Digression – Science Non-fiction good reads

Still working on the Brigus cross-section which I have nicknamed “the beast” because of its size and challenges but I look forward to the challenges it brings me.  It’s unlike anything I have done so far.

I am hoping to get it finished soon.  I have been down with a bad cold all week so not getting much painting done, haven’t been to work either. 

Even though my full-time job limits my painting time I do enjoy working at the QEII Library.  I have easy access to the majority of Howley’s papers as well as inspiring geological maps and reports from all over Newfoundland and the world.  I love going to the 4^th floor to browse the QE section (in Library of Congress terms, these are the classification letters for the subject of geology) and I’ve found some great reading up there.

•           The Dating Game, the story of Arthur Holmes who championed the plate tectonic theory of Wegner.  His book, the Principles of Geology published in 1944 was recognized as the most concise work of its day and was used as a text book in universities, I have a second edition. 
•          The Map that Changed the World, a biography of William Smith who created the first geological map of Great Britain in the early 1800’s.
•          The Man Who Found Time, the story of James Hutton a Scottish farmer and trained doctor who, in the late 1700s, recognized that the Earth was much older than was first believed and was created by forces of nature not the hand of God.

The Library holds some volumes of Hutton’s Theory of the Earth.  I’ve been reading volume III this week. In 1787 he spent a period of time studying the rocks of Arran Island in the south west of Scotland and I was intrigued by his descriptions about how the island was formed.  Here’s a few quotes, completely void of jargon and a little naïve but it was 1787 after all, groundbreaking and controversial stuff for that time!

            “No idea can be formed of the shape of this island, when first proceeding from the bowels of the earth or bottom of the sea.  Neither is it possible to say how much has been already worn away from the tops of the granite mountains…”

            “We are thus led to believe that the island of Arran and the shire of Ayr had been  raised from the bottom of the sea at the same time, or in the operation of the same causes ; and that therefore these two coasts were once continuous land, which was afterwards preyed upon by the water, and disjoined by the sea.”

            “…that all those valleys which intervene between those decaying mountains had been hollowed out of the solid rocks by the hands of Nature operating for the purpose of this world, or in the course of time, by causes which continue to produce the same effect.”

Back to the studio…

Field book, 1870, Dantzic Cove, August 10: “Here, all is confusion…”

August 10, I completed the journey to Little Dantzic Cove on the Burin Peninsula and was not disappointed in the formations found according to Howley’s description.

 The gravel road down to the shore south of Little Dantzic Cove wasn’t too bad, we drove part way down and found a spot where we were able to get off the road.  We were about a quarter mile walk from the water where we picked up an ATV trail which hugged the coast, this took us to Little Dantzic Cove.

 My mother, son and loyal dog, Jake were with me.  I read in some of his field books that Howley did take his older sons Richard and William on some of his west coast surveys and one of his dogs, Flockko, accompanied him on some excursions in the interior but I don’t think he ever took his mother!!

We had to hike to the far end of the beach because the formation I was looking for was on the cliffs north of the beach.  I went to look for the formations alone, it was a hot day and all hands were pretty much done in by the time we got to the cove.  I was too nervous about having the dog up on the cliffs so he had to stay behind too.

The white quartzite that “runs underneath the cove” wasn’t hard to spot.  It was snow white on top, with some yellow-brownish weathering and it was everywhere on the north end of the cove. 

  I kept walking northwards along the edge until I spotted what looked like many colours and types of rock in a cliff face below me. Howley opens his description of the area as “here all was confusion”.  I had to climb down a small gully in order to get down to the shoreline.  It wasn’t easy, the rocks were slippery but I felt I had found a “great deal of disturbance”. 

His words were leaping out of the rocks here, I seen what he described as “rocks that appear to be burnt” and the “bed of limestone that is thrown up and folded over sharply in one place”.

The whole atmosphere there also seemed to be one of confusion for me.  I felt it was a lot to take in, this massive, contorted mess of colour and texture.  Huge black rain clouds began to form in the sky and I didn’t want to get into any precarious spots, there was no beach, only chunks of rock at the water’s edge.  I did a sketch, took plenty of pictures and left satisfied that I was in Howley's footsteps once again.

Listening

My west-facing studio is boiling hot in the evening.  Not much painting getting done during the week but I still have the weekend mornings which are pretty pleasant.  I’m finding this piece not flowing as well as the previous.  There’s a bit of distance in this structure and I have to resist the urge to get too detailed.  I just want to get in there with my detail brush and bring out every surface.

This chunk of rock is huge!  The picture below, using my Mother for scale, shows the immensity of this beautiful striped cliff face.

I love these fascinating finds. Everything I have found in Howley’s footsteps has opened my eyes to the colour and texture of rocks and I realize I haven’t really seen the rock before.  Now I see so much in every rock face that I encounter.  In one of the Earth Science courses I’ve taken the professor, in the first lecture of the semester said “Rocks speak to us if you know how to listen.”  I am learning how with each journey.

Coming up

After six months, the Change Islands peculiar red and green shale is finished!  It is the largest one of the series so far, 30 x 50 inches.  I have posted some pictures of a 7 inch square section to show the level of detail that has gone into the painting.

Coming up, I will be starting the Brigus lighthouse cross-section piece, which is bigger, 36 x 60.  This summer I will be travelling to Dantzic Cove on the Burin Peninsula to look at a cross-section along the shore which has limestone described by Howley in his 1870 fieldbook as “caught up and twisted curiously amongst the overlying rocks” and also Bellevue Beach on the isthumus of Avalon where there are “yellow and green rocks all jumbled together” (1869).

Can't wait to find both of these structures!