Followup, 6:13 PM PST: There's another dock ashore near Forks, Washington. This one is not as accessible, and it's on a rocky shore rather than a sandy beach. The winter waves are not being kind to it. A photo gallery was just posted.