Welcome to Gaia! ::

I know that a some of you guys are interested in archaeology, so I figured this topic wouldn't be out of place. Tonight, I get to go to a lecture by Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered the wreck of the H.M.S. Titanic, the Lusitania, and several other impressive discoveries. My friend randomly knew some people and got tickets. Apparently they sell out pretty quick, as Ballard is a world-renowned pioneer in underwater archaeology. As a new archaeologist myself (still looking for a job >.<), I was very gracious for the opportunity. Some of the other more interesting stuff he has been involved in are the discoveries of ancient ships and sites under the Black Sea. Look it up online if you are more interested. It's all very fascinating to someone who is into archaeology. I'll post more about the lecture tomorrow probably. I'm so excited!

I am so jealous. Put a summary of what was said on here when you get back for us lovers of history smile

Okay, sorry for not posting sooner, I was booked yesterday. The lecture was absolutely wonderful. Robert Ballard is an amazing public speaker. That combined with how fascinating the subject matter was made for an amazing 2 hours.

Before I begin with the summary: @Annie Anthrax, Archaeologists can be hired for many different types of jobs including positions at CRM firms, architectural engineering firms, working for the government on civic projects, and consulting just to name a few. Currently I'm looking for an entry level position as a field/lab technician.

Since Dr. Ballard spoke on many subjects I will break up my posts for easier reading

Ballard mentioned a bit about the Gaia Hypothesis and how he believes the world is a living thing. He compared people considering the planet not being alive to how a mayfly (which lives for about 4 days) not considering the tree it lands on as alive.

Ballard continued his speech with an explanation of Plate Tectonics, which I will not go on to describe here as it will take too long and I'm sure most of you at least understand the basic principles behind it. But I will tell you that his brief explanation was in some ways more in depth and informative than the class I took on the subject. Even though I've studied plate tectonics, I learned a lot. Robert Ballard is first an oceanographer. His exploits in underwater archaeology made his famous to the general public, but within the scientific community he was already a legend for his amazing discoveries on the sea floor. He spoke about thermal vents and correctly judged where they would be, furthering plate tectonics and rewriting the book on some subjects.

Some of the things he spoke about finding are mind-blowing. He spoke of brine pools, which if you haven't heard of before are awesome concentrations of high-salinity water that, when viewed, look like lakes with their own distinguishable shorelines,...underwater! You can even make waves on them that you see,...underwater! These pools are often homes to many extremophiles. Near these pools they found bacteria they are strong enough to travel through space. Origins of life on the planet?

They also discovered this cool thing they named a "lost city," which is like an underwater stalagmite. Like in caves, when water percolates down into caves, it picks up minerals, and as the water drips into the cave, the downward drip creates stalactites hanging from the ceiling, and stalagmites built up from the drips hitting the floor. Lost cities are something similar to both in a very strange way that I know the mad scientists in this guild will love. The source of these lost cities are pools like the brine pools that are on the bottom of overhangs of rock. You read that correctly. Underneath overhangings of rock, pools form that are distinct, like the brine pools. When they reach the edge of the overhang, they drip upwards! That is why I say they resemble both stalactites and stalagmites, because they are shaped like stalagmites, but are formed by a downward drip,...that goes upwards! Isn't that great in a mad scientist sort of way?! Does your head hurt yet? Told you. Mind-blowing.

When Ballard decided where he wanted to search for ancient wrecks, he picked what he thought would be a nice small area to focus on. He picked the Mediterranean. Now Ballard was used to searching for stuff in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, so when he decided on the Mediterranean he thought it was tiny. When he actually got there he discovered otherwise, but never mind that. On to the archaeology!

Ballard wanted to find the "highway" between Carthage and Rome. Back when Carthage was still a superpower competing with Rome, they were constantly getting into wars. But when they weren't busy killing each other, they traded with each other, a lot. Ballard looked on a map at where Carthage and Rome are located. He then proceeded with an intense scientific process which consisted of him getting a ruler and drawing a straight line between the two. Logically, this is where they trade route should be. He also surmised that although people of antiquity were different in many ways, they were still human. In this case, sailors. And what do you think sailors, who had a long trip ahead of them, with a ship full of beer did along the way? If you answered drink the booze then you are correct.

Ballard also thought about what happened when you were done drinking on a boat. You tossed the empties overboard. They way Ballard figured it, somewhere under the Mediterranean there was a road without an Adopt-A-Highway program, so he was going to look for those empties. He was right. After trolling along the bottom, they found about a four mile wide area stretching the length of the distance between Carthage (modern day Tunisia) and Rome that was covered in empties, called amphorae.

Ballard also spoke at length about the future of remote exploration. What they have set up now, is that they have several experts in different fields, who are all in charge of specific parts of Ballard's explorations. He likened them to doctors on call. All of them are connected through their wireless laptops and direct phone lines. So when the exploration crew discovers something on the sea floor, they can call their experts around the world, live stream the footage from the remote probes, and the experts can tell them how to proceed. Amazing.

Ballard also mentioned how the Internet2 will revolutionize educational communication. I'm not understating it's importance, but I'm tired of writing, as I'm sure you are of reading my little summary here. If you want to learn more about Internet2, wiki it. It's all pretty interesting, I just don't know that much about it. For a comparison, Ballard said the Internet2 makes the Internet look like a dirt road.


So that's my summary of the whole event. I bet none of you thought it would be this long. I didn't either, but once I started writing and the words started flowing out, I knew it was going to be a monster. I hope you enjoyed it, and if there are any questions I'll try to answer them. I may even decide to toss in a few more bits of information as I remember them. Thanks for reading, and sharing my passion.

Oh God yes, Italy especially. You really cannot do construction or dig anywhere in the cities and NOT hit something. There's so many field schools in Italy it isn't funny.