By Brian Bondy
 
I talked about AI last week, and I had some more thoughts about it. Some great things AI is already working in is science. AI is used to work on genetics, to help solve puzzles of not only illnesses but their cures, and of course in space study.

Back at home, my immediate sarcastic response is, “and what could possibly go wrong?”  Well, everything, of course. That’s how humans are though, and we haven’t caused the end of the world... yet.

AI will likely continue to bring great things to life, just like GE. And just like GE, they will also make some destructive things. Having Henry Fonda hawk their products was a good choice. Who doesn’t love Henry Fonda? Elon Musk hawking AI is a bad choice. In fact, I’m sure someone could come up with an AI commercial hosted by Henry Fonda, using AI. I digress, but only a bit.
I found an article about the 15 most dangerous concerns of an AI world. What? Only 15? That’s a start. Don’t get me wrong, I think AI is a great thing. Potentially. The only problem, like guns, is that humans have access to them. Remove the human participation and we’re all just dandy.
That, of course, is what the Terminator movie was about. You could argue the same thing for nuclear energy too. That was a topic of the movie Oppenheimer. It was also a discussion I had with my friend Grizz. Ultimately, are we humans mature enough, individually or as a populace, to have weapons, of any kind? Are we ready for AI? If not, how do we get ready, because it’s here.

Read this great article on the 15 Biggest Risks of AI and note that neither Siri nor Alexa was mentioned once.   Click to Read  

Fool's Gold 
​~Zach Hively

So this’ll teach me to be efficient: I was being so very on top of things the other day. Like, I had run all the errands I really had to, like getting groceries and stopping for a latte, and I decided—in lieu of going home, where I like to be very much to swing by the dry cleaners, drop off my one real suit, and see if they had any clothes of mine that I had forgotten about.

This is the danger with dry cleaners. They, in my experience, do not hound me to come get my winter coat or my comforter or either of my nice shirts. Nor do they appear to take my clothes home for themselves within, say, three to five years. They just … store my clothes for me, free of extra charge, on those cool conveyor-belt clothes racks, until I show up on a particularly efficient day, figure out which false phone number they have on file for me (because I hate getting automated marketing messages like “Save 15% this weekend” or “Your items are ready for pickup”), and take home what feels like brand-new outfits for the low low price of what I paid for them at the thrift store in the first place.

Such was my state of mind—total #bossbabe—sitting at a red light shortly after leaving the dry cleaners. I felt accomplished. On top of things. Soon to be well-attired. Then I felt rear-ended. This is largely because I was, in fact, rear-ended.

In the other driver’s defense, the light had indeed turned green. I saw it. The driver in front of me saw it. The driver in front of him saw it. But none of us had yet ACTED on it when the woman behind me did.

“I thought you were going,” she summarized, “but you didn’t.”

We pulled to the turn lane where we could inconvenience the greatest number of other drivers while walking around each other’s cars and rubbing the backs of our own necks. She said this was her first accident, which I am inclined to believe, because a more experienced rear-ender would know to have one current registration in the vehicle instead of two dating from different administrations in the 2010s. She would also have an up-to-date discount insurance card instead of texting someone to Photoshop her one real quick.

I didn’t call the police or file a report, because the last time I called the police for a non-emergency incident they ultimately told me to go home, and then they called me at 2 a.m. to talk about submitting photographs by 4 a.m., and quite frankly we are all lucky I didn’t get arrested at 2:15 a.m. that night.

Besides, it’s all good. I, having come of driving age in New Mexico, know to carry excellent uninsured motorist coverage. In such a seemingly minor bumper-bender as this, I am confident that my automotive repairs and personal bodywork will both fall well short of my deductible.
I cannot be certain, however. Lawyers from network television shows have advised me not to make public claims about my wellbeing until I have been thoroughly assessed by medical professionals who stand to make much more money if they declare that I may need months of rehabilitation and—I hope—therapeutic massages.

The problem here is that, whatever my dry cleaning adventure has you presuming to the contrary, I am really, really busy. Like, I am too busy to understand why, exactly, I am so busy. I’ve officially reached the stage in life where the worst thing about an auto accident—even worse than the thought of lifelong whiplash symptoms—is the inconvenience.

This factor is intensified because everyone else is even busier. My medical providers can’t book me for three weeks. The earliest the body shop in bed with my insurance company can fit me in for a damage appraisal is a month out. And I’m taking my legal advice from TV.

And all this because I deviated from my norm—because I went against my true nature—because I decided to Be Responsible and do One More Thing While I’m Out Anyway. You’ll never see me making THAT mistake again. In fact, I now possess a sound excuse for never running errands ever again, except for getting lattes. I hope my dry cleaner gets good use out of that three-piece suit.​

An afternoon with Dexter Trujillo

By Jessica Rath
Not many people, myself included, would call their life beautiful, without reservation. Maybe after thinking about it for a while – yes, I agree, it IS beautiful. But often life throws frustrating and annoying stuff at us which dominates the way we feel and overshadows the beauty. 

When I met with Dexter Trujillo at the Abiquiú Library he totally convinced me that his life is indeed beautiful. And I learned that his life has its share of frustrating and annoying, even sad, events. However, these events don’t cast a pall on his basic outlook. Here is an example: in May, he visited his sister Margo who lives in Minnesota. While there, he did the 21-mile-long Walk to Mary – a pilgrimage to the National Shrine of our Lady of Champion in Wisconsin. Dexter had to explain: this is the only site in the United States where the Catholic church recognizes an apparition of Mary. She appeared to Sister Adele (or St. Adele) in 1859 and told her to teach the young children, often orphans.

“There were 4,000 pilgrims, it was so beautiful. But it was freezing! But we made it; I don't know how we made it.

We started at six in the morning. And it went until 5:30 pm. We had an ending mass at 5:30. But we almost froze! I just couldn't walk anymore. I could barely kneel,  I couldn't even think! Maybe 20 years ago, yes, I could have done it. But now – I can do the pilgrimage from Abiquiú to Santa Rosa de Lima, but no more than that!” Dexter laughs.
​
“It was like a blizzard!  The whole way it rained down. The wind was awful and had the rain pour into your face. But it was beautiful. You know, 4000 people, youngsters and not not so young and average people in all kinds of walks of life and so beautiful that there's that devotion. We had an outdoor mass and it was packed. I wanted to get souvenirs but I couldn't even walk to the shop anymore. I walked in the church and prayed the rosary and then we went down into the crypt,  where they have an image of the Blessed Mother. You know, the Peshtigo Fire (which happened the same day as the Great Chicago Fire) extended all the way to that place in Wisconsin right there. They say that Sister Adele got all the people on their knees, and they went on their knees around the chapel. And they had a wooden fence and the fire spread to just the wooden fence. It stopped right there. And all the people were unharmed. That’s how deep their faith was. So I'm glad I went and it was beautiful. It reminds me a lot of here too because we just had our annual Santa Rosa de Lima Fiesta.”  

I should point out here that I’m not affiliated with any organized religion, and in general, my views are rather dim on the subject. But Dexter’s sincerity and devotion, his genuine desire to help people and to make the world a better place, impressed me deeply. He dedicates every moment of his life to follow the teachings of his religion, the teachings of Jesus Christ, as well as he can. This is unusual and quite remarkable. 

U.S.Postal Service in 1902. The library has many historic photographs. Image credit: Jessica Rath
Dexter showed me around the library, and then we went across the Plaza and entered the church of Santo Tomás el Apostol, Saint Thomas the Apostle. It was built around 1935. Here is an interesting anecdote from its early days:

“The wealthy people lived towards the highway, the current highway. And the church was really the work of the hermanos and penitentes, they were doing all the backbreaking labor, also the women and children. Anyway, they found out that the pueblo was going to get the back end of the church. And the church was already four feet high. When the people realized that they were going to get the back of the church facing  the pueblo, they came with their axes and with their plows and they plowed everything down. They said if we're getting the back of the church, then we don't want a church here in Abiquiú. So anyway, what happened was that the people said we will have our church but we want the face toward the pueblo, to our side.  Because they were doing all the work.”

“There's pictures at the library of the old church. The only reason they had to destroy that church was because the adobes weren't tight together. So the walls started to separate.”  

We spent some time in the church, and Dexter pointed out various paintings, images, and weavings. People with a sick family member would make a promise: they’d weave a tapestry if the person got well again. There’s a lot of local history embedded in the church, and the knowledge of this cultural tradition, of the history going back several generations, enriches Dexter’s life and gives it meaning and significance.

After our visit to the church Dexter invites me to have a look at his garden.
​
“In my garden I grow  my own chile, my own vegetables, tomatoes, pinto beans, I plant a little bit of everything, even Zinnias. We have apricots, apples, grapes, plums – you name it. We have our apricot tree that’s over 300 years old. It has sweet almonds, they say that if you eat the almonds of that tree you won’t get cancer.”

First, though, I want to admire the big horno that he built himself. The bricks are made from the soil around Abiquiú. And then we visit the chickens. Dexter opens a gate to let them out of their coop; they happily run around and enjoy their freedom. At night they’ll return to their shed to be safe from coyotes and racoons.
​
We walk through the vegetable garden to go to the almond tree, and Dexter picks a few ripe tomatoes and little round cucumbers for me. It is obvious that his life is strongly connected to the soil, to the natural spring  that flows close by, to the apple trees that his grandfather planted, and of course to the magnificent apricot tree.

“When my grandpa was alive, he told us that he would ask his great-grandpa how old this tree was. And his great-grandpa would say that it was already a tree when he was a little boy. So it must be at least 300 years old.”  As somebody who has changed locations all her life, I ponder: what must it feel to have deep roots to one’s past?

Our last stop is the Morada de Alto, the true center of Dexter’s life. 

I always thought that los Hermanos Penitentes was a secretive society who don’t welcome any outsiders,  but this is completely wrong, according to Dexter. He calls them sacred places where people should feel at home, that unite people, where everybody is cared for. He compares them to kivas: a space for gatherings. When the land here still belonged to Mexico, many of the smaller settlements and pueblos were without a priest.  It was the laity, the hermanos penitentes, the brothers that kept Catholicism alive.

“ The Morada is like a retreat center, a house of prayer. It’s for everybody, you don’t have to be Catholic to attend. But this is where we learn about our Catholicism. This is where we've learned the doctrine of the Church. This is where we really dissect the information and pass it along to the community as best as we know how. This is really laity. A lot of people think that this is where the priests lived, or this is where the priests recite, and it's not, it’s laity. It's both men and women, we get together and we pray every Friday throughout the year, every second Friday here. This is called La Morada D’Alto. It is dedicated to Nuestra Señora Santa Dolores which means the house of Our Lady of Sorrows.”

​It was deeply touching to meet somebody so open, so ready to share some aspects of his life with a stranger. His long practice of serving the community, of helping other people, of dedicating his life to creating a peaceful and better world gives him a presence that one can feel strongly. Thank you, Dexter, for a beautiful afternoon.

By Brian Bondy

Weird Science
 
Sure, it was a fun movie, back in 1985, when Anthony Michael Hall was extremely busy, but this is something else. While looking up information on Nuclear Waste, and how to be rid of it, I found an interesting story on dead spider robots. Now if that sounds too good to be true, then you need to watch the video: Click Here
 
While that is a real thing, apparently, what I want to write about is Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Yet another movie, but this time, I’m talking about real life. The news is full of dire warnings and predictions about AI, but it’s already here and has been for years. Not many years, but it’s here and in use. Several search engines are using AI, tech support places, manufacturing, lots of other things. What’s both good and bad is the ease with which AI can be used. There are interfaces that allow folks to use AI to create art, write college papers, even imitate other people’s voices. At some point, it will be able to put a false face on a video call. I’ll be able to FaceTime Carol and look and sound like Bruce Willis or Brad Pitt. While we are getting into ‘Wag the Dog’ territory, yet another movie, there are lots of great movies on AI and Avatars, including Avatar, though often they are pretty apocalyptic. There’s no real reason to think of AI as a monster, not yet anyway.  
 
So, what is AI and do we need to worry? I have no idea. Who really does? I found this great video explaining AI and offering some thoughts on this whole issue. I offer it as something to think about.   Click Here  

​A simple way to explain AI is via my career as a programmer. I was a computer programmer for over 30 years. I gave a computer instructions, basically a bunch of IF/Then statements. The computer then followed those instructions. In AI, you give a computer the desired results and let the computer go out and learn how to perform. If it’s painting, then it can go out and learn about every single work of art on the Internet. If you ask it to produce a painting of a New York City skyline with unicorns in the style of Van Gough, it will do that, as it has ‘seen’ every Van Gough painting, every NYC skyline picture, and every unicorn available. In the YouTube video above, the example is chess. AI was able to beat the computer programmed chess-bot because AI learns how to play chess, while the chess-bot program is a bunch of IF/Then statements. AI has learned BEYOND just the known choices, it has infinite choices.
 
I like how, in the video, she explains things so even a dolt like me can understand. We are in the beginning stages of AI, and if you think you’re removed from it here in Abiquiu, you may want to rethink that. Most of us have a computer or smartphone, if for nothing else but to read the Abiquiu News. But AI is available on those very devices. The internet, phones systems, electric grid, gas stations, those are connected to AI in some form or another, or they will be soon. The Internet of Things, IoT, will be using AI extensively and that is already here. The Alexa assistant is in my home, we have a smart TV, chances are, you have an assistant too, and a smart device of some kind. It’s not a matter of time, it’s already happening.
 
AI is entering the job market, replacing human jobs. This is just progress. Manufacturing isn’t coming back to the US. It can’t. We are consumers that demand low prices. The issue isn’t how to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, the issue is: what are we going to do with ourselves without those jobs? Changes are coming. Hang on tight, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
 
 

The timing couldn’t have been worse. I entered the garden focused on photographing flowers, so I was totally unprepared to see the monarch fluttering around helplessly almost hitting the cement as it attempted to recover its ability to become airborne. Instinctively, I turned away before I realized that what I had just witnessed was the trauma that this butterfly was experiencing after just having been tagged.

 This organization’s hope was that some guide or kid in Mexico would find the tagged DEAD body of this monarch somewhere on the ground after the butterfly completed its journey from Maine to its winter stopover in Mexico.

I found this perspective bizarre because finding a dead monarch means that the butterfly will not winter over to finish his/her reproductive journey north in the spring. Not a success story for the monarch. What possible agenda lies behind these tagging operations that brag about monarchs that die in their wintering grounds is a mystery to me.

That the tagged butterfly I witnessed was suffering from distress was painfully obvious even as I heard the tagging woman say “get another, this one wasn’t graceful enough”.  

Did I mention that the sequence was being filmed by one of the major television networks?

Take two.

I buried myself in the flowers, but my heart was pounding, and I was distracted, and this is how I managed to clash with butterfly tagging practices for a second time. I ran into a man with a stiff nylon net who was in the process of capturing another victim in its depths. Though he turned away I knew exactly what was happening having witnessed what occurs when a butterfly is caught in this manner. The insect becomes frantic. After being pursued and trapped the butterfly was now moments away from tagging distress. I glanced at the hapless creature pinned down by the wings. Groaning involuntarily, I sensed the trauma the poor butterfly was experiencing, and quickly exited the garden. Done for the day.

Although I was a member of this conservation organization this naturalist/ethologist couldn’t sanction a practice which even encouraged and included allowing children to tag. Didn’t anyone think about how the butterfly might experience this practice?

After expressing my opinion to those in charge, I deliberately avoided witnessing Monarch capture and tagging. This year only one monarch was tagged at the summer festival, or so I was told while I was busy volunteering at the bird table in mid – August. A few nylon bagged caterpillars were munching on a nearby milkweed clump. That day while participating in a bird walk on my break, I saw one monarch in the field.

When I returned to the garden about ten days later to check on the flowers (I love the pollinator garden), I was happy to see and photograph bees and wasps and the few monarchs that were fluttering around the Mexican Sunflowers. This time the caterpillars were gone, and a few chrysalises were zipped into the nylon bags to protect the inhabitants from parasites until eventual emergence, or death. I knew from personal experience that OE (disease) was only one of the problems and that some chrysalises would not hatch anyway. Hopefully the few that did would not hatch during a time when no one was present to release the butterfly before it damaged its wings.

Only about 10 percent of these insects make it to adulthood. I was also keenly aware that the monarch count had plummeted 22 percent just since last year. Depending on the source consulted 90 – 97 percent of these butterflies are missing in action; the species is approaching extinction despite laudable attempts to ‘save’ it.

The word extinction requires explanation. This is a process that occurs over an unspecified period, but once the existing population has declined beyond a certain point the dye has been cast. Sources vary but most agree that once 75 percent of the population has vanished, extinction is imminent.

Because I am a naturalist and aware of what is happening overall, I choose to focus my attention on letting nature choose how much milkweed to grow in my wildflower field and appreciating the monarchs I find in all stages of their lives while we still have them.

Spend some time watching a caterpillar eat through a milkweed leaf, turn himself into a ‘J’ to pupate. Look carefully at the exquisite chrysalis tipped in gold leaf; watch it darken and become translucent as the butterfly prepares to split the capsule. Sit with the emerging butterfly as her wings dry and she prepares for first flight. Last year I was present when the monarch I had been watching began pumping fluid into her wings and then fluttering and flapping them before sailing away into a cobalt blue sky… Nature’s Grace. I won’t forget.

Yesterday when I visited the garden to take pictures of flowers it never occurred to me that monarchs were going to be tagged while I was there, or that I would be unfortunate enough to witness the process by accident. Of course, they were being tagged because this is what this organization does, I realized on my way home. These are the monarchs that will be making the 2000-mile migration to Mexico. I was upset with myself. How naïve, how stupid I was not to make the connection between the time of year and tagging but then I realized that because I had taken every precaution not to be present for any part of this process and thus far had been successful why would it have occurred to me at all?  

Today I learned that everyone is invited to witness butterfly tagging twice a week during the month of September. Efforts to publicize the ‘rightness’ of tagging are being stepped up.

Several people agreed with my assessment, namely that tagging creates trauma for the insect – and the idea that this practice may interfere with the butterfly’s ability to survive the 2000-mile journey, winter over successfully and then fly north to reproduce in the spring.

To my knowledge no one else had openly expressed their personal views to those in charge of the organization. However, some folks have come to talk with me. Most of us know that trauma weakens any organism’s immune system making it more vulnerable.

I also have friends who are biologists or scientists who agree that we have no way of knowing how tagging effects the butterfly or its ability to migrate successfully, and that even a small tag can create an imbalance in flight.

The underlying assumption (now hardened into ‘truth’) is that attaching an object to the hind wing of a butterfly that weighs less than half a gram with a tag that weighs 02 percent of the butterfly’s weight is placed close enough to the butterfly’s center so as not to disrupt flight. What I had just witnessed suggested otherwise.

When tagging began in 1992 scientists wanted to gain more insight monarch migration and decline. Monarchs caught the public’s attention, becoming a cultural icon for ‘save the species’ groups.  Monarch Watch and Xerces (there are many others) began their research. Data accumulated as hypotheses came and went. Thirty plus years later we have masses of detailed information, but we have failed to stop the monarch’s steep decline.

As previously stated, the monarchs who hatch in September are the ones that make the long arduous journey to the central mountains of Mexico. The obvious threats of habitat loss – our disappearing forests, grasslands, clean water and air, the continued use of pesticides/herbicides, poisoned waters are compounded by the extremes that are being brought on by our changing climate. In Maine this tropical summer of floods and fog has given us a taste of what’s to come. In southern climates it’s fires and intolerable heat.

 I do appreciate one aspect of this long -term research project.  It has alerted some people to the plight of a disappearing butterfly and hopefully that will lead to folks seeing the ‘bigger picture’. We desperately need humans to comprehend the enormity of our earth crisis and how it is affecting what’s left of our wildlife, not to mention ourselves. Many people who have lawns are exchanging them for wildflower and pollinator gardens. These actions may assist other species to survive but unfortunately, I think it is too late for the monarchs.

While engaged in my research last year I learned from one reputable source that handling a butterfly removes butterfly powder. The loss of this precious wing ‘dust’ protects the butterfly from aerial predation.

Other researchers are quick to point out that they have learned a lot about the flyways the monarchs use, the problems associated with raising captive monarchs, diseases that affect the species, the fact that migratory behavior is remarkably sensitive to genetic and environmental changes, that even brief exposure to unnatural conditions even late in development may be enough to disrupt flight orientation (like bagging?).

Compiling data gained from gathering and quantifying information seems to be more about what humans want to learn about these insects in general than caring about the lives of actual butterflies.

From my point of view butterfly survival also requires asking what it means when a tagged monarch experiences trauma and then is found dead before it has completed its life cycle. Of course, there are a host of possibilities, but I find it disturbing that not one academic source addresses this issue.

I do not speak Monarch but as an ethologist (a person who studies animal behavior in the wild) I certainly pay close attention to behavior and butterfly tagging does creates trauma for the insect; that much is obvious. Why no one mentions tagging as another reason our monarchs may be in steep decline is an important question that deserves attention.

Western science is supposed to be value free which of course is an illusion. However, the necessity of appearing to remain value free forces those who believe that a butterfly has feelings is dismissed as a person who is anthropomorphizing. Attributing trees and plants, animals, birds, frogs, lizards, and insects with feelings is projecting human qualities onto animals according to this way of thinking.  In conservative science, the old story, non- human beings don’t experience feelings of pain etc. have personal relationships or live lives that may or may not intersect with those of humans, let alone communicate with other species.  

If an academic or person like me is radical enough to disagree with this perspective severe criticism and ostracizing, follow.

Conservative western science refuses to acknowledge that the new sciences tell us a very different story, one in which all nature is alive and sentient. In this scenario trees, animals, birds, insects etc. experience fear and other emotions that are unique to each species but share a commonality with humans because we are all part of the  same whole. Anyone who has ever had a personal relationship with an animal or plant knows this whether s/he admits this or not
 Advocating for sentience originally developed out of my naturalist’s life experiences; research came later. I pay close attention to any encounters with non -human beings and draw conclusions from actual encounters as I did with the monarch (even when those conclusions conflict with prevailing theories or popular beliefs).

That human caught butterflies feel fright and anxiety is obvious to anyone who pays attention. The bottom line is that when it comes to tagging butterflies, we do not know what the consequences are.

Is it worth repeating that the tagged monarchs recovered in the mountains of central Mexico are all dead and their natural life cycle has been disrupted permanently?
Tagging creates trauma and stress that may be one more reason the monarch butterfly is in steep decline.
 
Postscript:
 
Andy Davis of Monarchscinece.org is a research scientist at the School of Ecology in the University of Georgia. Andy has been studying monarchs, especially their amazing migration since 1997, and is the editor-in-chief of a scientific journal devoted specifically to animal migration. Andy is the author or coauthor of 35+ scientific studies on monarch biology.
 
Andy has this to say about tagging:
 “We already know that the stressors monarchs face during migration are immense - like cars, loss of nectar, storms, etc. What if the weight of the tags, even if it is incredibly minor, is causing monarchs to burn slightly more energy during flight every day, so that they arrive in Mexico with not quite enough fat to survive the winter. Or, maybe the minor weight of the tag causes the monarchs to not flap as efficiently as it would have normally. Or, maybe the tags are leading to slightly, but chronically-elevated metabolic rates. Or, for all we know, there is a behavioral issue at play here - maybe the white tags cause the tagged monarchs to be shunned by their untagged friends, and the tagged monarchs are then prevented from joining the rest of the monarchs in the safe tree clusters. Who knows? The point is, we really don't have any data on the effect of tags to monarch physiology, flight mechanics, or behavior to say anything about this, but, given this new evidence (about increasing mortality at the winter sites), maybe it’s time for scientists to take up this issue”.
 
Andy Davis is a research scientist at the Odum School of Ecology in the University of Georgia. Andy has been studying monarchs, especially their amazing migration since 1997, and is the editor-in-chief of a scientific journal devoted specifically to animal migration. Andy is the author or coauthor of 35+ scientific studies on monarch biology.

Imagine you’re listening to the audio recording of a book. Suddenly, the speed slows way down, and what normally would take two hours now takes one week, or even one month. You’d still hear something, but it would be a very low hum and you can’t understand the words any more. The meaning of the book is lost.
 
That’s how I as a lay person experience the rock formations, mesas, canyons, and mountains all around me here in northern New Mexico – I certainly appreciate the beauty of the colored layers, the different rock textures, the shapes that can look so other-worldly, but questions such as WHY? HOW? WHEN? remain a mystery.   I see a still-photo of a long movie, but it is static. Because I have no understanding of geologic time.
 
Our resident geologist Kirt Kempter compared it to money, when I talked to him recently.  When we think of billionaires, most of us can’t really conceive what this entails, it just sounds crazy: one thousand times one million. Geologic time is similar. “When you study geology, once you get your geology degree from college, you know almost nothing”, Kirt explained. “You get introduced to all these various sub-fields: paleontology, geochemistry, geophysics, a bit of historical geology. But it’s not until you start your professional career in geology when you think about this geologic time on a daily basis. You look at the landscape and you see surfaces or geologic events that happened in the past few thousand years. And then you see canyons in New Mexico where the capping lava is a million years old, and here you have this 600 foot deep canyon, for example, along the Rio Chama or the Rio Grande, and you learn that  this particular kind of erosion can occur within this particular span of geologic time. So, you’re constantly thinking of these millions of years in the geologic past, and at last, as you deepen into your profession, you feel that you have a good concept, a good grasp of these millions of years. I’m not actually sure that it’s true, but you feel comfortable speaking in this deep-time language”.​​

I was curious: how does one become a geologist? Did he collect rocks as a little kid?
 
 Kirt grew up in Albuquerque, and his parents were musicians.  They were 100% city-slickers, they were afraid of nature, and they almost never went camping, Kirt explained. “But my friends and I were always going out into vacant lots, catching snakes, catching lizards. I had a whole slew of reptile and amphibian pets, I even had a pet racoon for a while. I was always driven to the outdoors naturally, to my parents’ incomprehension. When I was in Junior High I saw a flyer on the campus of UNM: an ad-hoc group wanted to hike down into the Grand Canyon and raft down the river.  This was in 1974, before rafting became popular. I think it was kind of a premonition of me becoming a geologist. I begged my parents to let me go on my own with this group, I didn’t know anybody, I was 14 years old and they let me hike down the Grand Canyon, 18 miles to the river”.

He never had Earth Science at school, and it wasn’t until he was a biology major in college that he took Introductory Geology for fun in his junior year. And it ticked off all the things he enjoyed: having a profession where one could be outdoors most of the time; it included biology, the study of paleontology, life on our planet and how it evolved.  He changed his major immediately after that class. It was one of those moments in life where one takes a turn and it changes everything after that.

“My Bachelor’s was from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, but my Master’s and PhD were from the University of Texas at Austin. Both projects were studying big volcanoes in Latin America. My Master’s thesis was in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, studying a giant caldera, twice as big as the Valles Caldera, and my PhD project was studying an active volcano in Costa Rica, and this, what I call a “young” volcano, was growing inside a much bigger caldera, also bigger than the Valles Caldera”. 
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I live in Coyote, and all along the roads one can find agates and other rocks that apparently stem from the big “SuperVolcano” eruption at Valles Caldera. I asked Kirt to tell me more about that.

“Yes, the pyroclastic flow from Valles Caldera went as far as Coyote. There were two giant eruptions in the Jemez Mountains. The first one was 1.6 million years ago, which made the caldera we call the Toledo Caldera. Then, 350,000 years later, the Valles Caldera forms in the same place, with the same volume of magma, the same chemistry of magma; the exact same eruption happened 350,000 years apart. The Valles eruption started off as a single vent that was really powerful going up tens of kilometers into the stratosphere, but then it transitioned into multiple vents tapping into the magma chamber. These multiple vents were not as energetic as the single vent, so these multiple eruption columns were going up maybe five kilometers high, and collapsing, and sending out pyroclastic flows. These are turbulent clouds of hot gasses, magma particles, and rock fragments that can flow across the landscape at speeds of one hundred, even two hundred miles per hour. And the topography of the surrounding area of the eruption vents dictated where those pyroclastic flows went. So for those of us in the Rio Chama Valley, in the Abiquiu area, there were high topographic features like Chicoma Peak, Polvadera Peak, and a high plateau called the La Grulla Plateau. These highlands kind of blocked the pyroclastic flows. But then there were low areas to the north and to the northwest towards Coyote. That's where the pyroclastic flows were able to flow for many kilometers, probably 20 kilometers away. So yeah, if you had been in the Coyote area 1.2 5 million years ago, you wouldn't have survived!”

“What's neat though about these pyroclastic flows, there were previous canyons like Cañones Creek and the one in Youngsville, the Rio Puerco. There were already canyons that existed before the eruption. And these canyons filled up with the pyroclastic flows. Once they had solidified, they became what we call the Upper Bandelier Tuff. And what’s so amazing is these giant eruptions transform the typography in the blink of an eye. They fill up canyons, and so they totally can change where rivers once flowed. New rivers have to form afterwards. I love catastrophism in geology! Certainly, these big volcanic eruptions, like the Valles, are catastrophic and change the landscape in just a few days. We're not looking at geologic time, we're looking at hours and days that totally changed the landscape story”.

This reminded me of the little earthquake we had in this area last year. Was this related to the volcanic activity at Valles Caldera?

Kirt had a surprising explanation:
“You live in a transition zone between the Rio Grande Rift, which is the Española Valley that's to the east of you, and the Colorado Plateau, which is all the land to the west of you. So we have this geologic boundary, the Colorado Plateau to the west, the Rio Grande Rift to the east. The Colorado Plateau is trying to pull away from the rest of New Mexico. And as it is doing that, we have this tear in the crust in New Mexico called the Rio Grande Rift. Along the rift boundaries, the basins keep dropping down over time, filling up with sediments and volcanic deposits.  And so, since you live in that transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and Rio Grande Rift, we get more earthquakes there, based on this pulling apart of New Mexico”.

“In general, when the crust is pulling apart, this results in smaller earthquakes. When you have geologic boundaries, like the San Andreas Fault in California where there's a lot of compression and stress, you tend to get the bigger earthquakes. The rocks in geologic zones on either side of a fault experience compression and there's a lot of friction. Stress and strain keep building up until finally it has to release in a big earthquake. When the crust is just pulling apart, then you always have these little earthquakes. So we don't tend to get the big magnitude-seven earthquakes. Now, I say that we don't tend to, but that's not to say it's impossible”. 
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I had no idea that there were two different kinds of earthquakes. Having experienced the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 I feel a sense of relief.

Kirt has led many tours both for the Smithsonian Institution and for National Geographic Expeditions. I asked him how this came about?

It kind of fell into his lap, Kirt tells me. In 1993, when he was working on his PhD and studying a volcano in Costa Rica, one of his committee members was a volcanologist at the Smithsonian, Bill Nelson. Smithsonian was starting one of their educational tours to Costa Rica and they asked Dr. Nelson if he could lead the tour.  He was too busy, but he recommended Kirt. So Kirt led his first tour in 1993 to Costa Rica, and because it went really well they asked him to do a few more. At first he would just do a couple of tours a year, but then they started giving him more tours, even to places he didn’t know. In 1995 they were starting a tour to Iceland and asked if he could manage although he had never been there. And it went well.

“So then they started letting me go anywhere. I started doing tours to Patagonia, and just all over – to places where the landscape was the focal point of the tour. I found that I could lead tours to places I’d never been because you're basically teaching introductory geology to lay people as you travel. So, if we're going to Iceland, for example, I need to teach the basics about volcanoes. Also, teach basic plate tectonics and glaciology.  So, more than half of the teaching on these tours is basic geology so that people can understand these geologic processes that are forming the landscape”.
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“For 25 years, I would do these educational tours all over. National Geographic had a big educational tour program. For about 20-some years I did, on average, eight international tours a year. And it was great. I loved it. But I've retired from doing those big trips now. However, I had told National Geographic that if they ever do a tour to the Kimberley region of Australia, I would be back in. Well, they did call me up about a month ago and told me that they have a tour to the Kimberley! So I have agreed to do one more tour next year. It includes Northwest Australia and some of the islands of Indonesia”.
 
I asked Kirt to talk a bit about Iceland. He had been there several times.

“Yeah, Iceland is unique on our planet. There are frequent eruptions, about one every four years somewhere in Iceland. And what makes Iceland particularly interesting is the last two million years – which means young geologic time. Most of those eruptions have happened underneath ice. You get very, very odd volcanoes when you're forming a volcano underneath an ice sheet. You get these very different types of eruptions and shapes of volcanoes. The combination of fire and ice is young geology, we find really, really young geology in Iceland. And I love that”.
What’s another favorite spot on Earth?

“In South America I love Patagonia, and in particular, one part called Torres del Paine. I've probably done a dozen tours to Patagonia which is part of Chile, and it's just gorgeous. It's like South America's Yellowstone. There’s lots and lots of wildlife – guanacos, camels, pumas, rheas which are ostrich-like birds, and the condors”. 

Wait a minute. Did you say camels? In South America?

 “Yes, there's a whole branch of camels that evolved in North America and that went extinct in the Ice Age, but they migrated into South America. So when you think of llamas, they are part of the guanacos of South America. There's a whole family of camels that evolved in North and South America”.

“Sometimes geology can bring continents together, and the different flora and fauna can mix. And sometimes geology can separate landmasses. And then very different animals and plants evolve if we have a geologic separation or barrier. So yeah, that is the camel story of South America. It is really interesting because it relates to North and South America, joining together through the Panama Isthmus. That land bridge connection where Panama is today is a young connection between North and South America”.

I’m surprised again. “You mean it came out of the ocean?”

 “Yes. If we go back in time five million years ago, there was still an ocean connection between the Pacific and the Atlantic, through southern Central America. But when all these volcanoes started to come up above sea level, they got bigger and joined together. Eventually they formed a land bridge connecting North and South America that for the first time allowed animals to migrate from south to north and vice versa. If you see an armadillo or a possum in North America, they  walked up from South America”

This is so fascinating, and again, I had no idea!
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We were reaching the end of our interview, and I wanted to know what Kirt was up to these days. He had said earlier that he wasn’t doing long educational tours any more, but still offered day tours out of Santa Fe. What else is he involved with these days?  

Since 2000, Kirt’s career has involved making geological maps. Funded mostly through the US Geological Survey, that’s how he came to know the Abiquiu area so well, starting in the Jemez Mountains, moving down to the Rio Chama Valley, then moving north to El Rito, eventually to Las Tablas and Tres Piedras. Falling in love with the landscape has helped with the many years of making geological maps.

“When I’m hiking I’m trying to read the rocks and read the landscape. This adds a deeper dimension to my aesthetic appreciation. Trying to understand what all those rocks tell you – how can there have been an ocean here? Sand dunes? A river the size of the Mississippi? It’s mind boggling, but those are the environments of northern New Mexico at different times in the past. As a teacher, I enjoy taking people – non-geologists – on these trips, and I try to paint the picture that I see in my mind, from the story that I’m reading.”

This was a most fascinating conversation, and I thank Kirt for taking the time to share this wonderful information with us. I felt I was looking through 3-D glasses while I was listening, whereas normally all I see is a two-dimensional image.
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If you want to see more of his photographs, you can visit GeoMosaics.