May 8, 1902: La Pelée

"My Dear Sister: This morning the whole population of the city is on the alert and every eye is directed toward Mont Pelee, an extinct volcano. Everybody is afraid that the volcano has taken into its heart to burst forth and destroy the whole island."

Mrs. Thomas T. Prentis, wife of the United States Consul at St. Pierre, to her sister in Melrose (Boston). After May 8, rescuers would find the charred corpses of both the consul and his wife, sitting in chairs in front of a window that faced Pelée. The bodies of their children would never be found.

Despite recognized as volcano, Mount Pelée, - the bald headed mountain - owning possibly its name to the devastation of an eruption occurred in 1635 before the European colonization, on the island of Martinique was considered extinct since an eruption in 1767 that killed more than 16.000 people living on its slope. In 1856 the mountain however gave signs of activity with minor eruptions of steam and single mudflows descending the slopes, however the rich city of St. Pierre was not affected.

Fig.1. A relief map of Mount Pelée showing the area affected by the eruptions of 8 May and 3 August, 1902, after Lacrox 1904. Note on the summit of the volcano two depressions - L´Etang Sec, a temporary lake, and the Lac de Palmistes.

In April 1902 the old father - as the mountain was referred by the locals- awoke again with violent explosions and on the summit a depression became filed with boiling water - the L'Etang Sec (the dry lake). End of April ash fall on St. Pierre were reported by the local newspaper "Les Colonies":

"The rain of ashes never ceases. At about half-past nine the sun shone forth timidly. The passing of carriages in the streets is no longer heard. The wheels are muffled [in the ashes]. Puffs of wind sweep the ashes from the roofs and awnings, and blow them into rooms of which the windows have imprudently been left open."

The population of St. Pierre became anxious, many of the residents left the city, but they became immediately replaced by refugees from the area surrounding the volcano and many non-residents coming to town for the election of the new island governor on May 10.

On May 5, heavy rain occurred and the dam holding back the boiling water of L´Etang Sec collapsed, a gigantic mudflow rushed down the slopes of Pelée and buried completely a sugar mill on the base of the mountain, 150 people were killed, the waves generated in the sea reached even the harbour of St. Pierre - people begun to panic.
In an effort to tranquillize the public and hold the voters in the city the French governor appointed a commission to investigate the danger from the volcano. "Les Colonies" stated:

"[Professor Landes of the Lycée concludes that] Mt. Pelée presents no more danger to the inhabitants of Saint Pierre than does Vesuvius to those of Naples."

Fig. 2. The newspaper "Les Colonies" May 7, 1902 with the statement that La Pelée "presents no danger", 24 hours later all journalists and editor were dead.

Ironically the Italian Marino Leboffe, Capitan of the freighter Orsolina anchoring in the harbour, complained on May 2, to the local authorities:

"I know nothing about Mount Pelée, but if Vesuvius were looking the way your volcano looks this morning, I'd get out of Naples."

On May 7, the volcano La Soufriére on the island of St. Vincent, 145 km distant, exploded, people hoped that the violent eruption released enough pressure of the earth to prevent the eruption of old father, the residents settled down.

May 8, would became a sunny day, a column of steam was rising above the old father, but otherwise the activity of the volcano seemed unchanged.
At 7:50 in the morning the Pelée blew itself to pieces. For hours after the four explosions the city burned, and for days it was unapproachable by the great heat emanating from the ruins.
Estimated 28.000 to 40.000 people died, only three survivors were reported. The young shoemaker Léon Compère-Léandre (1874-1936) escaped from the border of St. Pierre into the village of Fonds-Saint-Denis, the girl Havivra Da Ifrile tried to escape to a cave near the coast and was washed onto the sea, where she was rescued days later. To Da Ifrile we owe one or the rare eyewitnesses accounts of the eruption:

"But before I got there, I looked back-and the whole side of the mountain which was near the town seemed to open and boil down on the screaming people. I was burned a good deal by the stones and ashes that came flying about the boat, but I got to the cave,…"

One of the most well-know survivor was the 25-year-old stevedore Louis-Auguste Cyparis (1875-1929), who survived in his small prison cell and became known as the "Samson of St. Pierre" in the Barnum & Bailey Circus where he worked and told his story after his rescue.

Fig.3. The "Samson of St. Pierre".

Fig.4. and 5. Photograph of St. Pierre, Martinique, in the 19th century long before the eruption, and photograph by Angelo Heilprin of St. Pierre after the eruption of Mount Pelée on May 8, 1902. The monstrous blast and subsequent pyroclastic flows wiped out the entire city, only four locals survived this day of the final eruption, one was staying outside the city, the other three escaped or survived by mere chance.

On May 20, Pelée exploded again investing the ruins of the city and killing 2.000 rescuers, engineers, and mariners bringing relief supplies to the island.

The devastation experienced in St. Pierre was unexplainable at the time when volcanology was still regarded only as a minor branch of geology. However May 21, the first scientists arrived to the island to study the volcano. They noted the signs of an unknown and deadly phenomenon - the "nueé ardente" or pyroclastic flows, a dense "cloud" of ash, hot gases, fragments of magma and superheated steam moving downhill generated by the collapse of volcanic domes.

Fig.6. Pyroclastic flows December 16, 1902 at La Pelée documented by Lacroix 1904. Lacroux will propose the first modern classification of volcanic activity - one explosive type will be known as Pelean type.

This particular kind of eruption was first studied at Pelée and gave since then its name to this kind of volcanic activity: the Pelean type is common on convergent plate margins and characterized by its explosive character and dangerous pyroclastic density currents.

Fig.7. From October 1902 to September 1903 (when it collapsed) a 300m high obelisk like dome of lava grow from the crater of L´Etang Sec, the American scientist Angel Heilprin noted that is seemed as if ". . . nature's monument dedicated to the 30,000 dead who lay in the silent city below."

Bibliography:

DAVIS, L. (2008): Natural Disasters. Facts on File Sience Library. Infobase Publishing: 464
HEILPRIN, A.(1903): Mont Pelée and the Tragedy of Martinique. J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and London: 335.
LACROIX, A. (1904) : La Montagne Pelée et ses éruptions. Masson et Cie, Paris.
MORRIS, C. (2006): The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire. Librivox.

Online Resources:

ALEAN, J. ; CARNIEL, R. & FULLE, M. (15.05.2007): La Montagne Pelée und Saint Pierre - September 2005. (Accessed 08.05.2011)
Cerimes (01.01.1974): Eruption de la montagne Pelée - 8 mai 1902. (Accessed 08.05.2011)

The plausibility of the geology of Char

Char is (according to StarCraft Wiki) a planet orbiting a binary star-system in the Koprulu sector. Its dimensions are comparable to earth with a diameter slightly smaller of 10.521 km to the 12.756 km of earth, gravity is also comparable with 91% of earth. Char possess two small moons with a diameter under 1.000 km named Eris and Ate in a planet-near orbit.

Fig.1. Char as imagined by jahim-myess 2009 ©

The surface is dominated entirely by a volcanic landscape, according to the sparse information recovered from a geological survey by the Confederacy and the Kel-Morian Combine more than 52 calderas, 18 mountain ranges with active volcanoes, 38 lava-lakes and 5 lava-oceans of varying extent were recognized, small temporally pockets of liquid water were also spotted on the surface, feed probably by the rare rain events. The remaining large plains are covered with dark lava and ash-layers.
Thermal scans of the surface showed temperatures ranging from 48°C to 800°C - the last values reached in large pyroclastic flows travelling down from the volcanoes.
The atmosphere consists mainly of oxygen with great amounts of sulphur and ash derived from the volcanic exhalations, water vapour is present but most of the time in very small quantities - only periodically and locally clouds supersaturated of water vapour form and rain occurs.
Despite the hostile environment and the resemblances to hell the planet was soon colonized to gain access to his rich mineral deposits, especially heavy metals - Char is one of the richest resource nodes in the sector and was hotly contested by the Terrans, the Protoss and finally the Zerg.
From all the colonized planets Char is characterized by a quite unique tectonic, intense phases of tectonic storms and magmatic activity occur periodically, melting entire areas of the surface and sparing only temporary islands that drift like a raft on an immense ocean of fire.

According to the videogame StarCraft this is the fictive description of one of the last battlefields in a future war between three alien races, however science-fiction stories tend to be at last inspired by real science - so how plausible is such a planet?

Until 1995, with the first detection of an exosolar planet in the 51 Pegasi system, many speculation were proposed about the existence of planets or even inhabited worlds orbiting other stars. Most time these worlds resembled surprisingly earth - with landscapes that would not be to unfamiliar to us and only the advent of space probes in the 20th century showed us that the exotic worlds can possess an exotic landscape with a own exogeology.

With its pronounced eccentric orbit Char is apparently a common example in space - research showed that exoplanets can have a wide range of eccentricities and that our solar system is quite unusual with it's close to circular orbits. The research confirmed also that planets can form and persist in such gravitationally and dynamically active systems that are multiple star systems, 25% of the discovered planets until today occur in a binary-planetary system with two stars.
Two types of binary-planetary systems can be distinguished - the planet can be bound by the gravitation of just one star (S-Typ Orbit) or orbit the mass centre of both the star-partners (P-Typ Orbit). Models show that probably only planets orbiting the primary star have dynamically stable orbits for long periods - so these planets are better suited to host a stable environment and support life.
Char apparently possess a typical P-Typ Orbit and hosted no primary life forms; the only recent signs of life found on the burned surface are introduced neobiota by humans (ragnasaurs, some mushroom-like fungi and small rodents) and 10 billions of Zergs.

In the videogame two main geomorphologic units can be distinguished on the surface of Char:

-UNIT 1: Extended smooth plains of dark rocks forming the low- and the highlands, only occasionally broken open by lava-lakes, seem to be the results of episodic large scale effusion of very fluid lava, in outcrops various superimposed layers are recognizable, comparable to the landscape formed by the terrestrial Deccan traps.

Fig.2. Lava-lake on Char with steep cliffs showing layered mafic rocks of unit 1, SCV for scale, note also the degassing of volcanic gases in a vespene geyser field - a resource unknown on earth.

-UNIT 2: The second unit composed also of dark (mafic?) rocks is characterized by a wrinkled aspect, randomly distributed circular depressions and large crystals-like features are recognizable. This unit can be found only on the lowlands of the first unit.

Fig.3. Contact of unit 1 to unit 2, SCV for scale, in the upper corner creep of the Zerg-infestation on Char is recognizable.

The circular depressions are an interesting detail, three possible explanations are possible - the crater-like features could be maars (proposed by reynardo), formed by the explosive reaction between groundwater and magma, they could be craters of a more explosive volcanism (signs of a chance in the chemistry of the magma?) or finally impact craters, implying that these areas are older than the surrounding smooth plains (if we assume that the Char systems followed a similar evolution to our solar system, where impacts decreased over geologic time).
The cartoonish crystal-like features could be formed only by slow crystallization of circulating fluids or cooling magma, and subsequently liberated by erosion from the surrounding lava sheets (or crystallised dikes as proposed by reynardo). The largest crystals found on earth formed underground in very peculiar conditions over millions of years - in a cave precipitating from an aqueous solution in the mine of Naica or in pegmatite intrusions - time that due the tectonic activity of Char apparently is not available.
Also the erosion on Char, with little water in the atmosphere, should be practically inexistent or very slow.

The unusual planetary tectonics of Char is explained in the videogame by its eccentric orbit and varying gravitational pull of the two stars on the planet - the kinetic energy is transformed by friction in heat, melting the entire crust when Char approaches its two suns.
In our solar system there is an example that maybe inspired this idea. Io is one of the larger moon of the gas giant Jupiter, and the most active body in the solar system. Io is too small to produce or store enough heat inside, the energy to feed the intense volcanism, based on sulphur (melt temperature 115°C) , is provided by tidal heating on the slightly eccentrically orbit around Jupiter. However this orbit is stabilized only by the presence of the other moons of Jupiter, without them Io would approach a circular orbit and soon cool down.
That Char would remain or survive long enough on such an extreme orbit that produces as much energy to melt mafic rocks (with melt temperature of over 1.000°C) is therefore doubtful.

There could be however a second model to explain the tectonics of Char.
Venus possess a similar diameter (12.104 km) and bulk density to earth, also the heat generated inside the two planets should be similar. On earth this energy is released by upwelling and ascending currents of the mantle, the creeping material crashes the outermost insolating crust and heat is dissipated along convergent and divergent plate boundaries.
Signs of strain like mountain belts, thrust systems and rifts are mostly concentrated at these boundaries. The surface of Venus is in contrast surprisingly smooth, there are less than 1.000 craters known randomly distributed and 80% of the topography consist of plains, elevations are concentrated in two large "bumps" - Ishtar and Aphrodite-Terra.

Fig.3. Simplified version of the topographic map provided by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter released in 1980 by NASA.

There are however unique tectonic landforms and terrains on Venus, divided into five classes: plains, volcanic rises, crustal plateaus, tesserae, coronae, and chasmata - the last three features are associated with strain on Venus crust: tesserae are areas of ridges or fractures (resembling the unit 2 on Char), coronae are circular to elliptical altitudes and chasmate are large graben-like structures.
These features resemble nothing on earth and it is therefore improbable that Venus release its inner heat in the same manner as earth trough plate boundaries.

Fig.4. Tessera terrain in Ovda Regio. Broad ridges, assumed to be open folds, trend ENE. The ridges are cut by grabens trending NNW, and they are embayed by radar-dark material that fills topographic lows. The "eye-shaped" pattern in the western part of the image suggests that some of the deformation of this tessera terrain was ductile. G = grabens; R = broad ridges(after WATTERS & SCHULTZ 2010).

According to one model for Venus, the stagnant-lid model, the lithosphere insulates the mantle until the growing heat reaches the melting temperature of the crust, causing increased volcanism and possibly reshaping the entire crust. This model would also explain the lack of impact craters (like on unit 1 on Char) of the surface - the Venusian crust was apparently mostly reshaped by an intense volcanism 300 to 500 million years ago.
And there is the problem with this model to apply it on Char - the periodic partial melting of the crust would occur in geologic periods, not so often as proposed in the videogame.

Char is a imaginary world, however the discoveries on the planets of our solar system and the discovery of exoplantes shows that there are exotic worlds with their own exotic geology (at least for geo-based -logists).

Bibliography:

MASON; J.W. (2008): Exoplanets Detection, Formation, Properties, Habitability. Springer: 314
WATTERS, T.R. & SCHULTZ, R.A. (2010): Planetary Tectonics. Cambridge University Press: 518

Online Resources:

HAMILTON, C.J. (2002): Planetscapes. (Accessed 05.05.2011)
USGS (05.08.2003): Solar System Geology - Venus. (Accessed 05.05.2011)
USGS (05.11.2010): Maps of Venus Published by the U.S. Geological Survey. (Accessed 05.05.2011)

May 5, 1925: Inherit the Wind

On May 5, 1925, high school science teacher John T. Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in one of Tennessee's public schools. Scopes had agreed to act as defendant in a case intended to test Tennessee's new law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in its public schools. On May 4, the day before Scopes's arrest, the Chatanooga Times had run an ad in which the American Civil Liberties Union offered to pay the legal fees of a Tennessee teacher who was willing to act as a defendant in a test case. Several Dayton residents hatched a plot at a local drugstore. They hoped that a trial of this type would bring much needed publicity to the tiny town of Dayton (by NCSE).

Dr. Faust and his Fossil Collection

"When I consider the efforts I made in this subject, no mountain was to high, no well to deep, no gallery to narrow and no cavern to puzzling."

The German advocate, author, poet, politician and artist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was also strongly interested in natural sciences and in his lifetime investigated various geological and paleontological phenomena.
One of the most extensively studied object of interest laid just before his home, or better said under it. In 1775, Goethe, already a highly regarded author, was invited to the court of Duke Carl August in the city of Weimar, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Goethe became an enthusiastic collector of mineralogical, paleontological and geological curiosities and in the years 1780 to 1832 he collected, exchanged and purchased more than 18.000 rocks, minerals and fossils. The fossils alone comprise 718 specimens; most notable in this collection are samples of the quaternary travertine of Weimar and surrounding area, with over 100 specimens of a large variety of plant and animal fossils.
The underground of Weimar consists of Mesozoic limestone; the groundwater is therefore supersaturated of calcium carbonate and springs and rivers are often surrounded by deposits of calcareous sinter or travertine. During warm periods in the Quaternary the deposition of travertine was even stronger than today, many bones or remains of animals and plants became embedded and conserved in this rock.

The most remarkable fossils recovered are the fragments of tusks and molars of the interglacial woodland elephant Palaeloxodon antiquus, fragments of the jawbone and teeth of the woolly rhinoceros Dicerorhinus kirchbergensis, bones and teeth of the ice age bison Bison priscus mediator, teeth from a horse species (Equus taubachensis), bones of the brown bear (Ursus arctos) and antler fragments of red deer (Cervus elaphus). A very exceptionally fossil is a "petrified" egg from a crane (Grus grus).

Fig.1. Original specimen from the collection of Goethe of a fragment of jawbone with a single tooth of Cervus elaphus.

Fig.2. Fragment of jawbone with a single tooth of Stephanorhinus (Dicerorhinus) kirchbergensis.

Fig.3. Equus sp. teeth.

Goethe dealt with the idea to publish his geologic and paleontological observations and on 8, January 1819 he contacted the editor and geologist Carl Caesar von Leonhard (1779-1862):

"We discovered in the vicinity of Weimar exquisite fossil bones: a half jawbone with teeth's, similar to the Palaeotherium, with remains of elephants, deer, horse and other animals that can be found together."

However due to various political offices and duties that Goethe occupied he never managed to finish this publication.
Some years later, in 1821, the amateur geologist Christien Kieferstein (1784-1866) contacted Goethe asking about information about the outcrops of the particular rock found in the city of Weimar. However Goethe at the time was not able or willing to provide the requested information and only two years later, after contacting the son of Goethe - August Goethe - Kieferstein finally received a stratigraphic description and some samples of the travertine.

August Goethe had visited the "tuffaceous caves at the city limits", during the 8, and 11, August 1823, where he "collected samples and described exactly the found layers and corresponding rocks - sending the notes the very same day to Kieferstein." In September his father returned to Weimar after a short business trip and now together they returned to the quarry and corrected some details in the previously drawn stratigraphic column.
August intended to publish all these observations, but unfortunately his early death in the year 1830 prevented this intention.

The handwritten notes and sketches are conserved today at the Goethe and Schiller archive in Weimar, they were used in the 20th century for the stratigraphic correlation between modern drill campaigns and old, today lost, quarry outcrops, so more than 180 years later parts of the geological work of Goethe was published .

Fig.4. "Stratigraphic column of a quarry, circa 10 minutes south of Weimar and just right of lake Chau after Belvedere", redrawn after Goethe & Goethe 1823 (from STEINER 1996): Symbology according to the original notes of Goethe: 01. Numbering of layers 02. Plant imprints (mostly stems) 03. Molluscs and mammalian remains in travertine 04. Compact travertine layers 05. Brittle travertine layers 06. Chara and bryophyte travertine 07. Mammalian remains 08. Molluscs 09. Plant stems 10. Silt 11. Sand 12. Solifluction horizon with pebbles 13. Recent soil.

Fig.5. The generalized stratygraphy of the travertine of Weimar-Ehringsdorf after modern considerations:
The base of the succession is composed of a cemented conglomerate with crystalline and carbonate pebbles. These coarse river deposits are overlain by brownish to yellowish stratified silt and sand layers, interpreted as alluvial deposits. Then follows the "lower travertine", an alternation of yellow compact and brittle travertine - the lower part of the Eemian Ehringsdorf-formation.
The lower travertine is separated from the upper by the so called "Pariser", the name of this layer derives from the description by the botanist Dr. Herbst in 1860 as "Poröser Kalktuff", meaning simply "porous calc tuff". In the quarry it is recognizable as brown, loamy stratum (here forming the step of the quarry) that contains rare bones and teeth from small vertebrates. The "upper travertine" is similar to the lower, but differs in a gently greyish colour and the presence of various pedogenetic horizons' ("Pseudopariser").

Fig.6. Even today it is not unusual to discover bone fragment in the Ehringsdorf-formation.

Bibliography:

STEINER, W. (1996): Die Parkhöhle von Weimar. Abwasserstollen, Luftschutzkeller, Untertagemuseum. Stiftung Weimarer Klassik.

A geologist riddle #14

The last georiddle take us into pop-art of the past - so this week it takes us presumably in a distant future - what are some (fanta)geologic implications of the following image:

The toad in the hole

It was May 8, 1733, when two quarrymen, Anders Halfwarder and Olof Sigräfwer, reported excited to the master builder Johan Gråberg, who was inspecting the quarry of Nybro situated near the village Wamlingebo on Gotland, of a very strange discovery: While cutting large blocks of sandstone (today referred as the Silurian Hamra-formation) for construction purpose, Halfwarder spotted a frog sitting in the middle of a large boulder he just cut in two, more than 3 meter below the actual surface.
Gråberg followed the two men and found a grayish black frog, strangely lethargic - it reacted barely to the contacts with a spade or stick, closing its eyes, and its mouth was covered with a yellow membrane. Finally Gråberg lost his patience and beat the creature to death with a heavy shovel - the quarrymen deposited the cadaver in their cabin.

Later in the afternoon Gråberg repented his inconsiderately act "for being the Slayer of that extraordinary Animal, which might have lived for many hundreds of years within its stony Prison", recovered the body and brought him to Stockholm.
Gråberg contacted various scholars and finally the physician and self-declared naturalist Dr. Johan Phil got interested in the case.
Phil developed a theory proposing that frog-spawn had entered in some way the rock and developed over the following years into a fully grown frog, the 39 pages long paper presented to the Swedish Academy of Sciences was however rejected during a meeting in November 1741 and put in the archives of the Academy. Only an excerpt containing the account by Gråberg and an engraving showing a section of the quarry and the frog was published in the Transactions of the Academy.

Fig.1. The 1733 drawing by Gråberg's from the frog and a cross-section of the quarry of Nybro.

Soon the Swedish original text was translated in German, Dutch, French and Latin.

The frog of Nybro was treasured in the natural history collection of Count Carl Gustaf Tessin at Akerö Castle until 1760, today this specimen is lost.

The reluctant behaviour of the Academy to the presumed discovery of the frog was not too surprisingly, despite a general interest in strange phenomena animals surviving in rocks were regarded with great suspicion - the interest resulted more in the intent to disprove such claims.
Stories of entombed animal were already known for centuries, reported mostly from England or France and it was said that the German Count Fürstenberg possessed in 1664 even a rock in which audibly a frog croaked.
Carl Linnaeus considered it possible that amphibians could live for centuries enclosed in stones. In 1818 the mineralogist E.D. Clarke (1769-1822) reported during a lecture hold at Cambridge University about the discovery in Cretaceous rocks of three living specimen of an previously extinct believed salamander species - supporting the idea that the animals were enclosed in rocks for geologic periods.

In the first half of the 19th century the "toad in the hole" became very popular in Victorian England, many books about regional geology - like "A delineation of the strata of Derbyshire" - mention not only fossils in various strata but also the discovery of living frogs or toads inside compact rocks (however the animals - so the text- died almost immediately).
It apparently became a challenge to Victorian amateur naturalists to discover these animals entrapped in stone.

Various hypothesis were formulated to explain the toad in the hole - the work of the devil, spontaneous generation, animals entrapped during the biblical flood or more probable a small frog that entered the rock by fissures handled to survive by sporadic insects entering his hideaway until he grow to large to again left his prison.
Professor William Buckland, notorious for his interest in strange geologic phenomena, decided to test the last hypothesis in an experiment. He sealed 24 toads in niches carved from one block of limestone and one block of sandstone and buried them for one year in his garden. In December 1826 the two blocks were dug up and examined. All the toads in the sandstone block were dead and decayed; surprisingly in the porous limestone some toads were still alive, two of them had even gained weight.
Buckland however noted that the seal of the prison of the surviving animals were damaged; in a second run this time with intact seals no animal survived the experiment. Buckland considered the results as proof that toads couldn't survive longer periods sealed off from oxygen, water and nourishment - the scientific establishment regarded therefore the toads in the holes as closed case.

In 1862 in a letter to the Times the physician and author Frank Buckland and palaeontologist Richard Owen protested against the public display of a frog coming from the Welsh coal mine of Cwm-Tylery. During the International Exhibition in London (inspired by the original 1851 Great Exhibition) a section was devoted to the geology and palaeontology of England and Wales and one of the most famous specimen was a frog found apparently entombed in a block of coal.

Fig.2. The block of coal with the Cwm-Tyler frog being admired at the International Exhibition, from the Penny Illustrated Paper of 23, August 1862.

Buckland studied the young and vivacious animal and concluded that if it was not already a fake it was more probable that the animal had entered the mine and became entrapped recently in the rock during the process of mining. Buckland and Owen stated that displaying this faked toad damaged the reputation of the entire exhibition - the frog was not removed but the letter prompted an intense debate about the veracity of such findings in the newspaper.
To Richard Owen were send so many third hand reports, anecdotes and even specimens of amphibians found in rocks that he enervated handled the business over to his wife - obvious he didn't consider the cases to be serious (and Caroline Owen managed to expose at least one of the amphibians as a fraud).

Fig.3. A toad-in-the-hole discovery in a fanciful illustration by Philip Henry Gosse in his "Romance of Natural History".

The stories of entombed animals became more and more ludicrous, a second hand report of 1803 (Fiske O. in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences) for example describes the discovery of a mouse in a rock which after being warmed up in front of a fire managed to escape. The Illustrated London News of 1856 published the amazing story of a living Pterodactylus anas (apparently a goose-shaped reptile) inside French Cretaceous rocks - the hoax is obvious...

In the second half of the 19th century discussion, discovery and interest of toads enclosed in rocks soon diminished. The last prominent specimen was reported from the U.S. in the early 20th century with the case of "Old Rip" found in Texas in the year 1928. Here a horned toad supposedly survived 31 years entombed in a cornerstone of a courthouse. The liberated toad became the star of a freak show (and later of a Bugs Bunny Cartoon).

Despite the notoriety of these phenomena and more than 210 historic or recent reports of toad in the hole published repeatedly in mystery mongering books, Tv-shows and websites there is no physical evidence that they ever existed.
Many descriptions of such cases came at best from second or third hand experience, newspaper at the time feed the interest of the general public by reprinting again and again old stories or inventing new ones. Many toads were suspiciously found by clergyman who used them as evidence to discuss the formation of rocks by a biblical flood or a divine intervention.
The few studied examples were exposed as hoax already at the time of their presumed discovery and the only specimen that survives until today, hosted in the Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton, was donated to the museum by amateur naturalist Charles Dawson in 1901 - a name notoriously connected to the Piltdown-Man fraud.

Bibliography:

BONDESON, J. (1999): The Feejee Mermaid and other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History. Cornell University Press: 315

Online Resources:

BONDESON, J. (06.2007): Toad in the Hole. (Accessed 01.05.2011)

May 1, 1851: Vision of the World and all the wonder that would be

It was May 1, 1851 when the first World's fair under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations" was inaugurated in Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Half a million people gathered there coming with one thousand state carriages and two thousand cabs from all over London - in the end more than six million people will visit the exhibition between May 1, to October 15.

Fig.1. Lithograph by Joseph Nash depicting the exhibition's opening on May 1, 1851 with the royal family presiding, found by D. Orr on "love in the time of Chasmosaurs."

Inside Crystal Palace - inspired and realized as sort of gigantic greenhouse - the "very best that human ingenuity and cultivated art and science could inspire" was displayed to the curious public. One of the organizer and judge of the spectacle was 47 years old famous anatomist and palaeontologist Richard Owen, very busy supervising the zoological and botanical divisions, entertaining foreign guests and awarding medals to the most spectacular curiosities.
In the crowds visiting the World's fair in the six months there was another self-educated palaeontologist present - 61 years old Gideon Mantell, who had made his way to London despite the pain caused by a severe accident on a carriage ten years earlier.

"The effect is indescribably overpowering. I cannot express the effect it has left upon my mind; nothing can prepare you for this."

Mantel was enthusiastic about the new presented scientific tools, like telescopes, mechanic clocks and microscopes, but also about the presented geological specimen:

"I managed to squeeze into the back and least crowded compartments of minerals and with some difficulty ascended the gallery overlooking the transept to look down on the sea of heads underneath."

The World's fair closed October 15, 1851. It was decided to relocate and reconstruct the Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill in suburb southern London and a part of the planned theme park should be devoted to geology and palaeontology.
In summer 1852 Mantell, discoverer of many fossil bones of the British prehistoric reptiles, was contacted by the Crystal Palace Company to oversee an ambitious project: it was planned that a "Geological Court be constructed containing a collection of full-sized models of the Animals and plants of certain geological periods, and that Dr. Mantell be requested to superintend the formation of that collection."
Here was finally a chance to Mantell to present his discoveries to a large public, however he realized that his bad conditions would prevent him to finish the project - he refused.
On 11, November of the same year Mantell died of an overdoses of opiates.

Under severe examination of Richard Owen soon the first models of all known giant lizard of the time - Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, pterodactyls and the dinosaurs Megalosaurus, Iguanodon and Hylacosaurus (today referred as Hylaeosaurus) were completed.
Owen reconstructed the Iguanodon as large, quadruped rhinoceros, ignoring the discoveries of Mantell, who noted that the forelegs are smaller than the hind legs.

Fig.2. Lithograph of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs (two Iguanodon and Hylacosaurus/Hylaeosaurus) as restored by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in accordance with ideas derived from Richard Owen and Gideon Mantell (references unknown).

Bibliography:

CADBURY, D. (2010): The Dinosaur Hunters. A true Story of Scientific Rivalry & the Discovery of the Prehistoric World. Fourth Estate Publisher: 386

Online Resources:

ORR, D. (21.10.2010): The Stony Fauna of the Crystal Palace. (Accessed 01.05.2011)