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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And we're back with

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Speaker 3: part four. And I would say probably it's got to

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Speaker 3: be the final part right now, at least the final

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Speaker 3: part for now of our series on mud. So in

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Speaker 3: previous episodes in the series, which if you haven't listened

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Speaker 3: to them, you should go back and check those out first,

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Speaker 3: but we talked about the history of mud on Earth.

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Speaker 3: It's a more surprising and dynamic story than you might imagine.

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Speaker 3: That was in part one. We talked a bit about

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Speaker 3: what defines mud. You know, it tends to be, of course,

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Speaker 3: wet soil of a smaller particle size that gives it

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Speaker 3: that sticky consistency. We talked in part two about animal

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Speaker 3: behavior and mud, such as pig wallowing, Arnold Schwarzenegger wallowing mud,

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Speaker 3: what do they call it, mud skippers, the fish that

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Speaker 3: have these interesting mud habitat behaviors, and other things like that.

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Speaker 3: In the episode just before this one, we talked a

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Speaker 3: lot about mud bricks, the history of mud in human construction.

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Speaker 3: And today we're back to sort of round things out

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Speaker 3: with the grab bag of different little topics that didn't

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Speaker 3: make it anywhere else.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, this will I think this will be

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Speaker 2: the capstone for this series. But Mud does open up

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Speaker 2: the possibility for some standalone episodes later on. I think

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Speaker 2: there's a It ends up touching on so many different

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Speaker 2: aspects of the world and our habitats and also human creation.

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Speaker 2: So who knows, there may be more mud in the future,

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Speaker 2: but this is going to be like the This is

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Speaker 2: the bedrock mud. This is the initial foundation of mud

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Speaker 2: bricks upon on which we might build future episodes.

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Speaker 3: That's right, that's right. So to kick things off today,

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Speaker 3: I wanted to start by thinking about a principle that

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Speaker 3: maybe should be used in the natural sciences. We'll see,

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Speaker 3: and it's basically the heavy metal principle of nature, which

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Speaker 3: states that for every phenomenon in nature, there's a good

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Speaker 3: chance there is a heavy metal version of that phenomenon.

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Speaker 3: If you start with the kind of like an easy

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Speaker 3: listening or jazz or country of your classic mud puddle,

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Speaker 3: the heavy metal version, I think is the mud pot

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Speaker 3: So you think of a normal mud puddle, there's usually

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Speaker 3: a depression in the ground where surface water collects after

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Speaker 3: rain soaks through the soil, especially if the soil particle

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Speaker 3: particles are small, creates an area of plastic or even

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Speaker 3: fully liquid mud. And if water stops flowing into the

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Speaker 3: puddle from above, it can dry up. But now imagine

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Speaker 3: a mud puddle with a thick liquid consistency, sort of

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Speaker 3: like paint, but boiling bubbling, like a big pot of stew,

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Speaker 3: forming opaque bubbles of gas that the gas is clearly

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Speaker 3: trapped in those clay particles rising up from below, and

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Speaker 3: you can see them form into spheres on the surface

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Speaker 3: sometimes and they stay there for a moment before they

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Speaker 3: finally burst, and depending on the consistency of the mud,

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Speaker 3: might splatter all over the place when they do burst,

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Speaker 3: maybe even throwing clumps of mud up into the air

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Speaker 3: such that it piles around this puddle of mud, forming

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Speaker 3: mounds or even a cone that the mud puddle rises from,

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Speaker 3: or a weird kind of collar of mud splatter all around.

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Speaker 3: This is a mud pot, and it's also it could

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Speaker 3: develop into one example of a term. There's a term

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Speaker 3: called mud volcano that actually seems to be used to

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Speaker 3: refer to a multiple very different things, but one thing

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Speaker 3: that gets called a mud volcano is the kind of

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Speaker 3: mound that can build up from the life cycle of

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Speaker 3: a mud pot.

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Speaker 2: Quick Weird House cinema trivia here for you, Joe, Can

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Speaker 2: you name two movies that we've covered that feature boiling

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Speaker 2: mud or the appearance of boiling mud, no matter how

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Speaker 2: they actually created it via actual footage or some other

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Speaker 2: kind of technique.

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Speaker 3: Oh wow, you are really stumping me. I seem to

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Speaker 3: recall there's some boiling mud in Legend. Isn't that where

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Speaker 3: Meg Mucklebones lives? But I don't think we actually watched

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Speaker 3: Legend for Weird House?

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Speaker 2: Did we? No? No, not as of this recording.

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Speaker 3: Oh wait a minute, did we do Labyrinth? No, we

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Speaker 3: didn't do Labyrinth. But Labyrinth has boiling mud, doesn't it?

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Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, or something that looks like it. Now, the

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Speaker 2: two movies that I believe we've watched that have boiling

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Speaker 2: mud or the effect of boiling mud, Planet of the

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Speaker 2: Vampires and nineteen seventy eights Beauty and the Beast.

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Speaker 3: You're exactly right, Both of those just escaped my memory.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, two masterpieces in their own right.

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Speaker 2: Came into my head as you were describing it. Because

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Speaker 2: it is a very like otherworldly feeling thing. Though even

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Speaker 2: though it is very much all of this world, it

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Speaker 2: kind of lends itself to alien environments or environments like

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Speaker 2: in Beauty and the Beast, which are supposed to be

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Speaker 2: kind of like on the edge of the civil lies world,

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Speaker 2: sort of bordering on the supernatural. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, in the Beating in the Beast, there's like boiling

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Speaker 3: mud or at least bubbling mud even within the grounds

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Speaker 3: of the castle, I think, isn't there. I think, so, yeah,

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Speaker 3: there's like a courtyard that has mud pots within it,

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Speaker 3: and that seems yeah, at the edge of fantasy. But

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Speaker 3: to look at a mud pot and understand what's going

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Speaker 3: on here, I think we should start with the concept

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Speaker 3: of a hot spring. So hot spring's form when water

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Speaker 3: heated by geothermal energy deep underground rises to the surface

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Speaker 3: and forms a pool, or when water that collects at

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Speaker 3: the surface due to you know, regular runoff and surface

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Speaker 3: features is heated by steam more heat from below, and

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Speaker 3: this surface water can be anywhere between you know, pleasantly

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Speaker 3: warm bathtub temperature and lethal boiling. So you do not

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Speaker 3: ever want to jump into a hot spring unless it's

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Speaker 3: one that is like very well known in advanced to

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Speaker 3: be a consistent safe temperature if in out, stay away.

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Speaker 3: I've read something like twenty people are known to have

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Speaker 3: died from jumping into or falling into hot springs at

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Speaker 3: Yellowstone National Park in the United States alone.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember reading about some of this when we

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Speaker 2: were doing some episodes on springs and holy waters associated

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Speaker 2: with springs.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and sometimes it can be deceiving, Like there are

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Speaker 3: tragic cases of people just trying to like get close

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Speaker 3: to see what the temperature is like and then falling

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Speaker 3: in and dying. There was a case like this I

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Speaker 3: was reading about from the year twenty sixteen where let's see. Well,

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Speaker 3: so I was reading an article about it from the

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Speaker 3: local news station KULR eight in Billings. I guess Billings, Montana,

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Speaker 3: near Yellowstone, And so the headline was man killed in

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Speaker 3: Yellowstone hot spring allegedly trying to quote hot pot. I

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Speaker 3: guess hot potting is like, you know, jumping into a

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Speaker 3: hot spring to hang out in it. But to read

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Speaker 3: from the article, it says the man who died in

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Speaker 3: a Yellowstone hot spring last summer was apparently looking for

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Speaker 3: a place to hot pot in the park. Yellowstone officials

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Speaker 3: recently released the final report on the incident following a

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Speaker 3: Freedom of Information Act request. The victim's sister recorded the

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Speaker 3: incident on her cell phone. The accident happened in Norris

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Speaker 3: Geyser Basin on the afternoon of June seventh. Deputy Chief

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Speaker 3: Ranger Laurent Veresse says, it is a very dangerous area

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Speaker 3: with boiling, acidic waters. So the article tells the story

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Speaker 3: of how the man and his sister went off the

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Speaker 3: approved path and they were checking out different like hot

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Speaker 3: springs or maybe more mudpot type areas to see what

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Speaker 3: the temperature was, and unfortunately, the man, while trying to

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Speaker 3: get close to check the temperature, slipped and fell in,

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Speaker 3: and the article says, quote search and rescue rangers who

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Speaker 3: arrived later did find the victim's body in the pool,

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Speaker 3: along with his wallet and flip flops, but a lightning

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Speaker 3: storm stopped the recovery efforts. The next day, workers could

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Speaker 3: not find anys Veras says the water was churning and acidic.

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Speaker 3: He remarked, quote, in a very short order, there was

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Speaker 3: a significant amount of dissolving. So the apparently boiling and

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Speaker 3: acidic conditions in the water essentially disintegrated the victim's remains.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, so it is no joke.

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Speaker 3: Do not mess around with like, oh, maybe I'll go

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Speaker 3: check out this hot spring and see if I should

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Speaker 3: get in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, listen to your park rangers, obey signage.

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Speaker 3: But so okay, So that's hot springs water that pools

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Speaker 3: on the surface that is either connected to a hydrothermal

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Speaker 3: system that heats it, or is heated by heat coming

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Speaker 3: off of a hydrothermal system below in the ground. So

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Speaker 3: also in this family of surface outlets for geothermal energy

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Speaker 3: are fumaroles, which are holes in the earth where steam

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Speaker 3: rising from geothermally heated water escapes. A mud pot is,

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Speaker 3: in a way still a type of mud puddle. Mud

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Speaker 3: pots are pools where water collects and mixes with clay particles,

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Speaker 3: forming a thick liquid mud, usually gray or cream colored,

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Speaker 3: sometimes black, but there are other colors possible too. This

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Speaker 3: mud puddle is heated by geothermal activity from below, or

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Speaker 3: at least is permeated by gas that's released from below,

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Speaker 3: and mudpots often release hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like

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Speaker 3: rotten eggs. And while people who see these things often

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Speaker 3: describe them as marvelous, one of the most amazing things

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Speaker 3: they've seen in nature, if not exactly beautiful. An element

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Speaker 3: of the mudpot encounter, described at least as often is

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Speaker 3: the dank, putrid smell, which is in the air before

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Speaker 3: you can even see the thing. You might maybe you

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Speaker 3: hear it, but you smell it now. An interesting thing

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Speaker 3: is I wonder if this reflects a development in the

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Speaker 3: understanding of mudpots. But I've read different accounts of the

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Speaker 3: most common ways that mudpots are formed, So I want

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Speaker 3: to start with an older account, from a reputable source,

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Speaker 3: but an older one. This is from a textbook from

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Speaker 3: the nineteen twenties by the American geologist Lewis V. Pearson

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Speaker 3: that essentially describes a mud pot as like a hot spring,

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Speaker 3: but with limited water supply, and Pierson says it goes

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Speaker 3: like this. If there is basically a net positive flow

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Speaker 3: of water into a hot spring, meaning that more water

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Speaker 3: is flowing into the hot spring, either from below or

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Speaker 3: from above, or the combination of both, than the rate

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Speaker 3: of evaporation of that water, this will lead to overflow

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Speaker 3: from the spring, and the water will overflow the basin

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Speaker 3: of the pool and drain away. And in fact, if

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Speaker 3: you look up pictures of hot springs, you can often

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Speaker 3: see rocks nearby stained where the runoff from the spring

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Speaker 3: is going. It'll maybe carry colorful extremophile microbes with it,

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Speaker 3: so you'll see almost kind of like a little red

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Speaker 3: river running off the side of it. And so in

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Speaker 3: these cases, if the flow of water into the pool

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Speaker 3: is positive, the water stays relatively clear, relatively limpid, in

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Speaker 3: Pearson's words, often a deep blue or green color, though

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Speaker 3: it can appear different colors like red or yellow, again

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Speaker 3: due to extremophiles present.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: Of course, presumably if the net flow of water into

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Speaker 3: the pool is strongly negative, the pool will just dry up.

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Speaker 3: But Pearson says if the rate of evaporation is roughly

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Speaker 3: equal to the rate of inflow of water into the pool,

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Speaker 3: the hot spring neither dries up nor overflows. Then the

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Speaker 3: acidic water sitting in the pool dissolves the surrounding rock

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Speaker 3: into clay, which then mixes with the water and forms mud,

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Speaker 3: and you are left with a pool of hot, bubbling mud,

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Speaker 3: which is sometimes described as boiling because of the way

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Speaker 3: that it bubbles. It certainly can look like it is boiling,

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Speaker 3: but technically I've read that these mud pots have variable temperature.

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Speaker 3: They are sometimes less hot than the boiling point of water, which,

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Speaker 3: of course, at one atmosphere of pressure is one hundred

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Speaker 3: degree c or two twelve fahrenheit. In some cases, the

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Speaker 3: mud pot is actually much cooler than that, but the

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Speaker 3: mud is still bubbling because of hot gases from below,

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Speaker 3: so hot gases in the earth are still rising up

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Speaker 3: through it. In that case, it's not actually the mud boiling,

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Speaker 3: it's just it's being permeated by gas that's trying to rise.

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Speaker 3: Pierson says that the mud in these pots can be

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Speaker 3: different colors. It can be white, yellow, red, purple, or black.

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Speaker 3: This is often due to the presence of oxides of

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Speaker 3: iron or manganese. I think manganese oxides tend to be

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Speaker 3: more black. Of course, iron oxide tends to be more red.

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Speaker 3: And for this reason of all these different colors, these

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Speaker 3: mudpots are sometimes called paint pots. They can look like

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Speaker 3: a bubbling pool of paint of different colors mixed together.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: Pierson says that as more clay is dissolved into the water,

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Speaker 3: the mud becomes thicker. Of course, so you're getting more

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Speaker 3: soil to the same roughly the same amount of water.

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Speaker 3: So as you mix in more sediment it becomes a

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Speaker 3: thicker consistency, and this makes the ebulition, meaning the bubbling,

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Speaker 3: less regular. So imagine the way that, like a soup

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Speaker 3: in a pot on the stove, as it becomes thicker,

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Speaker 3: the bubbling becomes less regular and more kind of random

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Speaker 3: and chaotic and violent rob it. Do you know what

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Speaker 3: I'm talking about from cooking experiences.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it can kind of even like shake the pot.

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Speaker 3: A little bit, right, yeah. Yeah, So this is my

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Speaker 3: experience in the kitchen. Like you boil something with basically

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Speaker 3: a watery consistency or broth like consistency, the bubbles will

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Speaker 3: be pretty even. There'll be a steady rate, you know,

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Speaker 3: they'll pop evenly as long as the heat is consistently applied.

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Speaker 3: But if you were talking about like a very thick stew,

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Speaker 3: you can sometimes get much less predictable and more explosive bubbles.

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Speaker 3: So it might not bubble at all for a bit,

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Speaker 3: and then suddenly a huge bubble pops and it splatters

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Speaker 3: all over the stovetop.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I was cooking one of these just last night.

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Speaker 3: Well, apparently a similar thing that happened as the mud

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Speaker 3: in a mudpot thickens with thick mud, steam builds up

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Speaker 3: higher pressure before rising to the top and popping, which

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Speaker 3: means it can happen, in Pearson's words quote spasmodically and

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Speaker 3: with some violence, the mud being thrown into the air

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Speaker 3: and about the vent where it collects inconsiderable masses. And

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Speaker 3: this is one version of the concept of the mud volcano.

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Speaker 3: Because the mud pot that bubbles this way and kind

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Speaker 3: of builds up mud around it can form a cone

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Speaker 3: that looks like a volcano mountain, it looks like a

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Speaker 3: cone volcano, or it can kind of form a caldera

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Speaker 3: around itself made out of ejected mud. Now, often this

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Speaker 3: mud erodes very easily, so this building process can be

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Speaker 3: kind of cyclical. But yeah, it can build up a

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Speaker 3: little sort of mini volcano made out of mud and

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Speaker 3: just kind of keep popping and spewing onto itself. Pearson

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Speaker 3: says that this usually marks the end of the period

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Speaker 3: of activity for a hot spring. As the activity of

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Speaker 3: a hot spring is dying away, it's more likely to

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Speaker 3: go through a mud pot and a volcano period. Now,

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Speaker 3: I mentioned I came across some different accounts of what

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Speaker 3: is exactly going on in a mud pot. That was

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Speaker 3: the older account. There a lot of the more recent

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Speaker 3: sources I was looking at describe the source of the

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Speaker 3: water going into the mud pot as placing more emphasis

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Speaker 3: on that being surface water. So, for example, the National

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Speaker 3: Park Service has some materials about what's going on with

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Speaker 3: the mudpots at Yellowstone, and these sources claim that it

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Speaker 3: essentially acts more like a double boiler. So, again with

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Speaker 3: kitchen analogies, I guess that's where we have a lot

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Speaker 3: of our experience with boiling liquids a double boiler. If

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Speaker 3: you never used this, rob it's like you put like

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Speaker 3: a glass bowl on top of a pot that has

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Speaker 3: a little bit of water boiling in it, and the

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Speaker 3: steam from the boiling water rises and it gently heats

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Speaker 3: the bowl from below, as opposed to just you know,

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Speaker 3: putting whatever you have in the bowl in the pot

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Speaker 3: directly and having hot metal applied to it.

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Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever done this myself. Interesting.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes it's used usually when you need to heat something

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Speaker 3: very gently, like if you're trying to heat something that

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Speaker 3: could easily overheat and would be ruined by doing so,

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Speaker 3: like if you are making It's used sometimes in baking,

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Speaker 3: when you need to melt chocolate to a particular temperature.

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Speaker 3: To get the inconsistency you want, or if you're making

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Speaker 3: like a hollandaise sauce, because you know, you heat a

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Speaker 3: hollandaise sauce too much, and you know with scrambled eggs. Okay,

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Speaker 3: all right, but so anyway, it's just like letting the

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Speaker 3: steam from below do the heating of the food, as

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Speaker 3: opposed to letting applying direct heat from the heating element

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Speaker 3: through the metal to the food. And the source from

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Speaker 3: the National Park Service claims that in the case of

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Speaker 3: these mudpots, what's usually happening is that water from the

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Speaker 3: surface collects in a basin or a depression that is

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Speaker 3: not actually connected to the water flow from the hydrothermal

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Speaker 3: systems in the ground. Instead, the bottom of the basin

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Speaker 3: or the depression is usually considered impermeable because of lining

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Speaker 3: with fine particles of clay. So that's sort of your bowl.

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Speaker 3: The bottom of the double boiler and the hydrothermal system

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Speaker 3: below releases steam and usually some hydrogen sulfide gas, which

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Speaker 3: rises through the bottom layers of clay and causes the

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Speaker 3: mud puddle to both heat up and bubble as the

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Speaker 3: gas rises to the top. Then you have again extremophile

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Speaker 3: organisms microorganisms in these pools that can use the hydrogen

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Speaker 3: sulfide gas to make energy, and in the process they

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Speaker 3: create sulfuric acid, which turns the mud pool extremely acidic,

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Speaker 3: and then it helps dissolve more rock in the surrounding

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Speaker 3: basin and turns that into clay, and so the mud

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Speaker 3: just like you know, you get continuous supply of new

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Speaker 3: clay particles from that dissolution, and it gets thicker and thicker.

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Speaker 3: And this source also says that mudpots can be a

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Speaker 3: by the season, so like rain and melting snow can

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Speaker 3: make the mud and the pots cooler and thinner, and

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Speaker 3: then hot, dry weather in the summer can cause them

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Speaker 3: to thicken or even dry up completely, which means that

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Speaker 3: these are ultimately somewhat transient and dynamic features. Like a

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Speaker 3: mud pot or a mud volcano of this variety might

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Speaker 3: only be active for a few months. It can also

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Speaker 3: be active much much longer, but it might just be

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Speaker 3: a very brief, shortly lived thing. Before maybe it just

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Speaker 3: transforms into a kind of fixed fumarole where steam is

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Speaker 3: coming out of a hole in the ground. Now, there

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Speaker 3: is another use of the term mud volcano that can

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Speaker 3: refer to a different geological process that can in some

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Speaker 3: cases be extremely explosive and large in scale and violent.

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Speaker 3: I was reading about this in an article from December

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty by a ut Ostin geologist named Michael R. Hudic.

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00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:04,400
Speaker 3: That is, it's it's a particular example of a mud

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Speaker 3: volcano that occurred in Indonesia in two thousand and six

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Speaker 3: in the Siduarjo regency that is known sometimes as the

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Speaker 3: Lumpur Siduarju. Lumpur is the word for mud, And there

341
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Speaker 3: was this massive, sudden eruption. There was like steam releasing

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Speaker 3: from a vent in the ground and rumbling, and then

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Speaker 3: it started just exploding with these huge amounts of mud

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Speaker 3: that ended up completely engulfing villages in the surrounding area.

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Speaker 3: It was like many acres and people had to be

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Speaker 3: evacuated in order to get out of harm's way. These

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Speaker 3: villages were completely swallowed up in mud. There were like

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Speaker 3: these farming villages in the area. And so this is

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Speaker 3: not like a little mound of mud ejected by a puddle.

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Speaker 3: This was like a landscape destroying, violent ejection of mud.

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Speaker 3: And it seems like in many of these cases where

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Speaker 3: there is this large, explosive kind of mud eruption, and

353
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Speaker 3: one thing that might be going on is the interaction

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Speaker 3: with hydrocarbon gases, so for example, methane, and of course

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Speaker 3: methane being very flammable, can make these eruptions actually flaming eruptions,

356
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Speaker 3: where like when the hot methane comes into the atmosphere,

357
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Speaker 3: it can ignite. The cause of this particular mud volcano

358
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Speaker 3: eruption in two thousand and six is apparently controversial. It

359
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Speaker 3: seems like a lot of people have attributed it to

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Speaker 3: drilling of a natural gas well in the area by

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Speaker 3: an oil and gas company. Of course, the oil and

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00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:34,760
Speaker 3: gas company claims, no, it wasn't us it was a

363
00:20:34,840 --> 00:20:38,119
Speaker 3: naturally occurring event, but it did seem to be significant

364
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Speaker 3: hydrocarbon gas involved in this kind of eruption. And this

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Speaker 3: kind of thing is scary because it's hard to imagine.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I guess we are familiar with the concept

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Speaker 3: of like an igneous volcanic eruption, you know, where it's

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Speaker 3: like a rock volcano erupting and it's releasing all of

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Speaker 3: this gas and rock and molten rock and pyroclastic flow

370
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Speaker 3: and all these things. And so I guess we are

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Speaker 3: already familiar with the concept of large destructive volcanoes. But

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Speaker 3: the idea that it could just like flood a landscape

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Speaker 3: with mud is another stranger and differently frightening version of

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Speaker 3: that kind of image.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's one thing to have vast quantities

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Speaker 2: of mud where you know mud will be seasonally or otherwise.

377
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Speaker 2: It's another thing for mud to just suddenly appear where

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Speaker 2: it's not expected. And this seems to be like one

379
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Speaker 2: of the more exaggerated cases of it, you know, whereas

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Speaker 2: the vast quantities of mud just emerging and taking over

381
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:37,159
Speaker 2: people's homes and so forth. Yeah, Now, on the subject

382
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Speaker 2: of mud volcanoes, I have also been reading a little

383
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Speaker 2: bit about this idea of mud volcanoes on Mars. I

384
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Speaker 2: don't know if you came across any of this. I

385
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Speaker 2: was looking at a paper from twenty twenty quoting Peter Burrows,

386
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Speaker 2: a professor geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and

387
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Speaker 2: basically he proposed that mud from mud volcanoes may have

388
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:05,119
Speaker 2: flowed in Mars past, and therefore some of the things

389
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:08,240
Speaker 2: we see in visuals from Mars that looks like it

390
00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:11,840
Speaker 2: could be the result of lava flows could perhaps be

391
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:16,359
Speaker 2: the result of mud flows in the past, so he

392
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Speaker 2: and his team conducted experiments to see how this would work,

393
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Speaker 2: and found that while the mud eventually would freeze under

394
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:25,760
Speaker 2: those Chili Martian conditions, there would be a little time

395
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Speaker 2: for it to flow, freezing and crusting over at the surface,

396
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:33,360
Speaker 2: initially enabling it to move a bit before the freeze

397
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:36,199
Speaker 2: firmly took hold. Because I guess that, you know, it's

398
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Speaker 2: one of the things about thinking about mud elsewhere in

399
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 2: the universe. We have plenty of sci fi visions of

400
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:46,399
Speaker 2: muddy planets, but for mud to be there, you need

401
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 2: some sort of moisture to be there as well. But

402
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 2: we do, I think, love the idea of mud planets.

403
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 2: You know, take any especially any kind of like exotic

404
00:22:56,520 --> 00:23:01,040
Speaker 2: terrestrial environment, and somebody somewhere has turned a whole planet

405
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:02,919
Speaker 2: into that. You know. Yes, so you have jungle planets,

406
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:06,120
Speaker 2: you have desert planets like Oracus. If you look at

407
00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:09,720
Speaker 2: Star Wars, you have planets like Dagoba, just a swamp world.

408
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:11,679
Speaker 2: Not only does it have a lot of mud, like

409
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 2: the mud and the muck will just swallow up whole spaceships.

410
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 3: That's true, though, you know, it's interesting. They never say

411
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,720
Speaker 3: in the Star Wars movies that the entire planet Dagoba

412
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Speaker 3: is a swamp, but you just assume that's the case.

413
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I've seen some maps and these are

414
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 2: you know, like you know, artistic interpretations that kind of

415
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:32,439
Speaker 2: run with that, and it's like, oh, yeah, whole planet

416
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 2: just swamp. And that raises a lot of questions like

417
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 2: what how would that work? That would the entire planet

418
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 2: be a swamp? Does that mean it doesn't have oceans,

419
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:44,439
Speaker 2: it just has swamp? I don't know. I should look

420
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:46,440
Speaker 2: into this and say, I'm sure some people have written

421
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:47,880
Speaker 2: some papers about this sort of thing.

422
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if you, like, could you have a

423
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Speaker 3: swamp if you didn't have other types of regions to

424
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 3: support the U like the geological and atmospheric conditions that

425
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 3: would create a swamp.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

427
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,159
Speaker 2: Now, come back to Wars in just a second, but

428
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 2: I want to hit another couple of cosmic mud examples.

429
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Speaker 2: One concerns SMAP SMAP, which is also a Japanese boy band.

430
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 2: Apparently this became obvious when I was researching this, but

431
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 2: in this case it stands for Soil Moisture Active Passive.

432
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:25,199
Speaker 2: That's NASA's environmental monitoring satellite launched in twenty fifteen and

433
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 2: still active as of this recording. I think it's supposed

434
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 2: to be active through at least the end of twenty

435
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 2: twenty three. But it can measure land surface soil moisture

436
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 2: up to a certain depth. So it's an eye in

437
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 2: the sky essentially on mud. And the data that it

438
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:43,640
Speaker 2: collects is useful because it spills over into better understandings

439
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:47,880
Speaker 2: of the carbon cycle, weather and climate models, drought monitoring,

440
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 2: and so much more. But of course that's concerning Earth.

441
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 2: We know there's mud on Earth. This is another idea

442
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 2: I ran across this, the idea that you at one

443
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 2: point anyway had just cosmic mud ball flying around through space.

444
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 3: Okay, so if you imagine like a comet as a

445
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 3: formation of ice and dust that's flying around in space,

446
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 3: of course all the ice is frozen, Like what if

447
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:17,160
Speaker 3: a comet was wet.

448
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:21,359
Speaker 2: Yeah. I actually found some discussion of this in a

449
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen article for New Scientists by Sam Wong. In

450
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:29,400
Speaker 2: this it doesn't conserve comets, but it concerns asteroids, particularly

451
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 2: early asteroids or carbonaceous asteroids, that may have delivered water

452
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 2: and organic molecules to Earth. And apparently it can be

453
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 2: helpful to model them as just big old mudballs. So

454
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:47,680
Speaker 2: the idea here is that ice, dust and chondrules come

455
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 2: together and the pressure has not yet compacted it all

456
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 2: into rock right away. It will in time, but at

457
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 2: this point early on, it hasn't all been compacted into rock,

458
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 2: and the ice will end melting due to decaying radioactive

459
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 2: atoms in the dust and gas, resulting in a quote

460
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 2: unquote schelegi mud wow, And this would eventually become rock again,

461
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 2: but for a time they would be muddy asteroids. According

462
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 2: to the modeling by Philip Bland at Curtain University in Perth,

463
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 2: Australia and his collaborator Brian Travis at the Planetary Science

464
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 2: Institute in Tucson, Arizona.

465
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,199
Speaker 3: That is interesting. Okay, so they got they've got a

466
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 3: pretty strong internal heat source because they've got all these

467
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 3: young radioactive atoms in them that are still decaying at

468
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 3: a pretty rapid rate. So they're keeping the ice content

469
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 3: like melted and moist. And then of course they've got

470
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 3: all like the dust and rock soil content in them.

471
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 3: And yeah wow, this like big balls of mud flying

472
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 3: through space.

473
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So I before I ran across this, I

474
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:53,440
Speaker 2: didn't even think this was possible. You know, you think

475
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 2: of mud as being something you're going to encounter, particularly

476
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 2: on an Earth like world. Now, coming back to Earth,

477
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 2: Wak worlds and Mud. Another Star Wars planet of note,

478
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 2: especially if you've seen the movie Solo, which came out

479
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:11,719
Speaker 2: several years back. There's a planet called Membon, and in

480
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 2: that movie we see Imperial mud Troopers or swamp troopers

481
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 2: as they're sometimes called, engaged in some sort of drawn

482
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 2: out battle on this world. And Joe, in case you

483
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 2: haven't seen this, I included an image here of what

484
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 2: mud troopers look like as compared to just normal Imperial stormtroopers.

485
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 3: Looks like a dirty job, looks like this may be

486
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 3: like the last thing that, like all the other troopers

487
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,239
Speaker 3: try to sign up for different detail and you know,

488
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 3: the last picks for all the other ones, like Nope,

489
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 3: you cannot go to Hawth and be a snowtrooper. You

490
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 3: got to be a mud trooper.

491
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's the way it's presented in

492
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,719
Speaker 2: the movie too, Like Han Solo, a young Han Solo

493
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 2: is a mud trooper on this awful world. Then, of

494
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 2: course they're also drawing in a lot of comparisons to

495
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,439
Speaker 2: trench warfare and war's past and so forth, which will

496
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 2: we'll get back to in a bit. But one of

497
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 2: the interesting things, and of course this is kind of

498
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 2: across the board when you look at sci sci fi

499
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 2: often is looking backwards and taking things from the past

500
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 2: and putting this futuristic spin on them. Because I don't recall,

501
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 2: and I could be wrong. It's been a while since

502
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 2: I've seen Solo, but I don't think the Imperial mud

503
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 2: Troopers leveraged any kind of Sci Fi technology to deal

504
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 2: with the mud. It seems like they would have leaned

505
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 2: heavily on repulsor technology to kind of float above it,

506
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 2: or to use some sort of technology to either rapidly

507
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:34,880
Speaker 2: dry out muddy conditions or to like flash freeze them

508
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,199
Speaker 2: so that you wouldn't have to get slogged down in them.

509
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 2: It seems like that would be something to try if

510
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 2: the Imperial budget allowed for it. I guess they spent

511
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 2: that all on big walking machines that are gonna, yeah,

512
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 2: I guess in theory, not get bogged down in the mud.

513
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 2: Off the top of my head, I don't think I

514
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 2: can even think of another sci Fi vision where there's

515
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 2: any kind of like sci Fi treatment of mud like

516
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 2: this be wrong because I'm not. I mean, there's a

517
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 2: lot of military sci Fi out there, so someone might

518
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 2: have looked at it. I do remember a gadget in

519
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 2: John Steekley's Armor that is like a people in power

520
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 2: armor versus insect aliens on a desert world that involves

521
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 2: sand clotters and a machine that would turn the sand

522
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,959
Speaker 2: of the desert into solid walls of fortification. So I

523
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 2: imagine you'd want something like that, something that, through sci

524
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 2: Fi shenanigans, can instantly dry out an area or make

525
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 2: it solid, as opposed to shifting sand or in this case,

526
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 2: like mud that's going to cling to you and suck

527
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 2: you down into the muck.

528
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 3: I don't know if sand is the best choice for that.

529
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 3: Wouldn't it be better to use a cohesive soil with

530
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 3: smaller particles like clay or silt?

531
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,719
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, So I don't know any of you out there,

532
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: who certainly are more red and military sci fi than me,

533
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 2: there might be an example of this, so right in

534
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 2: and let us know.

535
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 3: Now. Of course you keep saying military sci fi in particular,

536
00:29:57,800 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 3: and it makes sense why you would do that, because

537
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 3: of the the significance of mud in combat and warfare

538
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 3: in human history.

539
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, you know mud. I was thinking about

540
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 2: this a lot like mud is not only an environmental

541
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 2: condition that occurs naturally in the world, but it's often

542
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 2: this condition that is at an interaction point between the

543
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 2: natural world and human activity. You think of muddy roads, right,

544
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 2: We think of paths that are not well maintained that

545
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 2: get really muddy and sloppy in places. And then there

546
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 2: are several walks that my family does like this in

547
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 2: the area where you know, we know exactly where that

548
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 2: muddy stretch is, and there are often a lot of

549
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 2: slapdash efforts to mitigate it, you know, boards that are

550
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 2: thrown down on the rock. Yeah, and you know that

551
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 2: works for a little bit sort of. That also creates

552
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 2: additional splash hazards and new and exciting ways to slip

553
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 2: and fall in the mud. But yeah, mud is also

554
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 2: a big factor in human warfare and has been for

555
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:03,479
Speaker 2: a long long time. You pointed this out to me,

556
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 2: and this is something that has been covered in various

557
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 2: articles over the last couple of years. But there is

558
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 2: a Russian term putitsa that refers to a season or

559
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 2: seasons of the year when unpaved roads become treacherous due

560
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 2: to the mud created by rain and or melting snow

561
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 2: on said roads. It's had a major impact on land

562
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 2: wars in Russia and Eastern Europe, for ages, impacting the

563
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 2: Mongol invasion, both World Wars, and also the Russo Ukrainian

564
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 2: War that, as of this recording, is still ongoing. It's

565
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 2: been observed that among Russia's mistakes during the twenty twenty

566
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 2: two invasion of Ukraine, they underestimated the muddy roads season

567
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 2: that was just kicking off at that time.

568
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 3: Right, So this is sort of one of the factors

569
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 3: affecting the seasonal planning of offensives in conflict in Eastern Europe.

570
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. And on the other hand, another major area

571
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 2: for mud and war is the First World War. And

572
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 2: I mean you can instantly picture this probably if you've

573
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 2: seen images, footage and fictional recreations of those trench warfare environments.

574
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 2: What do you think of You think of like blasted landscape,

575
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 2: you think of mud, You think of these just awful

576
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 2: conditions where like the natural world is just worn away

577
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 2: and all that remains is mud and fortifications and explosions

578
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 2: and death and pain.

579
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, like heavily shelled or trodden over areas where it

580
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 3: seems like a lot of the plant life has been

581
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 3: killed and stripped away, and now like the roots are,

582
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:41,479
Speaker 3: it's not really holding the soil together the way it was,

583
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 3: and now it's just mud.

584
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you've ever taken a poetry class, you

585
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 2: may have run across the fact that, yeah, there's a

586
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 2: lot of great but depressing poetry and writings in general

587
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 2: that came out of this time period, people describing these conditions,

588
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 2: describing the horrors of war and the horrors of chemical

589
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 2: war and so forth. One of the best literary treatments

590
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 2: of war and mud, however, just has to be that

591
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 2: of American British war nurse turned novelist and poet Mary Borden.

592
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventeen, she wrote a poem called the Song

593
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 2: of the Mud. You can find this in full on

594
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 2: Poetry Foundation dot org. But it's really really good. Joe,

595
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 2: were you familiar with this poem?

596
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 3: I don't think so.

597
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is a new one for me. I

598
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 2: this is not one that I remember covering in poetry classes.

599
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 2: But she writes of quote, the frothing, squirting, spurting liquid

600
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 2: mud that gurgles along the road beds unquote, as well

601
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 2: as quote the thick, elastic mud that is needed and

602
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 2: pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of the horses, though

603
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 2: she also juxtaposes this with more natural seeming aspects of mud,

604
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:58,479
Speaker 2: even like mud as something that can be beautiful. From Afar,

605
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 2: I'm going to read the final stanza from the poem,

606
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 2: but again I encourage everyone to go out and read

607
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 2: it in full quote. This is the song of the mud.

608
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 2: The beautiful, glistening golden mud that covers the hills like satin.

609
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 2: The mysterious, gleaming, silvery mud that is spread like enamel

610
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 2: over the valleys. Mud, the disguise of the war zone. Mud,

611
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 2: the mantle of battles, mud, the smooth, fluid grave of

612
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 2: our soldiers. This is the song of the mud.

613
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 3: Wow, that's interesting, And I don't know the connotations of

614
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 3: mud is used and that stands at least are more

615
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 3: I don't know, more positive than I would have expected.

616
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's there's a lot of dark imagery

617
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,800
Speaker 2: in there about it, like swallowing up guns and taking

618
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 2: people down and like like not only like the physical

619
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 2: power of the mud, but also like the emotional toll

620
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 2: of the mud, which I'll come back to in a

621
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 2: bed as well.

622
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 3: When I was thinking of World War One poetry and

623
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 3: the concept of mud, I thought of the one of

624
00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 3: the poems of Wilfrid Owen. I just had to look

625
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,399
Speaker 3: it up because I didn't remember the name, but it's

626
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:09,240
Speaker 3: the Apologia pro poemate Mayo, which I think means defense

627
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:12,399
Speaker 3: of my poetry. And this is by Wilfrid Owen, who

628
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 3: was a British poet who fought in World War One.

629
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 3: Wrote a lot of poetry associated with the war, like

630
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 3: Anthem for Doomed Youth you might have read. But the

631
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:24,280
Speaker 3: opening stands of this poem was, I too saw God

632
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 3: through mud, the mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled,

633
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 3: war brought more glory to their eyes than blood, and

634
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 3: gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

635
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, I don't remember that bit, but I

636
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 2: remember Owen. He's definitely one of the names that comes

637
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 2: up when a poetry class steers sharply into the trenches.

638
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 3: Yeah.

639
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,800
Speaker 2: Now, a book that I mentioned earlier in this series, Mud,

640
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 2: a Military History by C. E. Wood, is a full

641
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 2: book dealing with mud. In war. And so if you

642
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 2: need more of this, I highly recommend you pick up

643
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 2: that book. It's very well written, it's you, it's very absorbable.

644
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 2: But in it would stresses that while more permanent domains

645
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 2: of mud are certainly important in warfare, you need to

646
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 2: know where the swamps, marshes and bogs are and how

647
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:17,399
Speaker 2: to either circumnavigate them or utilize them, force the enemy

648
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 2: to move through them, that sort of thing. But the

649
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 2: main area of interest in the book is transitional mud.

650
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 2: That is the kind that arrives and departs without significant warning.

651
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 3: Okay, so this previously traversible landscape suddenly has mud in

652
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 3: it that is going to interfere with your progress.

653
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this becomes key because I mean, this is

654
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:44,399
Speaker 2: not something you can necessarily plan for, or planning can

655
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 2: fall short of taking it into account. And it's a

656
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 2: variety of mud that has played a crucial role in

657
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 2: the history of armed conflict. One of Wood's main focuses

658
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 2: in this is how mud hinders forward advancement in warfare,

659
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 2: so impacting combatants, animals, and machines of war, and of

660
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 2: course not just war machines and soldiers and tanks and

661
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:06,239
Speaker 2: horses with knights on them and that sort of thing.

662
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 2: But of course everything that supports a war effort, that

663
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 2: supports an army and its advancement, the vehicles that are

664
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 2: carrying food, any kind of medical support that is in

665
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 2: tow all of that sort of thing as well. So

666
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 2: generals have to contend with the impact of permanent mud,

667
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 2: seasonal mud, random transitional mud, in addition to all of

668
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 2: the other threats and challenges of battle, all the other

669
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:35,239
Speaker 2: environmental concerns that will come into play. And there are

670
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,800
Speaker 2: also huge human health and mental health challenges with mud

671
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 2: that the author deals with in greater detail. There's a

672
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 2: great quote in the book though, about this, attributed to

673
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 2: historian Martin Gilbert. Quote. At night, crouching in a shell

674
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 2: hole and filling it, the mud watches like an enormous octopus.

675
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 2: The victim arrives, it throws its poisonous slobber out at him,

676
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,879
Speaker 2: lines him, closes round him, buries him. For men die

677
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 2: of mud as they die of bullets. But more horribly,

678
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 2: mud is where men sink, and what is worse, where

679
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 2: their souls sink. Hell is not fire, that would not

680
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 2: be the ultimate in suffering. Hell is mud?

681
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 3: Wow? Well, there is something I think interesting there in

682
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 3: that mud in a way militates against people's ability to

683
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 3: see their own suffering as noble or to see it

684
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 3: in any grandiose terms, that there's something kind of humbling

685
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 3: and humiliating about suffering brought on by an environment of mud.

686
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 3: And thus like death in mud is an image that

687
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 3: brings a lot more despair than the idea of a

688
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 3: sort of like violent death or death in fire.

689
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now on thinking about this though, hell

690
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 2: is mud, that of course made me think of Dante's Inferno,

691
00:38:57,680 --> 00:38:59,399
Speaker 2: and I was like, I remember there being some mud

692
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 2: in Dante's Ferno somewhere. You have varied all the different

693
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 2: circles and bulgs in Inferno. They have different characteristics, different flavors.

694
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 2: And indeed there is a circle in Dante's Inferno where

695
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 2: there is mud. It is the third Circle. And I

696
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:18,879
Speaker 2: had to I had to look it back up again.

697
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 2: I was looking in my translation by Durling and Martinez,

698
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 2: and this is just a couple of lines from it. Quote,

699
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 2: I am in the third circle with the eternal cursed,

700
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 2: cold and heavy rain. It's rule and quality never change.

701
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 2: Great hailstones, filthy water and snow poured down through the

702
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:44,359
Speaker 2: dark air. The earth stinks that received them. It's also

703
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:47,720
Speaker 2: the realm of Cerberus. But when quote the great worm

704
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 2: opens his mouth to growl at Dante and Virgil, Virgil

705
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 2: throws dirt into the monster's three mouths, and the monster

706
00:39:55,280 --> 00:40:01,320
Speaker 2: gobbles it all down delicious. Yeah. Yeah, is durling, and

707
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 2: Martinez explained in the notes in my translation of Inferno,

708
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 2: the mud food connection is key here. Quote the rain, hail,

709
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 2: and snow and resulting mud are versions of the food

710
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 2: and drink to which the gluttons were addicted in the

711
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 2: last analysis, merely visions of the elements earth and water.

712
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 3: Sort of portraying the like the the worthlessness of the

713
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 3: pleasures of gluttony. That like that you're just sort of

714
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 3: concerning yourself with material rubbish rather than having your mind

715
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 3: on heavenly things.

716
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also like the sense that it's it's all

717
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:40,399
Speaker 2: mud anyway, or even that it's it's all excrement. There's

718
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 2: also a lot of dog imagery here. Obviously we have

719
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 2: Cerberus with the three dog heads, and then we also

720
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 2: have pig imagery thrown in and also mud excrement comparisons

721
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:49,480
Speaker 2: as well.

722
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 3: Hey, pig imagery bringing us back to pig mud wallowing,

723
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 3: which actually turns out to be a quite clever adaptation

724
00:40:57,640 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 3: of nature.

725
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 4: Yeah.

726
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 2: Anyway, so brief departure into hell, but coming back to

727
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 2: the surface world and the hell we make for ourselves there.

728
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 2: Coming back to war as what explains that the mere

729
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:23,320
Speaker 2: challenge of moving around and mud can lead to exhaustion

730
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 2: for the individual soldier, and this exhaustion can prove fatal.

731
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 2: It can also hold true for pack animals as well.

732
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 2: So you know, if you're in a very muddy situation

733
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 2: and you're having to just move through mud constantly or

734
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 2: for a lengthy period of time, like that's just making

735
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 2: every step so much harder. And there's a good chance

736
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 2: you're already doing something exhausting, that is mentally trying. You're

737
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 2: already under a great deal of stress, and now each

738
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 2: each time you try and lift your boot your foot

739
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 2: out of the mud, more effort is required of you. Now,

740
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:01,239
Speaker 2: there have been efforts to improve footwear for soldiers at

741
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,800
Speaker 2: different time periods, such as having wider essentially kind of

742
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 2: like plank bottom shoes that the US Army experimented with

743
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 2: special mud boots and shoes in World War Two, and

744
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 2: then again in Vietnam would include several prototype photos here.

745
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,799
Speaker 2: Joe I included a screen cap here for you to

746
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 2: look at these. They're not much to look at, but

747
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 2: you can see they're like basically different designs of wide

748
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 2: flat surfaces that would be scrapped or somehow attached the

749
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 2: bottom of boots.

750
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 3: Some of them look like huge wooden hoofs.

751
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do. And you know, I'm not certain because

752
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 2: it's just the subtitle. He was very brief, but I

753
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 2: guess it's possible that some of these could be for horses.

754
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe the round one that's kind of

755
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 2: hoof shaped is for a horse. I don't know, huh,

756
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 2: because certainly, you know, horses would be of concern, and well,

757
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 2: not all of these military engagements. Of some of them.

758
00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 2: Tracked vehicles like tanks and half tracks perform better in

759
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 2: some muddy situations, but a tract vehicles certainly can get

760
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 2: stuck in the mud. As Wood points out, they can

761
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 2: also slide out of control through the mud and down

762
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 2: muddy hillsides as well. Tracks can spread weight out more

763
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 2: evenly than tires, So that's one of the appeals of

764
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 2: having tracks or half tracked designs in these vehicles, but yeah,

765
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 2: they're still not perfect. And then if you throw trenches

766
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 2: into the mix, as it was encountered in the First

767
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 2: World War, especially, you know that one of these big

768
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 2: tanks can get stuck in the trench, and therefore you need,

769
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 2: like other vehicles to lay down temporary bridges so that

770
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 2: the tanks can make it across those trenches. Now, coming

771
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,399
Speaker 2: back to health though, human health and mud, Wood also

772
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 2: points out that extremely muddy conditions often lead to deteriorating

773
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 2: sanitary conditions. Wood points out that wounded soldiers rarely reach

774
00:43:56,880 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 2: medical facilities clean, so and then this make sense. You're

775
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 2: in muddy conditions, you're going to enter into the medical

776
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:08,839
Speaker 2: facilities muddy and that and also it means that oftentimes

777
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 2: it's not just like any kind of pure mud, That

778
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 2: mud is going to be mixed with all manner of

779
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 2: unhygienic ingredients from the war zone. Muddy conditions also severely

780
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 2: hinder the ability to just evacuate the wounded or to

781
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 2: have medical personnel come in to deal with people who

782
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 2: are wounded.

783
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, in addition to all these general concerns, it

784
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:32,439
Speaker 3: seems like I have memories of reading about at least

785
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:37,240
Speaker 3: interpretations of some decisive battles in history where mud played

786
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 3: a role in how the battle turned out, or at

787
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 3: least some historians believed that it did. Like I seem

788
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 3: to recall the Battle of Agincore as one example.

789
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Battle of Agincore is a big one. This

790
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:52,239
Speaker 2: is from fourteen fifteen English victory over the French in

791
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 2: the One Hundred Years War. The French had to advance

792
00:44:55,120 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 2: heavily armored knights through very muddy conditions. And this key

793
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:02,839
Speaker 2: to this too is that this was transient mud. I've

794
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 2: read this was These were not muddy conditions that were expected.

795
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 2: This was I believe there is like a huge storm,

796
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 2: so they weren't prepared for it. They marched anyway, and

797
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 2: they end up sinking in the mud, especially if they've

798
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 2: been knocked off their horse, easily immobilized once unhorsed in

799
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 2: all that heavy armor. And it's said that, you know,

800
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 2: some of the French knights drowned in the mud there.

801
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 3: And this seems to be kind of a pattern that

802
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 3: emerges in history, like it is bad to be caught

803
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:33,440
Speaker 3: as the side in a battle that is trying to

804
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 3: advance through the mud.

805
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean all these factors are going to

806
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 2: come into play. It's going to slow you down. This

807
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 2: stuff's going to get stuck, and then when the battle

808
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:45,840
Speaker 2: turns against you, it's going to turn even worse. A

809
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 2: couple of other examples that come up frequently. There's the

810
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 2: mud March from the Battle of Fredericksburg eighteen sixty two

811
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 2: in the American Civil War. This was on the Union side.

812
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 2: General Burnside's troops were and it ended up having to

813
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 2: go through some really muddy conditions and a number of

814
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 2: key artillery pieces and wagons became trapped in the mud,

815
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 2: delaying the Union advance. And this was due to like

816
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 2: sudden stormy conditions that were not expected that made it

817
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 2: difficult to move these key pieces. Now, the Battle of

818
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:21,919
Speaker 2: the So from nineteen sixteen, this was this is another

819
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 2: example that comes up now. This one, though, is an

820
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 2: inconclusive battle of the First World War between German forces

821
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 2: and some British and French forces. Entailed massive casualties on

822
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 2: both sides in very muddy trench warfare conditions. So not

823
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:40,880
Speaker 2: a situation where like the mud gave either side an advantage,

824
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 2: but just made it. It seemed to contribute it to

825
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 2: it just being like an awful, awful battle for both sides. Now,

826
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 2: as I mentioned already, like muddy conditions, muddy trench warfare.

827
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 2: It's like just kind of you instantly picture it when

828
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 2: you're thinking of World War One in particular, or perhaps

829
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:59,359
Speaker 2: like Germany's in the Eastern Front and World War Two,

830
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:02,840
Speaker 2: and both of these are theaters of war that have

831
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 2: been recreated in various films over the years and TV

832
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 2: shows and the like. But also you just tend to

833
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:14,720
Speaker 2: see a lot of muddy war conditions and muddy battlefields

834
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:19,320
Speaker 2: and especially muddy conditions after the battle in other films

835
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 2: and also in video games. And I had never really

836
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 2: thought of this before, but I was reading a little

837
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 2: bit about this on the blog The Excellent Blog, a

838
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 2: collection of Unmitigated Pedantry by historian Brett Devereaux. I've referred

839
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 2: to this blog a few times because it's a great read.

840
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 2: He does things like, you know, analyze the warfare in

841
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 2: The Lord of the Rings, both the books and the

842
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 2: Peter Jackson movies and so forth, does a lot of

843
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 2: talking about Roman military, So.

844
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 3: It's like a military historian writing about topics nerds would

845
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:56,879
Speaker 3: be interested in, yes.

846
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 2: Very much so. So if you're into a lot of

847
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 2: these nerdy settings, or you're into ancient warfare and medieval

848
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 2: warfare and so forth, I definitely recommend it. But I

849
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 2: was reading one of his posts where he points out

850
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 2: that that, yeah, you see a lot of films and

851
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:14,720
Speaker 2: especially video games that depict the aftermath of pre modern

852
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,840
Speaker 2: battles as being just muddy and bloody messes. And he

853
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 2: points out that this doesn't seem to be the norm,

854
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:25,279
Speaker 2: you mean, in reality. In reality, yes, it was not

855
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 2: always just a muddy mess after an ancient or medieval

856
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 2: battle took place. Right now, that's not to say that

857
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 2: you don't have, like the examples we're discussing, where you

858
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 2: have definite muddy places that either erupt because there's a

859
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 2: great like it's a road where there's a lot, a

860
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:43,239
Speaker 2: great deal of travel, and then it becomes muddy. And

861
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 2: then you have transient mud in the mix. You have

862
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:51,399
Speaker 2: muddy conditions popping up because of extreme storm activity that's

863
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 2: taken place. But he points out that like if you

864
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 2: just have like a normal grassy environment field somewhere where

865
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 2: there's a battle taking place, it's not like a single

866
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:05,399
Speaker 2: battle taking place there over the course of a day

867
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 2: or even a couple of days is going to just

868
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,800
Speaker 2: wear down all the vegetation and turn it into mud.

869
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 2: In particular, he points to photographic evidence from the American

870
00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 2: Civil War that shows that, Yeah, you can have a

871
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 2: large army, say, moving through an area, and it's not

872
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 2: going to kill off the grass and muddy things up

873
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 2: over the course of a single day or a couple

874
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 2: of days. It's the sort of thing that occurs due

875
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 2: to prolonged traffic, prolonged activity, and also environmental conditions thrown

876
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 2: in there as well. So you know, all of those

877
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 2: things you see with like a trench warfare environment, but

878
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 2: it's not just going to pop up over the course

879
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,279
Speaker 2: of a couple of days because an army moved through

880
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 2: a place, or even because two armies clashed at a

881
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:46,720
Speaker 2: particular location.

882
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:49,919
Speaker 3: Yeah, so maybe when people are dug in and there's

883
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 3: there's frequent foot traffic or heavy machinery moving around, or

884
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 3: when an area is subject to prolonged shelling or something

885
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:57,479
Speaker 3: like that.

886
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:00,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I see the appeal of it in

887
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 2: cinematic portrayals and dramatic portrayals of the aftermath of war,

888
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 2: because it's like we have been bloodied, people are suffering

889
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 2: and wounded, and it makes sense that you sort of

890
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 2: heighten that feeling that the earth itself, the world is

891
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 2: wounded by all of this, like the wrongness of everything

892
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 2: that has occurred here. So like I like that connection,

893
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:26,400
Speaker 2: and I think it certainly plays well. But it's it's

894
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 2: a fun or an interesting commentary on this to sort

895
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:33,759
Speaker 2: of put it in, you know, look at it within

896
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 2: the perspective of how battles seem to have actually impacted

897
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 2: or not impacted the environment.

898
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 3: So it's not necessarily the battle of a single day

899
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 3: that can turn a place muddy, but it's more like

900
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:47,879
Speaker 3: the prolonged human presence, which maybe why you can see

901
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:50,800
Speaker 3: places become very muddy if they're also like the site

902
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 3: of a festival or fair grounds, how muddy that can get.

903
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets very muddy very quickly. You see this

904
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:02,920
Speaker 2: with with places that even you know are more or

905
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 2: less permanent. You know that they're having to continually figure

906
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 2: out how figuring out how the water flows and how

907
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:10,040
Speaker 2: to keep mud from becoming a problem. But yeah, it's

908
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 2: it's you do see it at festivals a lot. I

909
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 2: guess that what the nineties Woodstock oh a example of

910
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 2: really muddy conditions and people getting into the mud, and

911
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 2: it also becoming sort of a hell escape in that

912
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 2: particular encounter. But there's also mud at the original woodstock,

913
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 2: and you know, there's sort of these scenes of sort

914
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:34,280
Speaker 2: of innocent, hippy enjoyment of muddy conditions, you know, slattering

915
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,439
Speaker 2: yourself with mud. So you know, being covered in mud

916
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:40,319
Speaker 2: and trapped in mud is not necessarily a bad thing,

917
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 2: but certainly, you know, in if you're also engaging in

918
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:46,480
Speaker 2: a in a bloody battle, I don't think anyone's going

919
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 2: to be a fan. All right, We're looking at the

920
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 2: clock here and we realize we have to end Mud

921
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 2: Part four, despite the fact that we did want to

922
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,280
Speaker 2: get in a little bit at least into the discussion

923
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 2: of mud and religion. One of the most obvious aspects

924
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:07,800
Speaker 2: of this being that so many religions, especially ancient religions

925
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:13,680
Speaker 2: and mythologies, involves some idea of humans being made for

926
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 2: mud or clay or dirt, but particularly clay and mud,

927
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 2: you know, very much leaning into the idea of a

928
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:26,320
Speaker 2: creator deity or deities as being potters that are molding

929
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 2: us and perhaps baking us, in making us what we are.

930
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:31,759
Speaker 2: But then we also had some other stuff to say

931
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:34,279
Speaker 2: about that, so well, I don't know, we'll have to

932
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 2: come back to this in some form. I'm not saying

933
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:38,840
Speaker 2: we're gonna come back and do Mud Part five because

934
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:42,200
Speaker 2: we already said we wouldn't do that, but we did

935
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 2: leave the door open for various mud creatures to slather in.

936
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 2: So yeah, we'll discuss it off Mike and come back.

937
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:53,120
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're gonna go and close it up.

938
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 2: But we'd love to hear from everyone out there if

939
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:58,360
Speaker 2: you have thoughts on just mud in general, experience with mud,

940
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:03,120
Speaker 2: experiences with muddy conditions, mud in military science fiction, mud,

941
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 2: and in military history in all of is fair game

942
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:09,320
Speaker 2: writ in. We would love to hear from your reminder

943
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 2: that are core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind

944
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:13,919
Speaker 2: here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow

945
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:18,280
Speaker 2: Your Mind podcast feed We have listener mail episodes on Monday,

946
00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:21,240
Speaker 2: Short Form Artifact or Monster Fact on Wednesday, and on Fridays.

947
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:23,279
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948
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 2: a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

949
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:29,279
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950
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:30,799
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951
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,680
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952
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:35,960
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953
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:38,960
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954
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:46,720
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955
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,759
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