Five charts that will change everything you know about mud

[NNadir]

The current issue of Science, has a number of articles, and a cover, devoted to mud.

Special Issue: A World of Mud



They are news items, not research papers.

One is called, as the title here indicates: Five charts that will change everything you know about mud (By David Malakoff, Nirja Desai, Xing Liu, Science, August 21, 2020.)

(One may need a subscription to open the paper, I'm not sure.)

An excerpt from the introduction:

Glop. Mire. Ooze. Cohesive sediment. Call it what you want, mud—a mixture of fine sediment and water—is one of the most common and consequential substances on Earth. Not quite a solid, not quite a liquid, mud coats the bottoms of our lakes, rivers, and seas. It helps form massive floodplains, river deltas, and tidal flats that store vast quantities of carbon and nutrients, and support vibrant communities of people, flora, and fauna. But mud is also a killer: Mudslides bury thousands of people each year.

Earth has been a muddy planet for 4 billion years, ever since water became abundant. But how it forms and moves have changed dramatically. About 500 million years ago, the arrival of land plants boosted the breakdown of rock into fine particles, slowed runoff, and stabilized sediments, enabling thick layers of mud to pile up in river valleys. Tectonic shifts that gave rise to mountains, as well as climate changes that enhanced precipitation, accelerated erosion, and helped blanket sea floors with mud hundreds of meters thick. Over time, many mud deposits hardened into mudrock, the most abundant rock in the geologic record, accounting for roughly half of all sedimentary formations.

Now, humans are a dominant force in the world of mud. Starting about 5000 years ago, erosion rates shot up in many parts of the world as our ancestors began to clear forests and plant crops. Even more sediment filled rivers and valleys, altering landscapes beyond recognition. In some places dams and dykes trapped that mud, preventing fresh sediment from nourishing floodplains, deltas, and tidal flats and causing them to shrink (see graphic below). And industrial processes began to produce massive quantities of new forms of mud—mine and factory waste—that is laden with toxic compounds and often stored behind dams that can fail, unleashing deadly torrents...

A few of the five charts:







An interesting read, these news items.

[abqtommy]

1. Here's a little ditty I learned years ago and it remains part of my mental storehouse:

Oops! I did a quick search and lo, here's The Hippopotamus Song by Flanders & Swann
Featuring Donald Swann & Michael Flanders

Note: The ditty I originally referenced turns out to be the chorus of this song!

Full lyrics:

Verse 1]
[FLANDERS & SWANN]
A bold hippopotamus was standing one day
On the banks of the cool Shalimar
He gazed at the bottom, as it peacefully lay
By the light of the evening star
Away on a hilltop sat combing her hair
His fair hippopotami maid
The hippopotamus was no ignoramus
And sang her this sweet serenade

[Chorus]
Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow in glorious mud

[Verse 2]
The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice
From her seat on that hilltop above
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice
Came tip-toeing down to her love
Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
Of the song that they sang as they met
His inamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet

[FLANDERS]
Falsetto!

[Chorus]
[FLANDERS & SWANN]
Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow in glorious mud

[Verse 3]
Now more hippopotami began to convene
On the banks of that river so wide
I wonder now what-am-I to say of the scene
That ensued by the Shalimar side?
They dived all at once with an ear-splitting splosh
Then rose to the surface again
A regular army of hippopotarmy
All singing this haunting refrain

[FLANDERS]
Now's yer chance!

[Chorus]
[FLANDERS & SWANN & AUDIENCE]
Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow in glorious mud!

link: https://genius.com/Flanders-and-swann-the-hippopotamus-song-lyrics

Mud truly is glorious. Children and adults both enjoy it, with adults paying to have their bodies coated with it at expensive spas and salons while children just naturally attract it!

[Warpy]

3. I read an article from a symposium on ancient Egyptian construction methods

Last edited Sun Aug 23, 2020, 08:20 PM - Edit history (1)

some years ago but I can't find the thing now, so treat this as apocryphal.

After much discussion about how many men it would take to move a massive block of stone from a boat on the Nile to Giza, one elderly scientist had a flash of inspiration. He went out the next day with a crew carrying buckets of loose mud, the type potters use. He had it poured on the trackway and had the crew level the stone up to get it underneath. He then proceeded to push this massiuve stone up a slight grade with one hand.

They don't call it "slip" for nothing.

While I doubt the one old man using one hand part, it does make a lot of sense. Slip would overcome a lot of friction and it was certainly an abundant material. Instead of all those old bible movies with the thousands of slaves under the lash (which also wasn't true, they were farmers in the off season trying to learn a little extra dosh), movement could have been accomplished by very few people without breaking their backs.

I've always been fond of mud, from smearing it on insect bites and bee stings when I was a kid (we swore it worked) to helping friends who are well enough off to live in adobe houses to mud up the walls in spring, tp drinking my tea out of it in the form of a terra cotta cup, I find it an amazing material.

[StatGirl]

2. For you Vonnegut fans . . .

In "Cat's Cradle", ice-nine was originally conceived to solve the problem of Marines having to slog through mud.

That didn't work out so well.

(Not sure if that is related to the "God made mud" story later in the book. You could say that God solved the overall problem of mud.)