The case of the rock, the lady in the lake and a dubious murderer

In 1997 some amateur divers discovered at the bottom of Coniston Water, a lake in the British Lake District, a corpse. The body of a women was wrapped up in plastic bags and tubs of lead have been used as weights to hide it in the  24m deep water.
The woman was identified as Carol Ann Park, disappeared in the year 1976. An autopsy revealed that Ann Park was killed with an ice pick and soon her ex-husband, Gordon Park, was suspected and arrested. The press publicized this crime with the title of "The Lady in the Lake Murder".

However there was no hard evidence against him, only a supposed confession by Park to a cell inmate during the imprisonment on remand, so he was soon released. 

In 2004 Park was rearrested, based on new evidence: a rock. A rock, assumed to have been used also as weight in the plastic bag, and found near the corpse was similar to rocks used by park to build a wall of the family's bungalow. Prosecution's expert and geologist Duncan Pirrie concluded that there were no naturally occurring outcrops on the shores of the lake of this kind of rock, the only possible source was therefore Park's home.
However the defence of Park commissioned two geologists, Kenneth Pye and later Andrew Moncrief, to disprove this important evidence that connected Park to the corpse. Pye studied the rock and his results were astounding. The rock was a sample of Westmorland green slate - a metamorphic tuffaceous sandstone - lithology part of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group not present near Coniston Water, but found in the central parts of the Lake District.
The boulders in the lake, so the final verdict of the two geologists, were of glacial origin, transported during the last glacial maximum from the Cumbrian Mountains to the area of the lake. Glacial till was therefore widespread on the bottom of the lake, the shores and the entire landscape - so were rocks of green slate. The supposed unique connection between Park and the site of discovery of the corpse was disproved by the general geology and galcial origin of the lake.

Despite this devastating setback for the prosecution, the trial, based mainly on circumstantial evidence, ended with a prison sentence for Park.
The judge commented the geological dispute about the origin of the particular rock as follows:

"Rocks, ladies and gentlemen, therefore rocks…[] The science, underlying this research was exceptionally challenging, not true? It was of awe-inspiring quality that none of us has ever been enjoyed…[]… I think the experts managed to formulate their opinions in an understandable way. At least the important facts have become clear, we have understood in which final statements both researchers disagree."

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A Pirate's Life for Me

Shiver me timbers! - to all you scurvy landlubber geologists, here the fabulous famous first geological map of the entire island of Jamaica - old buccaneer hideout -  by privateers Sawkins & Brown 1865, Arrr this is a treasure map for gentlemen o' fortune like us ....

Cryptozoology and a geologist's nightmare - Vermes lapidum

"Stone Worms - Vermes lapidum, are tiny worms, which grow in sculptured rocks, especially in old buildings and walls they are found. They nibble on the rocks, such as [the rocks] decay like leaves to dust."

Definition of the "Stone Worm" according to the "Allgemeines Lexicon der Künste und Wissenschaften" (General dictionary of Arts and Sciences) - first edition of a dictionary published in 1721 by JABLONSKI, J.T., re edited in 1748 by Anonymous.

Eberhard Werner Happel "Relationes curiosae, oder Denckwürdigkeiten der Welt" (Curiosities of the world), published in 1683 and 1691 in five volumes, tells the story of the discovery of these strange and terrifying creatures. 

A monk of a monastery in the Normandie - Mr. de la Voye - found "on an old wall to midday, much of rock eaten by these vermin. The holes were as big, as that a hand could be put within. Such holes were full of living worms and dust, which they made of the rocks..[]"

Pulling them out of their bore holes and observing them under a magnifying glass he observed:

"This vermin is enclosed in a grey shell, as depicted in Fig.1., large as a grain of barley...on the tip there is a hole, trough which the excrements can be excreted/ on the other end there is a larger hole, trough which the head can be protruded.

They are entirely black, the body shows various segments, near the head there are three legs, each has two joints, not dissimilar to these of a flea.

When they move their body is suspended in air, the mouth but is still oriented to the rock. The head is bulky, a bit smooth, similar in shape and colour to the shell of a snail... also the mouth is similar large, with four kinds of teeth disposed in cross like manner..[]"

Fig.1. A worm that eats rocks.

I wonder to which animal-species this terrible creature can be attributed ? Could it be a still unknown metamorphosis-stage of the stone louse (Petrophaga lorioti), as de la Voye note he didn´t observe an imago with developed wings...

Fig.2. Cross-section of a limestone-pebble of the Adriatic Sea with recent bioerosion and bore holes of Cliona sp. (a sponge), Lithophaga lithophaga and Zirfea sp. (bivalves)... or could this be the terrible results of a Vermes lapidum  infestation?

A geologist riddle #23

This week georiddle is dedicated to a particular beach geology:

AW#37: Sexy Geology on the Beach

The sun, the beach and sexy geology…

You can find marls with cycles, layers of a hotter time, faded traces of bodies and the coolest men alive...

Humboldt´s Cosmos

"Inside the globe there live mysterious forces, whose effects become apparent on the surface. Outbreaks of vapours, hot slag and new volcanic rocks, as uplifts of islands and mountains"
Alexander von Humboldt

Fig.1. Geologic map and profile of the Pyrenees, after the "Berghaus-Atlas", a supplement to Humboldt's masterpiece "Kosmos" (1845-1862).
In the profile from inside to the outside of the mountains the layers are described as follows "Granitic rocks and general basement" - "transition mountains/rocks" - "secondary mountains". In the map Granite=pink, Basaltic rocks=green, Schist= grey, Clastic rocks/ Limestone= blue, Sandstone= red, Secondary Limestone= yellow, Tertiary rocks= dark-green

The German Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) studied finance and also mining engineering and became later a great self-educated explorer and naturalist. Following the tradition prevalent in Germany at the time he was educated to interpret geology with Werner's Neptunism - rocks were formed from liquids and magmatic phenomena are only of local significance.
During his travels in Europe and America he observed also active volcanoes and soon converted to Plutonism - rocks are formed from cooling lava and magmatic forces play a mayor role in shaping earth's surface.
In accordance to the theory of German geologist Leopold von Buch (1774-1835) of "volcanic bubbles" the profile shows the Pyrenees as a result of uplift by a core of magmatic rocks, bending the sedimentary layers of sandstone and limestone formations. According to this hypothesis magmatic rocks are found always as core in mountain ranges. To explain the apparent lack of Grantic rocks (coloured in pink) in the northern areas of the Pyreenes Humboldt apparently suggested selective erosion - explained by the schematic profile at the bottom of the page.

The Pyrenees are a mountain range 1500km long with an average width of 200km, the most western foothills of the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt. According to the modern theory of plate tectonics these mountains formed when the Iberian plate was partly subducted under the European plate, in a time period from the late Cretaceous to the Miocene (55-25 Ma).
The profile of the Pyrenees display a fan-shaped structure, with north vergent thrusts in the northern area and south vergent thrusts in the southern part.
In northwest to southeast direction the mountain range can be divided into five structural zones

- The Aquitaine foreland basin with the deformed Cretaceous sediments of the European Plate.
- The North Pyrenean thrust zone with thrust faults developed in the crystalline basement and the Mesozoic to Eocene sediments.
- The Axial zone with three mayor nappes of the crystalline basement
- The South Pyrenean thrust zone with deformed early Eocene to Miocene sediments.
- The Ebro foreland basin molassic, filled with relatively undisturbed sediments.

Fig.2. Axial Zone: Variscan granitoid rocks and Palaeozoic sediments (Humboldt´s granitic rocks); Thrust Zone: Mesozoic to Cainozoic deformed sediments; Foreland basin: Cainozoic undeformed sediments (after SCHELLART 2002).

The asymmetry of the Pyrenees (the estimated shortening is 70km in the south and 32km in the north), recognized already at Humboldt's times, is today explained by rotation due asymmetric mountain roots, where the Iberian plate was partially subducted under the European plate.

Bibliography:

SCHELLART, W.P. 2002: Alpine deformation at the western termination of the Axial Zone, Southern Pyrenees. In: Rosenbaum, G. and Lister, G.S.2002. Reconstruction of the evolution of the Alpine-Himalayan Orogen. Journal of the Virtual Explorer, 8, 35-55

A geologist riddle #22

Back to the roots of geology: What concept is depicted in this mountain range ?