Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Calving: Ice or Cow. . .And Is There A Connection?

          For this week's PEOTS, how about choosing between ice calving








      or cow (or moose or seal or whale) calving?




      Hmmmm. Let's go with ice calving. Check out this largest filmed ice calving event at the Ilulissat Glacier in Greenland. 

      Ice calving, also known as glacier calving or iceberg calving, is the breaking off of chunks of ice at the edge of a glacier, iceberg, ice shelf, or crevasse. The ice that breaks away is classified as an iceberg, but may also be called a growler or bergy bit.




     Growlers are smaller pieces of ice, generally rising less than a meter above water level, that make a growling animal sound as they move in the ocean. Bergy bits are mini icebergs that rise up to 4-5 meters above the water level. 

        


         Ice calving has gotten lots of attention lately as a result of global warming (See the 2014 documentary Ice Chasing).

        And perhaps watch it with this kind of beer growler:



       Do you suppose there's any connection between the sound of cows birthing and the sound of ice calving (the latter term first originated in Denmark in 1837), growlers and all?




Enjoy that ice calving blue; looking forward to your insights,


Steph

40 comments:

  1. I think you meant to say, "the largest ice calving event before this week in Boston"....

    Anyway, I'm glad you didn't go with this elephant calving video. Fascinating, but kinda gross.

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    1. So true about Boston. My friend is still stuck there, bemoaning our 70 degree weather.

      Held my breath for that baby elephant to take hers. Nature knows what to do. We had a cat who had 5 kittens: 4 lived but one was born with just a head. Mom used that extra protein! Knowing what to do seemed first nature to her.

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    2. My son and his wife have over 3 feet of snow on their balcony in Cambridge. I wonder if they're rethinking their move from Palo Alto?

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    3. I imagine so. Though I imagine they are glad to be closer to family. Quite a month! My friend is not yet back; they are in Quincy.

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    4. Update: At long last, friends have returned from Quinzee, vowing to not go again, at least in the winter.

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  2. Calving Coolage?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkSfPxk_xKY

    I hope those tangential, free-associative remarks don't play hob with the serious nature of this blog.

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    1. Always great to hear the elephant walk and see Mancini.

      Serious nature?

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  3. Every time I patronize Mancini's, my favorite sports bar, to watch "the big game" (or smaller baby-elephant {or eliphino} game), I always order a growler of craft beer to wash down my basket of bergy bits.

    (As I read this week's PEOTS blog, I experienced an Ian Fleming/"shaken, not stirred" moment upon encountering the beer growler photo... not to be "conflated" with these bear growler photos.)

    (Thanks to Brian Williams, now 15 percent of the populace {instead of the previous 10 percent} now know the meaning of "conflate.")

    LegoStomachNowGrowling

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    1. I used to be proflate...

      Is there lots of proflagration of growlers in your neck of the woods?

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    2. More of a proflagration of bear growlers than beer growlers, I fear.

      General Patton Leatherneck sensed that the troops under his command seemed to be lacking in their patriotic fervor. So he gave an order that before his soldiers could go out and perform their field exercises each morning each was to be issued, along with MRIs (K-rations) and canteens, a small American flag to wave during the course of their duties.

      His corporals, lieutenants and sergeants only grudgingly carried out this frivolous order. Some even voiced their feelings to Gen. Leatherneck.

      But he did not waver… he was steadfast in his proflagration.

      LegoVexedWithVexillophobia

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    3. Told you I play volleyball.

      Rim shot, Lego!

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    4. Yes, Steph, you are an excellent setter, but you have also been known to spike more than your share across the net to make your points.

      When I played hoops, nothing-but-net was a rarity for me, rim shots were more common, but airballs were were the norm.

      LegoSwishless

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    5. Just glad you didn't mention deflated balls, Lego. And thanks for your spike comment.

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  4. Getting back to Steph's "Nature knows what to do" comment above. At the risk of sounding like Mitt Romney, People are Nature, too, my friend. But we have undoubtedly lost much of the instinctive knowledge that every other animal depends on. I mean, I can navigate cyberspace and perform other clever tricks with the best of them, but unlike that elephant, if I didn't review my OB/GYN notes, I'd be lost in a delivery room. And something as basic to survival as finding lunch on the savannah like those 2001 man-apes? Forget it, I'd starve. When in our evolution did this happen? Did the development of language and culture rewire or overwrite the parts of the brain that held all the instinctive stuff? Or was that development spurred because we were instinct deficient? I'm reminded of Otto Preminger's excuse for his poor early American films: he'd forgotten Hungarian but hadn't yet learned English. How did we survive?

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    1. Such an interesting conundrum, jan --pondering instinct. I would put my thoughts toward language development at first blush but, let me ponder a bit more.

      I do think I'd know to whack that baby though.

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    2. Um, to get it to breathe right after birth. . .(Just in case you haven't watched the video and are trying to follow this thread.)

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    3. Better than "A dingo's got my baby!" I suppose.

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  5. Replies
    1. You can't fool me. That's not a photo of a real penguin. The sweater looks real though.

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    2. Are you saying that ABC and Good Morning America are lying, too? Brian Williams and Stephen Colbert are gone, Jon Stewart's on the way out. Who's left to trust?

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    3. I know! And now, Bob Simon of CBS gone also. A strange time in broadcast journalism/commentary.

      The penguins do look unreal. And how did they get them all lined up to pose. Thinking there had to be some photoshopping of some sort involved. . .

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    4. ... and don't ask "What does the Fox say?"!

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  6. Replies
    1. Couldn't download this for some reason. Will try an internet search and see what turns up.

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    2. Much better. Kind of hokey but I like it.

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  7. Replies
    1. Thanks, jan. I did see this article. Smith's PR folks are quite good at getting the word out about Smithies.

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  8. Some of these are interesting, some are likely fakes. Enjoy the images!

    Earth Images

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    1. I see no reason to think they're fakes. Man-made artifices, and an accident of timing in the case of the jetliner over Russel Square. But art intended for viewing only on Google Maps/Earth, etc, is getting pretty commonplace.

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    2. They recently painted big I-25 signs right on the highway. Figured that was a nod to Google Maps/Earth. Thinking of what kind of message I can put in my garden this year ;-).

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    3. I've seen that near exits on Interstates here, too. Always assumed they were a backup for overhead signs indicating which lanes were for which roads, rather than for aerial viewing. Many small, non-tower airports have the name of the airport and common traffic advisory frequency painted on a taxiway, which are intended for reading from the air.

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    4. These were in the middle of I-25, not near an exit, and had fancy badges. I know Route 66 has/had many of them.

      We wouldn't see the badges today though. Our first snowy day in a long while. I am not complaining as we need some moisture.

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    5. Yes, those look quite familiar. The airport road signage is quite clear.

      Dangerous to start looking around though. A half hour later. . .

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  9. That is surprising. I wonder if an alum is applying pressure? Probably related to the ongoing cyberwarfare between Iran and the West. I don't think I ever heard of Kaspersky lab until the past few months, but now they're on the fron page of the Times, an NPR sponsor, and a major player in an interesting book I read last month, Countdown to Zero Day.

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  10. Pretty interesting that another department at UMass is welcoming students from Iran.

    Kaspersky Lab has popped up often of late in my readings too. Adding the book you mentioned to my list.

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  11. New post on "From Microscopic Kaolinite Booklets to Macroscopic Sequence Stratigraphy in the Book Cliffs of Colorado and Utah" is up.

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