Deep Magma Reservoir Below Mt Rainier

What if... what if I WANT an info dump???

Then you're my favorite and I will dump SO much info on natrocarbonatite lava

No one knows for sure why or how this type of lava forms. Oldoinyo Lengai is the only volcano on earth that actively erupts it currently, and Oldoinyo Lengai hasn't been extensively studied.

The factor that causes lava to be viscous (thick, and sticky) is its silica content. Rhyolitic magmas, like those in Washington, have around 70 weight % silica. Basaltic magmas, like the volcanoes in Hawai'i, are around 45 wt% silica. Natrocarbonatite lava is less than 3% silica. Its flow rate is close to water, so it flows faster than you can outrun.

It's also a LOT less hot than other lavas. Most lavas are from 700-1200 degrees C (basaltic lavas in the higher range, rhyolitic lavas in the lower), but natrocarbonatite is around 500-600 degrees C. It's cool enough that you won't immediately die if you fall into it (you'll be hospitalized for months, as one man who fell into it was, but it's survivable). It's so cool that you can't see it glow in daylight.

It flows black and cools white! This is because of its content of the minerals nyerereite and gregoryite, which are unstable and break down quickly when exposed to humidity.

Basically it's cool as fuck literally and figuratively and I'm obsessed with it

Faramir: How tall are you?

Pippin: Height is a social construct.

Blue tit/blåmes.

Glendonite star fossil

This fossil is not of an animal, but a mineral. When sea water temperature at the seafloor drops below ~4°C/39°F a carbonate mineral called ikaite will start to precipitate and grow forming bizarre shapes. Even though the original mineral will dissolve once it is buried, other diagenetic minerals will replace its form, making a glendonite.

Gledonite/Ikaite and its specific forming conditions allow geologist to approximate climatic conditions for the time period captured by the rocks in which this mineral is found.

Thanks to the flat exposure on the rock platform, we can appreciate this nature’s creativity.

Example from the south coast NSW, Australia.

In the light of the recent events, I think we should take a moment to appreciate this guy even more

Let’s start with Silmarillion.

If this book would be turned into a tv series, a lot of people would be pissed. Because many characters die, including Fëanor who is introduced as main character. The number of major characters in the Silmarillion who meet their tragic end is greater than the number of major characters in AS0IAF who meet their end. Silmarillion is an ongoing tale of blood, torture, gruesome deaths, painful deaths, unbreakable dooms, betrayal, backstabbing, more torture and gruesome deaths. When I first read Silm, I was still thinking about Tolkien as that jolly old man who wrote Bilbo. I was shocked.

Yet. Tolkien still knew how to touch and highlight themes such as hope and love and how these two help the character overcome their fears and struggles and get through the dark times they’re living in. Silmarillion is a story about hope.

The Hobbit

Yes, that funny little adventure with that funny little man who meets trolls and goblins and Elves and dwarves and finds a magic ring. Should I remind you that that Dwarf whose goal was to reclaim his homeland and his crown died? Yes, he died. But as tragic as it was, his death made sense. He let his greed for gold overwhelm him. He almost killed Bilbo because of it. This is how Tolkien punished his moment of weakness. But it made sense. I cried when Thorin bade farewell to Bilbo, I cry again when I see it in the movie, but this….makes sense. Compelling arc? Tolkien knows how to write it. Two certain assholes don’t.

And now, The Lord of The Rings

Should….we….remind…you….that jolly old Tolkien….named its magnum opus…after the….you know?…the villain?

Tolkien wrote about very bad people and wrote about very dark times and throughout the trilogy you have this constant feeling of hopelessless in front of Sauron’s almost allmight. Yet:

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

Tolkien deserve all the praise for

Touching the importance of love, and not the romantic love (because the romance is more hinted and not even a secondary love), But the love between friends, the support which rekindles your hope, and ignites your courage, the courage to fight for your friends and for a better love, the love for your world and your wish to make it better.

Writing female characters properly!!!!! The product of his age as he was, he goddamn knew how to write women who are both feminine and strong, who also fight in battle or rule the household, women who have power and they are acknowledged as such. The most prayed-to godess is a godess, Varda, a woman. Galadriel and Melian are women who are held in more reverance than their male partners. Eowyn is strong both at home, when she is the beacon of hope for her people, and on the battlefield, when she kills the FUCKING Witch King of Angmar (and this was FORSHADOWED btw). Also, no focus on male gaze and no objectifying. The romance is written as it should be written - a union of the soul, more than anything. Also, If you are looking for ace/demi rep, here is the place. This is how I love Tolkien so much and I didn’t know why I identified so much with how he wrote romance back when I first read it (since I only was aware of my sexuality later). Also also, he wrote friendship between men, friendship that became love, love between comrades, forced to fight and suffer together. But they can also be read as romance. Look me in the eyes and tell me that Gimli and Legolas cannot be read as romance. They can! You can interpret them as such and not be wrong! And this sort of love is valued above everything!!!!

Aragorn struggles for Almost. 70. Years to reclaim his ancestor’s throne and he proves his worth fighting and almost sacrificing himself in the War. But after Sauron is defeated, the people accept them as king. You know? Because he saved them from destruction? Because he almost sacrificed him for them?

And last, but not the least, for writing a real bittersweet ending. Frodo, the main character, is so broken after fulfilling his quest, that he leaves Middle-Earth for Valinor, the earthly paradise, which is a symbolism of death

“….I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them. But you are my heir: all that I had and might have had I leave to you. And also you have Rose, and Elanor; and Frodo-lad will come, and Rosie-lass, and Merry, and Goldilocks, and Pippin; and perhaps more that I cannot see. Your hands and your wits will be needed everywhere. You will be the Mayor, of course, as long as you want to be, and the most famous gardener in history; and you will read things out of the Red Book, and keep alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger, and so love their beloved land all the more. And that will keep you as busy and as happy as anyone can be, as long as your part in the Story goes on.”

“How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand… there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.”

So, dear shitty writers who compare your work with Tolkien’s (and with the movies; Because with all their faults, the movies, in the end, did highlight Tolkien’s message: hope):

If you still think of your work as being on par with Tolkien’s, you haven’t been paying attention.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien aka Jirt (rhymes with “dirt”) is the only fantasy king I acknowledge.

Wind-induced ripple bedform  with an obstacle (grass at the center) that resulted in shadow-like impressions by flow disturbance.  Wind direction from lower left to upper right.  On the coastal dunes along the shore of Niigata city.

風による堆積物の模様と草の障害物による流れの乱れの痕跡

dude seeing these Mega high quality images of the surface of mars that we now have has me fucked up. Like. Mars is a place. mars is a real actual place where one could hypothetically stand. It is a physical place in the universe. ITS JUST OUT THERE LOOKING LIKE UH IDK A REGULAR OLD DESERT WITH LOTS OF ROCKS BUT ITS A WHOLE OTHER PLANET? 

Marius the acrobat ヽ(•‿•)ノ