H.P.Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space

“The Colour Out of Space” was one of H.P.Lovecraft's favorite short stories, written in March of 1927 and published in September of the same year in the American science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. In his later years Lovecraft, famous for his horror stories involving demons and monsters, tended to write things based more on real science and the Colour Out of Space is a good example for his mix of science-fiction and horror.

In Lovecraft's story, a meteorite falls to Earth, landing near the farm owned by Nahum Gardner. The news about the unusual event quickly spread and so the next day three professors from Miskatonic University arrive at the farm to examine the meteorite. Already now something seems to be odd, as Nahum remarks that the stone from outer space seems to "had shrunk," pointing to "the big brownish mound above the ripped earth and charred grass near the archaic well-sweep in his front yard." However, the professors dismiss at first this observation remarking that “…stones do not shrink.” The professors collect a sample, still emanating heat. The professors take the sample back to Miskatonic University to run a series of physical and chemical tests with very baffling results. The sample reacts with no known chemicals and “…at the end of the tests the college scientists were forced to own that they could not place it. It was nothing of this earth, but a piece of the great outside; and as such dowered with outside properties and obedient to outside laws.” The scientists return to the Gardner Farm and visit the impact site once again, only to discover that the meteorite is quickly vanishing. As one of the scientists takes a last sample, a strange nodule embedded in the rock is discovered. Hit by a geological hammer the nodule bursts with a “nervous little pop” but apparently nothing is released.

It is soon discovered that something, resembling a colour, coming from the meteorite contaminated the groundwater on the farm of Nahum.

Lovecraft was very interested in his contemporary science and extensively read on geology and especially astronomy. Likely stories about "Thunderstones", which supposedly fell from the sky during lightning storms, in Charles Fort's "The Book of the Damned" (1919) gave Lovecraft the first idea for his story. In the March 11, 1927 issue of the magazine "Science" an article covers the Pons-Winnecke Comet, which at the time was going to pass very close to Earth. Maybe this news inspired Lovecraft's final draft, as the Thunderstone is identified and described in great detail as a meteorite coming from outer space. Lovecraft described the unusual physical properties, focusing on its strange property to shrink over time, to emanate a constant heat and glow in strange colors. Lovecraft was aware of radioactive decay and likely used radioactive substances like Actinium or Thorium as a source of inspiration, as we are also told that the matrix of the meteorite is soft and malleable, like a metal. Actinium is a soft, silvery-white, radioactive metal, isolated for the first time in the year 1899 by French chemist André-Louis Debierne. 
Real meteorites display a mineral composition different to most rocks found on Earth. The most common type are stony meteorites, consisting of silicate minerals like olivine, pyroxene and traces of iron-nickel alloys. Just one percent of meteorites are pure silicate rocks. The smell of some fragments resembles asphalt or solvents, evidence for 4.6 billion years old carbon-compounds preserved inside the rock. Four to five percent of all space debris is represented by iron meteorites, consisting of an almost pure iron-nickel alloy with eventually embedded silicate crystals. From Lovecraft's description, the fictional meteorite resembles an iron meteorite, even if its physical properties match no known elements.

Meteorite collected in 1749 in Krasnojarsk (Russia), an extraterrestrial rock with olivine crystals embedded in a nickel-iron alloy matrix.

That night a thunderstorm is approaching the city of Arkham and the meteorite, still in its crater, is hit by a series of thunderbolts and the rock completely vanishes. Soon thereafter things start to get weird. Insects and plants display unusual colors and horrible mutations. Toward the end of the story, people get insane and are consumed by an unknown sickness. It seems that something coming from the meteorite contaminated the soil and the groundwater. That unseen types of radiation existed was clear since 1895, when Wilhelm Rontgen discovered X-rays. In 1911 Austrian physicist Victor Hess discovered the cosmic background radiation, high-energy radiation originating from outer space, and also that Earth's surface is slightly radioactive, the result of traces of radioactive elements found in minerals and rocks. At Lovecraft's time, it was also known that radiation can affect the growth of plants and cause mutations. In the early 1920s a scandal involving the use of radioactive radium in self-luminous paint, which led to radiation poisoning in female workers at three different factories in the United States, made the health risks of radioactivity clear. Lovecraft never identifies the sickness in his story, however, he describes its effects as consuming living tissue and a sense of burning, similar to radiation poisoning.

Star Trek Fact Or Fiction: Alien Minerals

"Obsession" (1967).

During the Hadean Eon, earth’s first 500 million years, prior to the origin of life, an alien mineral collector may have been disappointed on the diversity of minerals found on the planet. Minerals were limited due to the lack of water and plate tectonics to minerals that could form by crystallization from magma and regional metamorphism by impacts. Comets may bring some water onto earth and now minerals formed by serpentinization, evaporation and hydrothermal alteration were possible. Mineralogists, based on such premises, have proposed a preliminary list of 420 plausible minerals for the Hadean. As earth cooled down and the meteorite bombardment ceased, water condensed from the atmosphere and the first oceans formed. Earth today is still is a water world, with large oceans, polar caps of ice, and an atmosphere rich in water vapor. Many minerals form from other minerals reacting with water or contain water in their crystalline structure. Plate tectonics constantly reshapes the planet and brings minerals formed deep within the planet to its surface. Two-thirds of Earth's minerals emerged only after the first life appeared some 3.7 billion years ago and changed forever the chemical processes occurring on earth. For example, early microorganisms released oxygen into the atmosphere. The free oxygen reacted with other elements and existing minerals, forming new ones. Since then minerals are constantly formed by volcanic and tectonic processes, water-rock interactions and biological activity. Nowadays 5,000 minerals have been found on Earth and every year some new ones are discovered.

 Spessartine-Garnet on Feldspar, Shigar Valley, Pakistan.

Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972).

There are about 15,300 possible ways to combine the known elements. However, even if we didn't yet discover all terrestrial minerals, it's unlikely that all possible combinations will ever be present on our planet.

We know by analyzing the light of distant stars, that other stars, and likely star systems, display different ratios of elements if compared to our system. As the star and the planets form from the same accretion disk, knowing the chemical composition of the star can provide also some information on the orbiting planets. As the chemical composition of an alien planet will differ from the beginning, also its mineralogy will be different in the end. 

The exoplanet 55 Cancri e is roughly twice Earth’s radius, but just eight times its mass. Its density is too low if compared to Earth. Earth is composed mostly of iron, oxygen, magnesium, and silicon, with some sulfur, nickel, calcium, and aluminum added to the mix. Observing the composition of the planet's host star, astronomers discovered a high concentration of carbon and oxygen. It's likely that most minerals on 55 Cancri e are based on a combination of the two elements, forming less dense minerals as terrestrial silicates. Surprisingly enough carbon minerals are rare on Earth. Just fifty have been identified on Earth and most are associated with life, forming by alteration of organic remains, like decaying biomass or derived from coal and oil. Likely here life "hijacked" carbon, so that C-minerals formed by pure inorganic processes are less common.

Alien minerals will also "evolve" together with their planet. Depending on the presence of water, type of tectonics, atmosphere or even life various minerals may form.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard kept a small transparent crystal on the desk in his ready room aboard the USS Enterprise-D. He often played with the small stone when he had to make an important decision. (TNG: "Conspiracy", "Where Silence Has Lease", "Suddenly Human", "A Matter of Time", "The Masterpiece Society", and more) His first officer, William T. Riker, also did so on occasion. (TNG: "Gambit, Part I")

Whole New Worlds Made Of Sapphires and Rubies

Astronomers have found a new class of planets, abundant in the chemical compounds that make sapphires and rubies.

"Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires. All the crystalline forms that you cherish above all things" - from the episode “Cat's Paw”.

Earth is a planet composed mostly of iron. The inner core is believed to be an iron-nickel alloy and the mantle, making up one-third of Earth's volume, is composed of Bridgmanite, a magnesium-iron-silicate. Earth's crust contains iron, oxygen, magnesium and silicon, with traces of sulfur, nickel, calcium, and aluminum added to the mix. However, planets outside our solar system may display a very alien composition, depending on their origin.

The chemical composition of a planet depends on the interaction of two factors, the chemical composition of the dust and gas disk around the newborn star from which the planet forms and where in this protoplanetary disc the planet forms. Farther out in the disc, in the cooler zones, elements such as silicon, iron and magnesium will form grains and clumps. Gravity will pull together the pieces until enough mass is collected to form a planet. It is likely that the rocky planets in our solar system, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, formed this way. Close to the star the temperature is rising and lighter elements, like silicon, magnesium, aluminum and calcium, start condensing into the planetary building compounds. A planet composed mostly from such elements would have 10 to 20 percent lower densities than Earth.

Researchers from the Universities of Zurich in Switzerland and Cambridge in the United Kingdom discovered three large planets that may confirm this theoretical model. HD 219134 b, located just 21 light-years away, in the constellation of Cassiopeia, with an orbit of just 3 days; 55 Cancri e, 41 light-years away, with an orbit of just 18 hours; and WASP-47 e, located 870 light-years away, also with an 18-hour orbit. HD219134 b is a super-Earth with a mass almost five times that of Earth, yet its density is surprisingly low. The planet most likely does not have a massive core of iron but is rich in calcium and aluminum. The chemical composition would allow the existence of large quantities of aluminum oxides on the planet. On Earth, crystalline aluminum oxide forms the mineral corundum. If the aluminum oxide contains traces of iron, titanium, cobalt or chromium, it will form the noble varieties of the mineral corundum, gemstones like the blue sapphire, the red ruby and the pink-orange padparadscha.

The first image ever taken by humans of the whole Earth, probably photographed by William Anders. 

Geological TOS Review: Episode #5 - "The Enemy Within"

During a specimen-gathering mission on planet Alpha 177, a transporter malfunction creates an evil duplicate of Captain Kirk. Apparently, the transporter malfunction is caused by interference of the transporter technique with a magnetic, yellow ore found on the planet’s surface. The mineral is not identified in the episode but seems to possess some alien properties.

In many episodes, the crew of the Enterprise visits mining colonies or is on a mission to search for valuable minerals and crystals. There exists even a geological tricorder for prospecting resources, designed for analyzing rock samples and comparing them to the records memorized in the mineralogical database of the federation. By convention, the names of terrestrial minerals (a crystalline combination of one or various elements) end with the suffix "-ite", the denominations of elements with the suffix "- ium", "-um", "-on", "-gen" or "-ine". Unfortunately it seems that this nomenclature is not always applied with the necessary scientific accuracy in the 23th century. But to be fair, many of the minerals are unknown to the present day. And that's accurate, as there are indeed elements found only in stars and outer space, like Technetium, that don't form naturally on Earth.

Could such non-terrestrial elements form also extraterrestrial minerals? 

There are around 7,000 minerals known on Earth, but we still know little about other worlds in comparison. Over 300 minerals have been identified in meteorites. The number of minerals identified on planetary bodies is smaller and mainly detected by remote sensing or exploration with robots.  Around 130 minerals were discovered so far on Mars and 80 on the Earth's Moon. As some of those minerals were formed under conditions that don't exist on Earth, such as low gravity, or the complete absence of liquid water, many are indeed unknown in the Earth's environments.

A curious scientific blooper. In the episode part of the landing party is stranded on the planet, as the transporter doesn't work, and it is mentioned that the temperatures on the surface drop to -120°C during nighttime. Such temperatures would be only possible on a planet without an atmosphere, where temperatures can drop to -200°C. On Earth the coldest temperature ever measured was -90°C during the Antarctic winter.

Geological TOS Review: Episode #3 - "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" was the second pilot produced for TOS, but actually the third episode broadcast in the United States. 

Captain Kirk has the command of the Enterprise when a distress signal from a spaceship, lost years before along the borders of the galaxy, is received. Following the signal, they soon encounter an energy field. As they try to fly into the field, impulses of energy cause some members of the crew to develop extrasensory perception abilities. Both helmsman Gary Mitchell and ship's psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Dehner quickly develope god-like powers, threatening to destroy the Enterprise. As there is now way to control Mitchell, Kirk decides to leave Mitchell stranded on the nearby planet Delta Vega, a planet similar to Earth except it has a slightly smaller size, with an automated lithium cracking station operating there. The set of the barren and rocky landscape used to show the planet's surface was recycled from the episode (and rejected original pilot) "The Cage."

The matte painting of the cracking station on Delta Vega.

Mining an extraterrestrial world is still fiction, but science shows that it may be profitable. Asteroids are rich in platinum, iridium, palladium and gold. One hundred tons of rock from an asteroid might today be worth more than 9,000 dollars, compared to just 60 dollars worth the same amount of terrestrial rocks. Estimated 5,000 to ten millions of asteroids can be found near Earth and companies are already dreaming of future prospecting and mining spaceflights. Mining asteroids would not necessarily benefit Earth, as bringing the ore to Earth would be extremely costly, but might benefit nearby colonies, outposts or industrial complexes.

Mitchell escapes from his prison in the cracking station. Dr. Dehner, now also developing unknown powers, is able to distract and injure Mitchell, but is killed in the attempt to stop him. In the end Kirk must face the injured and weakened, but still dangerous Mitchell. After a hand-to-hand battle in the mountains and a ripped shirt, Kirk uses a phaser rifle to create a rock slide, killing Mitchell.

If you enjoy this project, comment or may you even leave a tip.

Star Trek Fact Or Fiction: M-113

In the episode "The Man Trap" Captain Kirk, chief medical officer McCoy and crewman Darnell visit the surface of the fictional planet M-113. Soon they are hunted by a mysterious shape-shifting creature that requires salt to survive and is willing to obtain it by any means necessary. Crewman Darnell is the first victim of the "Salt-Vampire" and also the first "red-shirt" (wearing a blue shirt) to be killed in TOS. It is curious to wonder why the "Salt-Vampire" needs salt on such a planet.

The USS Enterprise flying by planet M-113, which bears striking resemblance to Mars, from Star Trek: The Original Series - Remastered.

Star Trek was among the first TV series to be filmed in color. M-113 is a desert planet, covered in yellow sand dunes and dark rocky outcrops, with an eerie reddish sky.  M-113 reseambles surprisingly the planet Mars, even if at the time Star Trek was filmed nothing was known of its surface, visited by space probes only in 1976. Mars is today a dry planet with a thin carbon-dioxide atmosphere, but geological evidence suggests a dense atmosphere with a wet past.

Martian sky on September, 11, 2018. NASA/JPL

In 1849 the Italian chemist J. Usiglio performed a set of evaporation experiments with seawater along the French Riviera and established the order in which evaporite minerals precipitate from an aqueous environment. On earth these minerals are mostly gypsum and halite, associated with borates, potassium- and magnesium-salts. Such minerals if found in a stratigraphic column are compelling evidence for the former presence of water.

The Groeden sandstone was deposited in a landscape consisting of a succession of perennial and periodic rivers, alluvial fans, lakes and coastal plains in a semiarid climate (hot and dry with seasonal excessive rainfalls). Pedogenetic horizons with folded gypsum layers record strong evaporation and water level fluctuations. The upper cross-bedded sandstone records periods when meandering fluvial channels alternated with sand dunes of a desert environment.

Already from the orbit the Mars Global Surveyor identified terrains on Mars composed of a stratified material, covering a more rugged and cratered relief. To clarify the origin of these layers a field-investigation was necessary. In 2004 the Opportunity rover landed in the Eagle-Crater, located on the Meridiani-Planum - a flat, uniform plain with few impact craters. Opportunity spotted some outcrops in the small crater, however the exposed stratigraphic column was very short. The rover was therefore directed to the larger Endurance-Crater.

The outer rim of this crater provided an unique outcrop - soon named Burns-Cliff, after Roger Burns, who predicted the mineralogy of the Martian rocks (composed mainly of ultrabasic minerals, like olivine, and iron-sulfate minerals) based on the preliminary results obtained by the Viking missions.

Along the slope of the cliff geologists recognized a succession of rock types, or facies, named informally "Burns-Formation", the only extraterrestrial geologic formation at the time. The Burns-Formation consists almost entirely of sandstone with grains of basalt, oxides, silicates and evaporite minerals (calcium- and magnesium-sulfates, chlorides and phosphates). The Burns-Formation can be subdivided in three members:

- A lower unit of cross-bedded sandstone, probably sand dunes formed on a dry lakebed.

- A middle unit with laminated sandstone, interpreted as ancient sand sheet deposits of sporadic flood events. This units displays also various effects of groundwater infiltration, like dissolution of minerals and precipitation of new ones. Convoluted layers formed probably when minerals expanded due chemical reactions with the groundwater.

- The upper unit consists of laminated sandstone, layers of cross-laminated sandstone are interpretated as subaqueous ripples.

The Burns-Formation at the Burns-Cliff, Endurance crater.

The Burns-Formation records the transition from a dry dune-field to a wet playa environment. Sporadic floods formed ripples and during dry periods minerals precipitated from the evaporating water. In later times Meridiani-Planum was covered for longer periods with water and maybe a shallow lake formed. This transition from dry to wet conditions occurred probably many times in the Martian past, as the dunes of the lower unit are already formed by reworked evaporites from older sediments. Liquid water implies a much dense atmosphere, even if not necessarily with oxygen.

If M-113 has a similar past as Mars, evaporite deposits should be common, including
sodium-chloride. Therefore, the Salt-Vampire should not need to kill to get salt. The still breathable atmosphere may remains of a former, more wet past. Mars lost most of its atmosphere over time, as gravity on such a small planet is too weak to hold on it.

If you enjoy this project, comment or may you even leave a tip.

Geological TOS Review: Episode #1 - "The Man Trap"

"The Man Trap" was the first episode ever aired of Star Trek - The Original Series (TOS), on September 8, 1966, even if it was the sixth episode produced. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) wanted an episode featuring a monster in space as a pilot to get the public's interest. In the episode Captain Kirk and his crew visit the alien planet M-113 to check on an archaeological expedition. The planet's surface appears lifeless, a desert environment with only sparse vegetation. However, ruins seen in the background testify that a long lost civilization once existed here.

In this episode Halite, sodium-chloride or common table salt, plays an important role. The archaeological outpost on the planet M-113 is infiltrated by a mysterious shape-shifting creature that requires salt to survive and is willing to obtain it by any means necessary. Crewman Darnell is the first victim of the "Salt-Vampire" and also the first "red-shirt" (wearing a blue shirt) to be killed in TOS. 

Another plot device are the ruins, remains of a never-explained civilization and it remains unclear if the creature is somehow related to the ancient megalithic builders. This poses an intriguing question. Without the ruins, would a hypothetical exo-scientist, as seen in the episode, be able to infer the existence of a former alien civilization?

What if so much time passed that even the hardest rock used for a monument turned into dust? Buildings and cities are surprisingly short-lived. Even modern iron and concrete resist weathering for just some decades to centuries. Monuments build from sedimentary rocks, like the pyramids, may last some thousand years in dry environments. Reliefs in massive rocks, like Mount Rushmore carved into Harney-Peak granite, may remain recognizable for some hundred-thousand years. 

Could other traces in the environment be used to infer the existence of a civilization gone for millions of years? Could the desert environment of M-113 be the result of the collapse of an alien civilization? Such questions may not only be of interest for the search of extraterrestrial civilizations in fiction and reality, but also for the future of humankind.

"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Earth is the only planet we know for sure can host a technologically advanced civilization. Even if our technological wonders won't survive millions of years into the future, other traces will remain. Since the year 1500, more than three-hundred species of large vertebrates went extinct and many argue that we are witnessing the beginning of the sixth mass extinction. In just a few centuries, we have modified more than 70% of Earth's land surface. Humans today move ten times more sediments than all natural processes combined, like landslides or rivers.

Since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, humans have modified the concentration and flux of carbon and nitrogen in Earth's atmosphere. New artificial materials, like plastic, are polluting the environment. Future geologists may find rare traces like “technofossils” - anomalous minerals or unnatural materials like plastiglomerate in the geological record. It is unknown how long such artificial materials will survive in the geological record. If buried in sediments, like plastic fragments on the bottom of the sea, maybe some million years. Eventually, heat, pressure and time will break the molecules apart and erase any direct evidence for humanity's former presence on Earth.

Chemical signatures preserved in sedimentary rocks, caused by the changes in abundance of certain elements, like carbon (resulting from burning fossil fuels), nitrogen (used as fertilizer to feed seven billion people), radioactive or rare earth elements (used in modern technology), may still be detectable after billion of years. However, there are natural processes that may mimic such anomalous concentrations. The famous Oklo-reactor, a two billion years old uranium ore deposit that experienced a slow nuclear fission, was likely not built by an ancient civilization but formed by microbial activity.

Even climate change alone will not be sure evidence of a technologically advanced civilization. In the past, there were geological epochs with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide. For example, 55 million years ago, during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, over some thousands of years a massive flux of greenhouse gases from the ocean into the atmosphere occurred and Earth's global temperature rose by 8°C in response. However, the speed humans are changing the climate is unprecedented in the history of the Earth.

Combining various observations, like the rate of changes preserved in the geological record, the presence of anomalous materials, a spike of certain chemical elements and the extinction of species, future alien geologists visiting Earth may realize that a civilization, technologically advanced enough to influence the entire planet, once existed here. Will they find a thin layer of boundary clay, suggesting a sudden catastrophe ending this civilization? Was it a gradual demise following environmental problems? Or did the civilization survive still for thousands of years by adapting or changing its behavior in time? In the stratigraphic record time can be compressed and even future geologist may not be able to clearly distinguish between a sudden event, lasting just some centuries, or a prolonged era of a hundred thousand years.

If you enjoy this project, comment or may you even leave a tip.

The Geology Of Star Trek: From Extraterrestrial Minerals To Alien Life-Forms

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!

 
As with any good science-fiction, our fascination with Star Trek comes from the combination of real science with fantastic possibilities. When you think of science in the show, disciplines like engineering, astronomy, physics and biology probably spring to mind first. However, the show actually features also a lot of geology.

Halite, better known as common table salt, plays an important role in "The Man Trap," the first episode of Star Trek ever broadcast on September 8, 1966. In this episode a remote outpost on the planet M-113 is infiltrated by a mysterious shape-shifting creature that requires salt to survive, by any means necessary.

More than 125 minerals are mentioned in the Star Trek universe. However, only 23 are real terrestrial minerals and only one mineral, olivine, has been found in extraterrestrial rocks. Curiously quartz, one of the most common minerals on Earth, is almost never mentioned. Perhaps because quartz is often used as a prop for "dilithium crystals." In the Star Trek universe. Dilithium is not only a rare and valued gemstone, known also as "radan", but it is used is in the show's matter-antimatter reactors, standard equipment on board of every spaceship. As its (supposedly) cubic crystal structure can somehow control the flow of antimatter (mentioned in the TOS episode “Elaan of Troyius"), it is needed to provide energy for the faster-than-light-travel warp drive.

Sulfur, saltpeter and carbon, in two crystalline modifications, as coal and as diamond, saved Captain Kirk's life in the episode "Arena". Kirk, transported to a desolate planetoid,  is forced into a battle against the reptile-like Gorn, which is protected by an almost indestructible armored skin. Using the sulfur, saltpeter and coal to make gunpowder and pointy diamond-crystals (here the writers made quite a mineralogical blooper, as such a crystal-shape is not to be found in real diamonds) as high-impact projectiles, he finally puts down his adversary.

This blog will explore the use of minerals and rocks in Star Trek - The Original Series, Star Trek - The Next Generation and Voyager, featuring geological reviews of (almost) every episode. There will be also posts dedicated to the real (exo-)geology behind the visited fictional planets and special reviews for the movies. Maybe in future times also other movies or franchise will be included. Stay tuned and if you enjoy this project, comment or may you even leave a tip.

Thanks,

David Bressan.