Photographer Hugh Symonds lately get in touch with a serial publication of images calledTerra Amamus , or “ scandal we care , ” in his translation , exploring mining operation in Cornwall .
“ The granite moors of Cornwall , ” Symonds explains , “ were formed around 300 million years ago . Geological and climatic evolution have created a gentle , livid , crude mineral called kaolinite . The name is call up to be derived from China , Kao - Ling ( High - Hill ) in Jingdezhen , where pottery has been made for more than 1700 yr . work of the Chinese modeling in the previous eighteenth century led to the find and establishment of a flourishing industry in Cornwall . ”
You could perhaps intend of the leave mines and quarries as a landscape falling somewhere between an act of industrial replication and 18th - century geological espionage .
As John Addington Symonds points out , kaolinite is actually “ omni - present throughout our everyday life ; in newspaper , cosmetics , pharmaceuticals , paints , kitchens , bathroom , light-colored electric light , food additives , railway car , roads and buildings . In an extraterrestrial , ‘ Icarian ’ wrench , it is even present in the tiles made for the Space Shuttle . ”
Indeed , the photograph that open this post shows us the so - calledTrevisco Hell . Its kaolinite is not only “ peculiarly pure , ” Symonds take note ; it is also “ the old excavation in the Cornish complex . ”
Even better , it is the “ target from which the clay used for the Space Shuttle tiles came from . ” This pit , then , is a negative distance - a pockmark , a dent - in the Earth ’s surface out of which emerged - at least in part - a system of object and trajectories hump asNASA .
Of naturally , the idea that we could decipher the geologic origins of an object as complex as the Space Shuttle brings to mind Mammoth ’s earliest shot at what could be called aprovisional geology of the iPhone . As Mammoth wrote , “ Until we see that the iPhone is as exhaustively entangled into a internet of landscapes as any more obviously geological substructure ( the main road , both enforce carefully limited slopes across every topography it run across and grind / beat / re - laying fiery material onto those slopes ) or industrial product ( the car , fuel by condensed and liquefied geology ) , we will consistently misunderstand it . ” These and other Cartesian product - even Space Shuttles - are terrene target . That is , they issue from infrastructurally networked points of geologic extraction .
In John McPhee ’s unluckily titled bookEncounters with the Archdruid , there is a memorable shot about precisely this approximation : a provisional geology out of which our industrial system of objects has uprise .
“ Most people do n’t think about pigments in paint , ” one of McPhee ’s interview subjects reckon . “ Most blank - key pigment now is titanium . Red is hematite . Black is often magnetite . There ’s chrome icteric , molybdenum orangeness . Metallic key are a little more permanent . The pigments come from rocks in the ground . Dave ’s electrical system is copper , probably from Bingham Canyon . He could n’t twist on a light or make glass without it . ” And then the real forensic geology begins :
The nail that hold the shoes together get from the Mesabi Range . His downspouts are covered with Zn that was probably taken out of the ground in Canada . The tungsten in his light bulbs may have been mined in Bishop , California . The chrome on his refrigerator doorway probably came from Rhodesia or Turkey . His television set almost sure as shooting contain Co from the Congo . He uses aluminium from Jamaica , perhaps Surinam ; silver from Mexico or Peru ; tin - it ’s still in tin cans - from Bolivia , Malaya , Nigeria . hoi polloi seldom stop to retrieve that all these things - aeroplane in the air , cars on the road , Sierra Club cups - once , somewhere , were rock . Our whole economy - our way of doing things . Oh , gad ! I have n’t even name minerals like manganese and sulphur . You wo n’t make brand without them . You ca n’t make paper without sulphur …
We have rearranged the planet to form television and tin cans , raise objects from polished geology .
What ’s fascinating here , however , is something I touched upon in my earlier reference work to geological espionage . In other Bible , we take for granted the estimate that we can know what minerals go into these everyday products - and , more specifically , that we can thus locate those mineral ’ earthly source and , earlier or later , enroll into commerce with them , producing our own return - products , our own rival gizmos and competitive replacements .
I was thus amaze to learn that , in fact , specifically in the case of silicon , this is not actually the case .
In geologistMichael Welland‘s excellent bookSand , often summon here , Welland explains that “ electronics - grade Si has to be at least 99.99999 percent pure - referred to in the trade as the ‘ seven nines’-and often it ’s more nines than that . In ecumenical , we are talking of one lone atom of something that is not atomic number 14 among one million million of silicon familiar . ”
Here , a detective story start - it ’s top confidential geology !
A small number of companies around the world dominate the [ microprocessor fleck ] technology and the [ silicon ] market , and while their literature and site go into considerable and helpful contingent on their products , the location and nature of the raw materials seem to be of “ strategical time value , ” and thus an industrial secret . I seek the assistance of the U.S. Geological Survey , which produces comprehensive one-year report on silica and silicon ( as well as all other industrial mineral ) , note that statistics pertaining to semiconductor - grade Si were often excluded or “ withheld to stave off disclosing caller proprietary data . ”
Welland thus embarks upon an admittedly short but notwithstanding fascinating investigation , hoping to de - mist the proprietary geography of these mineral transnationals and find where this ultra - pure silicon really comes from . To make a long account short , he speedily narrows the search down to quartzite ( which “ can be well over 99 percent pure silica ” ) mine specifically from a few river valley in the Appalachians .
As it materialise , though , we need n’t go much further than theBBCto read about a town promise Spruce Pine , “ a modest , charmingly low - fundamental town in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina , [ that ] is at the heart of a spherical billion - dollar industry … The jewelry shop , highlighting local emerald , sapphires and amethysts , hint at the riches . The mountains , however , contain something far more valued than gem : they are a source of high - purity vitreous silica . ” And Spruce Pine is but one of many locations from which globally strategic flows of electronics - degree silicon are first mined and purify .
In any case , the geological origin of even Space Shuttle tiles is always enchanting to think about ; but when you start add together thing like industrial espionage , proprietary corporate landscapes , unmarked quarries in remote mountain valleys , classified mineral reserves , supercomputers , a roving lensman in the right place at the correct time , an speculative geologist , and so on , you quickly escalate from a variety of Economist - Lite web log post to the skeletal frame of an international thriller that would be a dream to read ( and write - editors get in speck ! ) .
And , of class , if you wish the images get word here , check out the relief of Symond’sTerra Amamusseries .
[ Top range of a function : The “ Trevisco pitfall , ” Cornwall , from which the kaolinite used in space birdie tiles amount from ; photos byHugh John Addington Symonds ] .
This post originally seem onBLDGBLOG .
Geology
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