Word: soiling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...preserved. "This fossil forest is not petrified, turned to stone by minerals entering and replacing the wood cell structure," says Neil McMillan, of the Geological Survey of Canada, who discovered a similar but much smaller site 30 years ago on nearby Ellesmere Island. Instead, shallow burial in the Arctic soil has left the forest in a mummified state. As a result, says Basinger, "you can saw the wood. You can burn it." Indeed, during an expedition to the site in July, he actually brewed a pot of tea over burning fossil debris...
...scientists shoveled away soil covering some of the mummified wood, then used brushes to sweep away the remaining dirt so the roots of the ancient stumps would not be damaged. All told, they excavated a dozen stumps to a depth of three feet, identifying some of the trees as dawn redwoods. This species was once widespread throughout high latitudes in North America, Europe and Asia, but is now nearly extinct, surviving in only a few locations in China...
...Northern California today, with one exception: that far north, the sun never sets in summer and never rises in winter. "How did the trees grow so lushly in five months a year of blackness, without photosynthesis?" McMillan wonders. Francis, now back in Australia with samples of wood, leaves and soil from the island, suggests one possibility: "It may be that they shed their leaves and just stood dormant until it became light again, and then grew like...
...like Basinger, McMillan is most intrigued by the scientific potential. "There's going to be a generation of work done now in this area," he explains. "When you have so many stumps, when you can see what the forest floor was like, when you have the soil of that time, when you know the angle of the sun giving the months of dark, you have a heck of a lot of facts to work on. We're going to have our fling...
...rusting on Kesey's farm in Pleasant Hill, Ore., the vehicle symbolizes the built-in obsolescence of 1960s enthusiasms. The same can be said for Demon Box, a collection of new and previously published magazine pieces about the good old days, departed friends, family, the pull of the soil and the lure of dope. Spruced up and polished, these writings impress and entertain but seem like an attempt to squeeze a few more miles out of a writer who has either run out of gas or has been stalled by too many chemical additives...