WEBVTT - Mud, Part 4 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:07.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.040 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:15.680 is Robert. 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.360 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And we're back with 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.239 part four. And I would say probably it's got to 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:24.000 be the final part right now, at least the final 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.159 part for now of our series on mud. So in 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.960 previous episodes in the series, which if you haven't listened 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:32.720 to them, you should go back and check those out first, 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.280 but we talked about the history of mud on Earth. 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.879 It's a more surprising and dynamic story than you might imagine. 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:42.640 That was in part one. We talked a bit about 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.960 what defines mud. You know, it tends to be, of course, 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:48.879 wet soil of a smaller particle size that gives it 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:54.120 that sticky consistency. We talked in part two about animal 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:59.680 behavior and mud, such as pig wallowing, Arnold Schwarzenegger wallowing mud, 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.560 what do they call it, mud skippers, the fish that 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.280 have these interesting mud habitat behaviors, and other things like that. 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.200 In the episode just before this one, we talked a 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.760 lot about mud bricks, the history of mud in human construction. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.000 And today we're back to sort of round things out 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.000 with the grab bag of different little topics that didn't 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:21.000 make it anywhere else. 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.160 That's right, Yeah, this will I think this will be 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.640 the capstone for this series. But Mud does open up 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.720 the possibility for some standalone episodes later on. I think 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.959 there's a It ends up touching on so many different 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:41.520 aspects of the world and our habitats and also human creation. 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.600 So who knows, there may be more mud in the future, 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:46.280 but this is going to be like the This is 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.200 the bedrock mud. This is the initial foundation of mud 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:53.160 bricks upon on which we might build future episodes. 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.480 That's right, that's right. So to kick things off today, 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.040 I wanted to start by thinking about a principle that 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.000 maybe should be used in the natural sciences. We'll see, 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.640 and it's basically the heavy metal principle of nature, which 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:10.040 states that for every phenomenon in nature, there's a good 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.359 chance there is a heavy metal version of that phenomenon. 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:15.840 If you start with the kind of like an easy 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:20.360 listening or jazz or country of your classic mud puddle, 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.160 the heavy metal version, I think is the mud pot 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.160 So you think of a normal mud puddle, there's usually 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.480 a depression in the ground where surface water collects after 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.840 rain soaks through the soil, especially if the soil particle 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.640 particles are small, creates an area of plastic or even 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.920 fully liquid mud. And if water stops flowing into the 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.440 puddle from above, it can dry up. But now imagine 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:49.240 a mud puddle with a thick liquid consistency, sort of 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:54.040 like paint, but boiling bubbling, like a big pot of stew, 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:58.760 forming opaque bubbles of gas that the gas is clearly 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.080 trapped in those clay particles rising up from below, and 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.600 you can see them form into spheres on the surface 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.160 sometimes and they stay there for a moment before they 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.600 finally burst, and depending on the consistency of the mud, 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.160 might splatter all over the place when they do burst, 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:15.960 maybe even throwing clumps of mud up into the air 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.200 such that it piles around this puddle of mud, forming 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.080 mounds or even a cone that the mud puddle rises from, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.200 or a weird kind of collar of mud splatter all around. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.320 This is a mud pot, and it's also it could 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.360 develop into one example of a term. There's a term 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.320 called mud volcano that actually seems to be used to 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.119 refer to a multiple very different things, but one thing 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.400 that gets called a mud volcano is the kind of 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.280 mound that can build up from the life cycle of 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:49.080 a mud pot. 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.560 Quick Weird House cinema trivia here for you, Joe, Can 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.640 you name two movies that we've covered that feature boiling 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.280 mud or the appearance of boiling mud, no matter how 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.680 they actually created it via actual footage or some other 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:03.640 kind of technique. 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.200 Oh wow, you are really stumping me. I seem to 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.240 recall there's some boiling mud in Legend. Isn't that where 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.680 Meg Mucklebones lives? But I don't think we actually watched 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:14.640 Legend for Weird House? 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.440 Did we? No? No, not as of this recording. 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.200 Oh wait a minute, did we do Labyrinth? No, we 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.160 didn't do Labyrinth. But Labyrinth has boiling mud, doesn't it? 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.279 Uh? Yeah, or something that looks like it. Now, the 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.600 two movies that I believe we've watched that have boiling 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.440 mud or the effect of boiling mud, Planet of the 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.360 Vampires and nineteen seventy eights Beauty and the Beast. 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.000 You're exactly right, Both of those just escaped my memory. 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.039 But yeah, two masterpieces in their own right. 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:45.279 Came into my head as you were describing it. Because 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.600 it is a very like otherworldly feeling thing. Though even 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.400 though it is very much all of this world, it 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:56.080 kind of lends itself to alien environments or environments like 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:57.760 in Beauty and the Beast, which are supposed to be 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.960 kind of like on the edge of the civil lies world, 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.599 sort of bordering on the supernatural. Yeah. 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.160 Yeah, in the Beating in the Beast, there's like boiling 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.080 mud or at least bubbling mud even within the grounds 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.360 of the castle, I think, isn't there. I think, so, yeah, 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.320 there's like a courtyard that has mud pots within it, 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.080 and that seems yeah, at the edge of fantasy. But 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.680 to look at a mud pot and understand what's going 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.400 on here, I think we should start with the concept 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:28.080 of a hot spring. So hot spring's form when water 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.839 heated by geothermal energy deep underground rises to the surface 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.960 and forms a pool, or when water that collects at 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.080 the surface due to you know, regular runoff and surface 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:43.040 features is heated by steam more heat from below, and 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.200 this surface water can be anywhere between you know, pleasantly 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.919 warm bathtub temperature and lethal boiling. So you do not 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.320 ever want to jump into a hot spring unless it's 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.159 one that is like very well known in advanced to 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:01.279 be a consistent safe temperature if in out, stay away. 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.920 I've read something like twenty people are known to have 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.760 died from jumping into or falling into hot springs at 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.640 Yellowstone National Park in the United States alone. 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.040 Yeah, I remember reading about some of this when we 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:19.080 were doing some episodes on springs and holy waters associated 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:19.680 with springs. 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:24.120 Yeah, and sometimes it can be deceiving, Like there are 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.960 tragic cases of people just trying to like get close 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.480 to see what the temperature is like and then falling 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.000 in and dying. There was a case like this I 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.760 was reading about from the year twenty sixteen where let's see. Well, 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:38.880 so I was reading an article about it from the 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:44.480 local news station KULR eight in Billings. I guess Billings, Montana, 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:49.000 near Yellowstone, And so the headline was man killed in 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.440 Yellowstone hot spring allegedly trying to quote hot pot. I 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.039 guess hot potting is like, you know, jumping into a 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.640 hot spring to hang out in it. But to read 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.080 from the article, it says the man who died in 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.320 a Yellowstone hot spring last summer was apparently looking for 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.920 a place to hot pot in the park. Yellowstone officials 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.000 recently released the final report on the incident following a 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.360 Freedom of Information Act request. The victim's sister recorded the 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.000 incident on her cell phone. The accident happened in Norris 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.840 Geyser Basin on the afternoon of June seventh. Deputy Chief 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.520 Ranger Laurent Veresse says, it is a very dangerous area 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.720 with boiling, acidic waters. So the article tells the story 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.480 of how the man and his sister went off the 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.120 approved path and they were checking out different like hot 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.680 springs or maybe more mudpot type areas to see what 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.040 the temperature was, and unfortunately, the man, while trying to 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.960 get close to check the temperature, slipped and fell in, 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.960 and the article says, quote search and rescue rangers who 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.600 arrived later did find the victim's body in the pool, 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.760 along with his wallet and flip flops, but a lightning 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.080 storm stopped the recovery efforts. The next day, workers could 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.280 not find anys Veras says the water was churning and acidic. 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.440 He remarked, quote, in a very short order, there was 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:12.520 a significant amount of dissolving. So the apparently boiling and 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:18.120 acidic conditions in the water essentially disintegrated the victim's remains. 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.920 Oh wow, so it is no joke. 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.080 Do not mess around with like, oh, maybe I'll go 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.000 check out this hot spring and see if I should 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:26.280 get in. 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.080 Yeah, listen to your park rangers, obey signage. 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:33.199 But so okay, So that's hot springs water that pools 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.080 on the surface that is either connected to a hydrothermal 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.640 system that heats it, or is heated by heat coming 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.520 off of a hydrothermal system below in the ground. So 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.800 also in this family of surface outlets for geothermal energy 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.440 are fumaroles, which are holes in the earth where steam 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.840 rising from geothermally heated water escapes. A mud pot is, 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.160 in a way still a type of mud puddle. Mud 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:02.679 pots are pools where water collects and mixes with clay particles, 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.560 forming a thick liquid mud, usually gray or cream colored, 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:10.880 sometimes black, but there are other colors possible too. This 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:15.000 mud puddle is heated by geothermal activity from below, or 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.360 at least is permeated by gas that's released from below, 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.520 and mudpots often release hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:26.160 rotten eggs. And while people who see these things often 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.439 describe them as marvelous, one of the most amazing things 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:33.200 they've seen in nature, if not exactly beautiful. An element 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.360 of the mudpot encounter, described at least as often is 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.800 the dank, putrid smell, which is in the air before 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.200 you can even see the thing. You might maybe you 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.199 hear it, but you smell it now. An interesting thing 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.679 is I wonder if this reflects a development in the 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.200 understanding of mudpots. But I've read different accounts of the 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.880 most common ways that mudpots are formed, So I want 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.760 to start with an older account, from a reputable source, 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.160 but an older one. This is from a textbook from 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.600 the nineteen twenties by the American geologist Lewis V. Pearson 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.040 that essentially describes a mud pot as like a hot spring, 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.640 but with limited water supply, and Pierson says it goes 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:18.280 like this. If there is basically a net positive flow 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.200 of water into a hot spring, meaning that more water 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.559 is flowing into the hot spring, either from below or 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.400 from above, or the combination of both, than the rate 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.079 of evaporation of that water, this will lead to overflow 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.040 from the spring, and the water will overflow the basin 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.800 of the pool and drain away. And in fact, if 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:38.960 you look up pictures of hot springs, you can often 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:43.559 see rocks nearby stained where the runoff from the spring 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:48.400 is going. It'll maybe carry colorful extremophile microbes with it, 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.480 so you'll see almost kind of like a little red 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.520 river running off the side of it. And so in 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:55.840 these cases, if the flow of water into the pool 0:10:56.000 --> 0:11:00.760 is positive, the water stays relatively clear, relatively limpid, in 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.199 Pearson's words, often a deep blue or green color, though 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:06.839 it can appear different colors like red or yellow, again 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:08.560 due to extremophiles present. 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:09.080 Now. 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.840 Of course, presumably if the net flow of water into 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.240 the pool is strongly negative, the pool will just dry up. 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.280 But Pearson says if the rate of evaporation is roughly 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.040 equal to the rate of inflow of water into the pool, 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.679 the hot spring neither dries up nor overflows. Then the 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.840 acidic water sitting in the pool dissolves the surrounding rock 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:36.040 into clay, which then mixes with the water and forms mud, 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.760 and you are left with a pool of hot, bubbling mud, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.600 which is sometimes described as boiling because of the way 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.280 that it bubbles. It certainly can look like it is boiling, 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.840 but technically I've read that these mud pots have variable temperature. 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.520 They are sometimes less hot than the boiling point of water, which, 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.120 of course, at one atmosphere of pressure is one hundred 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:00.599 degree c or two twelve fahrenheit. In some cases, the 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.120 mud pot is actually much cooler than that, but the 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.520 mud is still bubbling because of hot gases from below, 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.240 so hot gases in the earth are still rising up 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.720 through it. In that case, it's not actually the mud boiling, 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.160 it's just it's being permeated by gas that's trying to rise. 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.640 Pierson says that the mud in these pots can be 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:24.000 different colors. It can be white, yellow, red, purple, or black. 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.240 This is often due to the presence of oxides of 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.480 iron or manganese. I think manganese oxides tend to be 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.600 more black. Of course, iron oxide tends to be more red. 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.400 And for this reason of all these different colors, these 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.440 mudpots are sometimes called paint pots. They can look like 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.280 a bubbling pool of paint of different colors mixed together. 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:45.000 Now. 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:49.040 Pierson says that as more clay is dissolved into the water, 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.880 the mud becomes thicker. Of course, so you're getting more 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.280 soil to the same roughly the same amount of water. 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.480 So as you mix in more sediment it becomes a 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:03.000 thicker consistency, and this makes the ebulition, meaning the bubbling, 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.680 less regular. So imagine the way that, like a soup 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.960 in a pot on the stove, as it becomes thicker, 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.800 the bubbling becomes less regular and more kind of random 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.320 and chaotic and violent rob it. Do you know what 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.840 I'm talking about from cooking experiences. 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.120 Yes, yeah, it can kind of even like shake the pot. 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.600 A little bit, right, yeah. Yeah, So this is my 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.960 experience in the kitchen. Like you boil something with basically 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:35.040 a watery consistency or broth like consistency, the bubbles will 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.880 be pretty even. There'll be a steady rate, you know, 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.800 they'll pop evenly as long as the heat is consistently applied. 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.360 But if you were talking about like a very thick stew, 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.520 you can sometimes get much less predictable and more explosive bubbles. 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:51.120 So it might not bubble at all for a bit, 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:53.679 and then suddenly a huge bubble pops and it splatters 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:54.800 all over the stovetop. 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.439 Yeah yeah, I was cooking one of these just last night. 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.000 Well, apparently a similar thing that happened as the mud 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.640 in a mudpot thickens with thick mud, steam builds up 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.600 higher pressure before rising to the top and popping, which 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.200 means it can happen, in Pearson's words quote spasmodically and 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.240 with some violence, the mud being thrown into the air 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:18.600 and about the vent where it collects inconsiderable masses. And 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.440 this is one version of the concept of the mud volcano. 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.560 Because the mud pot that bubbles this way and kind 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.120 of builds up mud around it can form a cone 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.760 that looks like a volcano mountain, it looks like a 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.200 cone volcano, or it can kind of form a caldera 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.680 around itself made out of ejected mud. Now, often this 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.760 mud erodes very easily, so this building process can be 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:48.360 kind of cyclical. But yeah, it can build up a 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.680 little sort of mini volcano made out of mud and 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:55.040 just kind of keep popping and spewing onto itself. Pearson 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:57.960 says that this usually marks the end of the period 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.360 of activity for a hot spring. As the activity of 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.520 a hot spring is dying away, it's more likely to 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.800 go through a mud pot and a volcano period. Now, 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.480 I mentioned I came across some different accounts of what 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.840 is exactly going on in a mud pot. That was 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.080 the older account. There a lot of the more recent 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.840 sources I was looking at describe the source of the 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:24.440 water going into the mud pot as placing more emphasis 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.200 on that being surface water. So, for example, the National 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.520 Park Service has some materials about what's going on with 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.760 the mudpots at Yellowstone, and these sources claim that it 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:39.360 essentially acts more like a double boiler. So, again with 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.040 kitchen analogies, I guess that's where we have a lot 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.560 of our experience with boiling liquids a double boiler. If 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:47.760 you never used this, rob it's like you put like 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.360 a glass bowl on top of a pot that has 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.160 a little bit of water boiling in it, and the 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:57.440 steam from the boiling water rises and it gently heats 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.000 the bowl from below, as opposed to just you know, 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.120 putting whatever you have in the bowl in the pot 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:05.720 directly and having hot metal applied to it. 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.320 I don't think I've ever done this myself. Interesting. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.800 Sometimes it's used usually when you need to heat something 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.040 very gently, like if you're trying to heat something that 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.440 could easily overheat and would be ruined by doing so, 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.240 like if you are making It's used sometimes in baking, 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.200 when you need to melt chocolate to a particular temperature. 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.240 To get the inconsistency you want, or if you're making 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.920 like a hollandaise sauce, because you know, you heat a 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.160 hollandaise sauce too much, and you know with scrambled eggs. Okay, 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.920 all right, but so anyway, it's just like letting the 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.920 steam from below do the heating of the food, as 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.800 opposed to letting applying direct heat from the heating element 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:49.040 through the metal to the food. And the source from 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.520 the National Park Service claims that in the case of 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.800 these mudpots, what's usually happening is that water from the 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.600 surface collects in a basin or a depression that is 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:02.000 not actually connected to the water flow from the hydrothermal 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.080 systems in the ground. Instead, the bottom of the basin 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:10.120 or the depression is usually considered impermeable because of lining 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.040 with fine particles of clay. So that's sort of your bowl. 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.600 The bottom of the double boiler and the hydrothermal system 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.400 below releases steam and usually some hydrogen sulfide gas, which 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.239 rises through the bottom layers of clay and causes the 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.480 mud puddle to both heat up and bubble as the 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.680 gas rises to the top. Then you have again extremophile 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:36.280 organisms microorganisms in these pools that can use the hydrogen 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.240 sulfide gas to make energy, and in the process they 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.280 create sulfuric acid, which turns the mud pool extremely acidic, 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.840 and then it helps dissolve more rock in the surrounding 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.879 basin and turns that into clay, and so the mud 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.560 just like you know, you get continuous supply of new 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.080 clay particles from that dissolution, and it gets thicker and thicker. 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.080 And this source also says that mudpots can be a 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.760 by the season, so like rain and melting snow can 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.480 make the mud and the pots cooler and thinner, and 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:07.800 then hot, dry weather in the summer can cause them 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.399 to thicken or even dry up completely, which means that 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.680 these are ultimately somewhat transient and dynamic features. Like a 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.320 mud pot or a mud volcano of this variety might 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:20.480 only be active for a few months. It can also 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:22.600 be active much much longer, but it might just be 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.679 a very brief, shortly lived thing. Before maybe it just 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.720 transforms into a kind of fixed fumarole where steam is 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:39.760 coming out of a hole in the ground. Now, there 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.640 is another use of the term mud volcano that can 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.439 refer to a different geological process that can in some 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:51.000 cases be extremely explosive and large in scale and violent. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.200 I was reading about this in an article from December 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.800 twenty twenty by a ut Ostin geologist named Michael R. Hudic. 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:04.400 That is, it's it's a particular example of a mud 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.080 volcano that occurred in Indonesia in two thousand and six 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.680 in the Siduarjo regency that is known sometimes as the 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:17.040 Lumpur Siduarju. Lumpur is the word for mud, And there 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.680 was this massive, sudden eruption. There was like steam releasing 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.560 from a vent in the ground and rumbling, and then 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.760 it started just exploding with these huge amounts of mud 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:31.840 that ended up completely engulfing villages in the surrounding area. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:33.919 It was like many acres and people had to be 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.160 evacuated in order to get out of harm's way. These 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.280 villages were completely swallowed up in mud. There were like 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:45.159 these farming villages in the area. And so this is 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:47.960 not like a little mound of mud ejected by a puddle. 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:52.119 This was like a landscape destroying, violent ejection of mud. 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:56.199 And it seems like in many of these cases where 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.280 there is this large, explosive kind of mud eruption, and 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.680 one thing that might be going on is the interaction 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.120 with hydrocarbon gases, so for example, methane, and of course 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:12.800 methane being very flammable, can make these eruptions actually flaming eruptions, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:15.639 where like when the hot methane comes into the atmosphere, 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.520 it can ignite. The cause of this particular mud volcano 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.960 eruption in two thousand and six is apparently controversial. It 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.280 seems like a lot of people have attributed it to 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.040 drilling of a natural gas well in the area by 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:32.600 an oil and gas company. Of course, the oil and 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:34.760 gas company claims, no, it wasn't us it was a 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.119 naturally occurring event, but it did seem to be significant 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:42.679 hydrocarbon gas involved in this kind of eruption. And this 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:44.840 kind of thing is scary because it's hard to imagine. 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.000 I mean, I guess we are familiar with the concept 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.720 of like an igneous volcanic eruption, you know, where it's 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.840 like a rock volcano erupting and it's releasing all of 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:58.240 this gas and rock and molten rock and pyroclastic flow 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:02.040 and all these things. And so I guess we are 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:05.720 already familiar with the concept of large destructive volcanoes. But 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.359 the idea that it could just like flood a landscape 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:14.280 with mud is another stranger and differently frightening version of 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:15.600 that kind of image. 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.480 Yeah. I mean, it's one thing to have vast quantities 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.520 of mud where you know mud will be seasonally or otherwise. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.800 It's another thing for mud to just suddenly appear where 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:27.679 it's not expected. And this seems to be like one 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.400 of the more exaggerated cases of it, you know, whereas 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.320 the vast quantities of mud just emerging and taking over 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.159 people's homes and so forth. Yeah, Now, on the subject 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.920 of mud volcanoes, I have also been reading a little 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.040 bit about this idea of mud volcanoes on Mars. I 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.840 don't know if you came across any of this. I 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.920 was looking at a paper from twenty twenty quoting Peter Burrows, 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:55.560 a professor geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:01.560 basically he proposed that mud from mud volcanoes may have 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.119 flowed in Mars past, and therefore some of the things 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:08.240 we see in visuals from Mars that looks like it 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.840 could be the result of lava flows could perhaps be 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:16.359 the result of mud flows in the past, so he 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:18.960 and his team conducted experiments to see how this would work, 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:22.160 and found that while the mud eventually would freeze under 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:25.760 those Chili Martian conditions, there would be a little time 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.080 for it to flow, freezing and crusting over at the surface, 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:33.360 initially enabling it to move a bit before the freeze 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.199 firmly took hold. Because I guess that, you know, it's 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.159 one of the things about thinking about mud elsewhere in 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:42.080 the universe. We have plenty of sci fi visions of 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:46.399 muddy planets, but for mud to be there, you need 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:50.359 some sort of moisture to be there as well. But 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:52.800 we do, I think, love the idea of mud planets. 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:55.320 You know, take any especially any kind of like exotic 0:22:56.520 --> 0:23:01.040 terrestrial environment, and somebody somewhere has turned a whole planet 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:02.919 into that. You know. Yes, so you have jungle planets, 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.120 you have desert planets like Oracus. If you look at 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.720 Star Wars, you have planets like Dagoba, just a swamp world. 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:11.679 Not only does it have a lot of mud, like 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:14.520 the mud and the muck will just swallow up whole spaceships. 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:17.840 That's true, though, you know, it's interesting. They never say 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:20.720 in the Star Wars movies that the entire planet Dagoba 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:23.280 is a swamp, but you just assume that's the case. 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:28.119 Yeah, I think I've seen some maps and these are 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:30.480 you know, like you know, artistic interpretations that kind of 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:32.439 run with that, and it's like, oh, yeah, whole planet 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:35.480 just swamp. And that raises a lot of questions like 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:38.520 what how would that work? That would the entire planet 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:40.359 be a swamp? Does that mean it doesn't have oceans, 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:44.439 it just has swamp? I don't know. I should look 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:46.440 into this and say, I'm sure some people have written 0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:47.880 some papers about this sort of thing. 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:50.440 Yeah, I wonder if you, like, could you have a 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.600 swamp if you didn't have other types of regions to 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:56.960 support the U like the geological and atmospheric conditions that 0:23:57.000 --> 0:23:57.879 would create a swamp. 0:23:58.000 --> 0:23:58.560 Yeah. 0:23:58.800 --> 0:24:01.159 Now, come back to Wars in just a second, but 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.520 I want to hit another couple of cosmic mud examples. 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:11.600 One concerns SMAP SMAP, which is also a Japanese boy band. 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:14.760 Apparently this became obvious when I was researching this, but 0:24:15.600 --> 0:24:19.240 in this case it stands for Soil Moisture Active Passive. 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:25.199 That's NASA's environmental monitoring satellite launched in twenty fifteen and 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:27.760 still active as of this recording. I think it's supposed 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:29.600 to be active through at least the end of twenty 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:33.800 twenty three. But it can measure land surface soil moisture 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:36.200 up to a certain depth. So it's an eye in 0:24:36.240 --> 0:24:40.440 the sky essentially on mud. And the data that it 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.640 collects is useful because it spills over into better understandings 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:47.880 of the carbon cycle, weather and climate models, drought monitoring, 0:24:47.960 --> 0:24:51.520 and so much more. But of course that's concerning Earth. 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:54.680 We know there's mud on Earth. This is another idea 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:56.879 I ran across this, the idea that you at one 0:24:57.000 --> 0:25:01.560 point anyway had just cosmic mud ball flying around through space. 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:08.000 Okay, so if you imagine like a comet as a 0:25:08.240 --> 0:25:13.080 formation of ice and dust that's flying around in space, 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:15.920 of course all the ice is frozen, Like what if 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:17.160 a comet was wet. 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:21.359 Yeah. I actually found some discussion of this in a 0:25:21.400 --> 0:25:25.159 twenty seventeen article for New Scientists by Sam Wong. In 0:25:25.200 --> 0:25:29.400 this it doesn't conserve comets, but it concerns asteroids, particularly 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:34.720 early asteroids or carbonaceous asteroids, that may have delivered water 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:38.960 and organic molecules to Earth. And apparently it can be 0:25:39.040 --> 0:25:43.359 helpful to model them as just big old mudballs. So 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:47.680 the idea here is that ice, dust and chondrules come 0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:51.680 together and the pressure has not yet compacted it all 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:55.320 into rock right away. It will in time, but at 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:58.080 this point early on, it hasn't all been compacted into rock, 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:02.720 and the ice will end melting due to decaying radioactive 0:26:02.800 --> 0:26:05.840 atoms in the dust and gas, resulting in a quote 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:10.200 unquote schelegi mud wow, And this would eventually become rock again, 0:26:10.320 --> 0:26:14.119 but for a time they would be muddy asteroids. According 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:17.920 to the modeling by Philip Bland at Curtain University in Perth, 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:21.720 Australia and his collaborator Brian Travis at the Planetary Science 0:26:21.720 --> 0:26:23.240 Institute in Tucson, Arizona. 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:27.199 That is interesting. Okay, so they got they've got a 0:26:27.200 --> 0:26:29.680 pretty strong internal heat source because they've got all these 0:26:29.840 --> 0:26:33.520 young radioactive atoms in them that are still decaying at 0:26:33.560 --> 0:26:37.600 a pretty rapid rate. So they're keeping the ice content 0:26:39.000 --> 0:26:41.320 like melted and moist. And then of course they've got 0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:44.120 all like the dust and rock soil content in them. 0:26:44.680 --> 0:26:47.520 And yeah wow, this like big balls of mud flying 0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:48.080 through space. 0:26:48.600 --> 0:26:51.440 Yeah yeah, So I before I ran across this, I 0:26:51.440 --> 0:26:53.440 didn't even think this was possible. You know, you think 0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:56.639 of mud as being something you're going to encounter, particularly 0:26:56.640 --> 0:26:59.800 on an Earth like world. Now, coming back to Earth, 0:26:59.800 --> 0:27:03.160 Wak worlds and Mud. Another Star Wars planet of note, 0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:06.840 especially if you've seen the movie Solo, which came out 0:27:06.880 --> 0:27:11.719 several years back. There's a planet called Membon, and in 0:27:11.760 --> 0:27:15.440 that movie we see Imperial mud Troopers or swamp troopers 0:27:15.840 --> 0:27:19.200 as they're sometimes called, engaged in some sort of drawn 0:27:19.200 --> 0:27:22.000 out battle on this world. And Joe, in case you 0:27:22.000 --> 0:27:24.159 haven't seen this, I included an image here of what 0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:28.240 mud troopers look like as compared to just normal Imperial stormtroopers. 0:27:28.480 --> 0:27:31.840 Looks like a dirty job, looks like this may be 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:35.000 like the last thing that, like all the other troopers 0:27:35.040 --> 0:27:38.239 try to sign up for different detail and you know, 0:27:38.320 --> 0:27:40.720 the last picks for all the other ones, like Nope, 0:27:40.760 --> 0:27:43.320 you cannot go to Hawth and be a snowtrooper. You 0:27:43.400 --> 0:27:44.439 got to be a mud trooper. 0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:47.119 Yeah, And I think that's the way it's presented in 0:27:47.160 --> 0:27:49.719 the movie too, Like Han Solo, a young Han Solo 0:27:50.280 --> 0:27:52.639 is a mud trooper on this awful world. Then, of 0:27:52.680 --> 0:27:55.399 course they're also drawing in a lot of comparisons to 0:27:56.200 --> 0:27:59.439 trench warfare and war's past and so forth, which will 0:27:59.480 --> 0:28:02.080 we'll get back to in a bit. But one of 0:28:02.119 --> 0:28:03.720 the interesting things, and of course this is kind of 0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:06.320 across the board when you look at sci sci fi 0:28:06.520 --> 0:28:10.000 often is looking backwards and taking things from the past 0:28:10.440 --> 0:28:14.000 and putting this futuristic spin on them. Because I don't recall, 0:28:14.040 --> 0:28:15.520 and I could be wrong. It's been a while since 0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:18.320 I've seen Solo, but I don't think the Imperial mud 0:28:18.320 --> 0:28:21.400 Troopers leveraged any kind of Sci Fi technology to deal 0:28:21.440 --> 0:28:23.800 with the mud. It seems like they would have leaned 0:28:23.880 --> 0:28:26.520 heavily on repulsor technology to kind of float above it, 0:28:27.000 --> 0:28:30.360 or to use some sort of technology to either rapidly 0:28:30.440 --> 0:28:34.880 dry out muddy conditions or to like flash freeze them 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:37.199 so that you wouldn't have to get slogged down in them. 0:28:37.240 --> 0:28:40.160 It seems like that would be something to try if 0:28:40.160 --> 0:28:43.400 the Imperial budget allowed for it. I guess they spent 0:28:43.440 --> 0:28:46.840 that all on big walking machines that are gonna, yeah, 0:28:46.960 --> 0:28:49.320 I guess in theory, not get bogged down in the mud. 0:28:51.000 --> 0:28:52.480 Off the top of my head, I don't think I 0:28:52.480 --> 0:28:56.120 can even think of another sci Fi vision where there's 0:28:56.120 --> 0:28:59.440 any kind of like sci Fi treatment of mud like 0:28:59.480 --> 0:29:01.200 this be wrong because I'm not. I mean, there's a 0:29:01.560 --> 0:29:05.280 lot of military sci Fi out there, so someone might 0:29:05.320 --> 0:29:08.120 have looked at it. I do remember a gadget in 0:29:08.200 --> 0:29:11.800 John Steekley's Armor that is like a people in power 0:29:11.880 --> 0:29:16.720 armor versus insect aliens on a desert world that involves 0:29:16.760 --> 0:29:19.440 sand clotters and a machine that would turn the sand 0:29:19.520 --> 0:29:22.959 of the desert into solid walls of fortification. So I 0:29:22.960 --> 0:29:25.920 imagine you'd want something like that, something that, through sci 0:29:25.960 --> 0:29:29.440 Fi shenanigans, can instantly dry out an area or make 0:29:29.480 --> 0:29:33.880 it solid, as opposed to shifting sand or in this case, 0:29:34.000 --> 0:29:37.080 like mud that's going to cling to you and suck 0:29:37.160 --> 0:29:38.200 you down into the muck. 0:29:39.120 --> 0:29:40.880 I don't know if sand is the best choice for that. 0:29:40.880 --> 0:29:43.400 Wouldn't it be better to use a cohesive soil with 0:29:43.440 --> 0:29:45.400 smaller particles like clay or silt? 0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:48.719 Yeah? Yeah, So I don't know any of you out there, 0:29:48.760 --> 0:29:51.760 who certainly are more red and military sci fi than me, 0:29:52.120 --> 0:29:53.800 there might be an example of this, so right in 0:29:53.840 --> 0:29:54.480 and let us know. 0:29:54.920 --> 0:29:57.760 Now. Of course you keep saying military sci fi in particular, 0:29:57.800 --> 0:29:59.720 and it makes sense why you would do that, because 0:29:59.760 --> 0:30:03.240 of the the significance of mud in combat and warfare 0:30:03.280 --> 0:30:04.120 in human history. 0:30:04.560 --> 0:30:08.960 That's right, Yeah, you know mud. I was thinking about 0:30:09.000 --> 0:30:12.080 this a lot like mud is not only an environmental 0:30:12.080 --> 0:30:14.160 condition that occurs naturally in the world, but it's often 0:30:14.200 --> 0:30:17.520 this condition that is at an interaction point between the 0:30:17.600 --> 0:30:21.360 natural world and human activity. You think of muddy roads, right, 0:30:21.440 --> 0:30:25.160 We think of paths that are not well maintained that 0:30:25.280 --> 0:30:29.200 get really muddy and sloppy in places. And then there 0:30:29.440 --> 0:30:33.760 are several walks that my family does like this in 0:30:33.840 --> 0:30:36.080 the area where you know, we know exactly where that 0:30:36.160 --> 0:30:38.840 muddy stretch is, and there are often a lot of 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:42.440 slapdash efforts to mitigate it, you know, boards that are 0:30:42.440 --> 0:30:46.200 thrown down on the rock. Yeah, and you know that 0:30:46.320 --> 0:30:48.880 works for a little bit sort of. That also creates 0:30:48.880 --> 0:30:52.120 additional splash hazards and new and exciting ways to slip 0:30:52.160 --> 0:30:55.680 and fall in the mud. But yeah, mud is also 0:30:56.160 --> 0:30:59.520 a big factor in human warfare and has been for 0:30:59.640 --> 0:31:03.479 a long long time. You pointed this out to me, 0:31:03.520 --> 0:31:06.800 and this is something that has been covered in various 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:08.960 articles over the last couple of years. But there is 0:31:09.000 --> 0:31:14.120 a Russian term putitsa that refers to a season or 0:31:14.160 --> 0:31:17.560 seasons of the year when unpaved roads become treacherous due 0:31:17.560 --> 0:31:20.840 to the mud created by rain and or melting snow 0:31:21.000 --> 0:31:24.160 on said roads. It's had a major impact on land 0:31:24.160 --> 0:31:27.880 wars in Russia and Eastern Europe, for ages, impacting the 0:31:27.920 --> 0:31:32.320 Mongol invasion, both World Wars, and also the Russo Ukrainian 0:31:32.360 --> 0:31:35.840 War that, as of this recording, is still ongoing. It's 0:31:35.840 --> 0:31:38.880 been observed that among Russia's mistakes during the twenty twenty 0:31:38.880 --> 0:31:42.560 two invasion of Ukraine, they underestimated the muddy roads season 0:31:42.840 --> 0:31:45.680 that was just kicking off at that time. 0:31:46.040 --> 0:31:47.960 Right, So this is sort of one of the factors 0:31:48.080 --> 0:31:53.320 affecting the seasonal planning of offensives in conflict in Eastern Europe. 0:31:53.960 --> 0:31:58.760 Yes. Yeah. And on the other hand, another major area 0:31:59.320 --> 0:32:03.120 for mud and war is the First World War. And 0:32:03.960 --> 0:32:06.280 I mean you can instantly picture this probably if you've 0:32:06.320 --> 0:32:13.880 seen images, footage and fictional recreations of those trench warfare environments. 0:32:13.920 --> 0:32:16.560 What do you think of You think of like blasted landscape, 0:32:16.600 --> 0:32:19.640 you think of mud, You think of these just awful 0:32:19.680 --> 0:32:23.680 conditions where like the natural world is just worn away 0:32:24.080 --> 0:32:27.920 and all that remains is mud and fortifications and explosions 0:32:27.960 --> 0:32:28.920 and death and pain. 0:32:29.440 --> 0:32:33.680 Yeah, like heavily shelled or trodden over areas where it 0:32:33.720 --> 0:32:35.560 seems like a lot of the plant life has been 0:32:35.680 --> 0:32:38.320 killed and stripped away, and now like the roots are, 0:32:38.880 --> 0:32:41.479 it's not really holding the soil together the way it was, 0:32:41.600 --> 0:32:42.680 and now it's just mud. 0:32:43.280 --> 0:32:47.040 Yeah, And if you've ever taken a poetry class, you 0:32:47.400 --> 0:32:49.200 may have run across the fact that, yeah, there's a 0:32:49.240 --> 0:32:53.440 lot of great but depressing poetry and writings in general 0:32:53.480 --> 0:32:56.640 that came out of this time period, people describing these conditions, 0:32:57.000 --> 0:32:59.640 describing the horrors of war and the horrors of chemical 0:32:59.680 --> 0:33:05.240 war and so forth. One of the best literary treatments 0:33:05.280 --> 0:33:08.440 of war and mud, however, just has to be that 0:33:08.520 --> 0:33:12.640 of American British war nurse turned novelist and poet Mary Borden. 0:33:13.280 --> 0:33:16.640 In nineteen seventeen, she wrote a poem called the Song 0:33:16.880 --> 0:33:20.080 of the Mud. You can find this in full on 0:33:20.160 --> 0:33:25.920 Poetry Foundation dot org. But it's really really good. Joe, 0:33:26.000 --> 0:33:27.560 were you familiar with this poem? 0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:28.760 I don't think so. 0:33:29.360 --> 0:33:30.920 Yeah, this one is a new one for me. I 0:33:31.360 --> 0:33:34.040 this is not one that I remember covering in poetry classes. 0:33:34.080 --> 0:33:39.160 But she writes of quote, the frothing, squirting, spurting liquid 0:33:39.240 --> 0:33:43.080 mud that gurgles along the road beds unquote, as well 0:33:43.120 --> 0:33:46.440 as quote the thick, elastic mud that is needed and 0:33:46.520 --> 0:33:50.280 pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of the horses, though 0:33:50.320 --> 0:33:54.560 she also juxtaposes this with more natural seeming aspects of mud, 0:33:54.800 --> 0:33:58.479 even like mud as something that can be beautiful. From Afar, 0:33:59.520 --> 0:34:01.560 I'm going to read the final stanza from the poem, 0:34:01.560 --> 0:34:03.440 but again I encourage everyone to go out and read 0:34:03.480 --> 0:34:06.720 it in full quote. This is the song of the mud. 0:34:07.200 --> 0:34:11.000 The beautiful, glistening golden mud that covers the hills like satin. 0:34:11.520 --> 0:34:16.040 The mysterious, gleaming, silvery mud that is spread like enamel 0:34:16.160 --> 0:34:20.520 over the valleys. Mud, the disguise of the war zone. Mud, 0:34:20.680 --> 0:34:24.440 the mantle of battles, mud, the smooth, fluid grave of 0:34:24.480 --> 0:34:27.320 our soldiers. This is the song of the mud. 0:34:27.840 --> 0:34:32.200 Wow, that's interesting, And I don't know the connotations of 0:34:32.280 --> 0:34:35.080 mud is used and that stands at least are more 0:34:35.840 --> 0:34:37.960 I don't know, more positive than I would have expected. 0:34:38.600 --> 0:34:41.160 Yeah, I mean there's there's a lot of dark imagery 0:34:41.160 --> 0:34:43.800 in there about it, like swallowing up guns and taking 0:34:43.840 --> 0:34:47.360 people down and like like not only like the physical 0:34:47.760 --> 0:34:50.480 power of the mud, but also like the emotional toll 0:34:50.600 --> 0:34:52.680 of the mud, which I'll come back to in a 0:34:52.680 --> 0:34:53.319 bed as well. 0:34:54.080 --> 0:34:57.279 When I was thinking of World War One poetry and 0:34:57.320 --> 0:34:59.880 the concept of mud, I thought of the one of 0:34:59.880 --> 0:35:01.799 the poems of Wilfrid Owen. I just had to look 0:35:01.840 --> 0:35:04.399 it up because I didn't remember the name, but it's 0:35:04.440 --> 0:35:09.240 the Apologia pro poemate Mayo, which I think means defense 0:35:09.280 --> 0:35:12.399 of my poetry. And this is by Wilfrid Owen, who 0:35:12.840 --> 0:35:15.200 was a British poet who fought in World War One. 0:35:15.560 --> 0:35:18.080 Wrote a lot of poetry associated with the war, like 0:35:18.120 --> 0:35:20.840 Anthem for Doomed Youth you might have read. But the 0:35:20.880 --> 0:35:24.280 opening stands of this poem was, I too saw God 0:35:24.320 --> 0:35:28.120 through mud, the mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled, 0:35:28.640 --> 0:35:31.759 war brought more glory to their eyes than blood, and 0:35:31.840 --> 0:35:34.480 gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child. 0:35:35.040 --> 0:35:38.279 Oh wow, Yeah, I don't remember that bit, but I 0:35:38.360 --> 0:35:41.080 remember Owen. He's definitely one of the names that comes 0:35:41.160 --> 0:35:45.280 up when a poetry class steers sharply into the trenches. 0:35:45.719 --> 0:35:46.120 Yeah. 0:35:46.560 --> 0:35:49.800 Now, a book that I mentioned earlier in this series, Mud, 0:35:49.800 --> 0:35:53.680 a Military History by C. E. Wood, is a full 0:35:53.719 --> 0:35:56.160 book dealing with mud. In war. And so if you 0:35:56.200 --> 0:35:58.920 need more of this, I highly recommend you pick up 0:35:58.960 --> 0:36:03.080 that book. It's very well written, it's you, it's very absorbable. 0:36:03.640 --> 0:36:07.880 But in it would stresses that while more permanent domains 0:36:07.880 --> 0:36:10.319 of mud are certainly important in warfare, you need to 0:36:10.320 --> 0:36:13.319 know where the swamps, marshes and bogs are and how 0:36:13.360 --> 0:36:17.399 to either circumnavigate them or utilize them, force the enemy 0:36:17.440 --> 0:36:19.839 to move through them, that sort of thing. But the 0:36:19.880 --> 0:36:23.200 main area of interest in the book is transitional mud. 0:36:24.040 --> 0:36:28.920 That is the kind that arrives and departs without significant warning. 0:36:29.360 --> 0:36:33.880 Okay, so this previously traversible landscape suddenly has mud in 0:36:33.920 --> 0:36:36.120 it that is going to interfere with your progress. 0:36:36.760 --> 0:36:40.480 Yeah, And this becomes key because I mean, this is 0:36:40.520 --> 0:36:44.399 not something you can necessarily plan for, or planning can 0:36:44.400 --> 0:36:47.600 fall short of taking it into account. And it's a 0:36:47.680 --> 0:36:49.719 variety of mud that has played a crucial role in 0:36:49.760 --> 0:36:52.880 the history of armed conflict. One of Wood's main focuses 0:36:52.920 --> 0:36:57.000 in this is how mud hinders forward advancement in warfare, 0:36:57.320 --> 0:37:01.200 so impacting combatants, animals, and machines of war, and of 0:37:01.200 --> 0:37:03.960 course not just war machines and soldiers and tanks and 0:37:04.280 --> 0:37:06.239 horses with knights on them and that sort of thing. 0:37:06.480 --> 0:37:09.960 But of course everything that supports a war effort, that 0:37:10.000 --> 0:37:13.640 supports an army and its advancement, the vehicles that are 0:37:13.880 --> 0:37:19.239 carrying food, any kind of medical support that is in 0:37:19.280 --> 0:37:21.520 tow all of that sort of thing as well. So 0:37:21.640 --> 0:37:24.120 generals have to contend with the impact of permanent mud, 0:37:24.360 --> 0:37:27.719 seasonal mud, random transitional mud, in addition to all of 0:37:27.719 --> 0:37:30.640 the other threats and challenges of battle, all the other 0:37:30.760 --> 0:37:35.239 environmental concerns that will come into play. And there are 0:37:35.239 --> 0:37:38.800 also huge human health and mental health challenges with mud 0:37:39.680 --> 0:37:43.400 that the author deals with in greater detail. There's a 0:37:43.400 --> 0:37:46.000 great quote in the book though, about this, attributed to 0:37:46.239 --> 0:37:50.960 historian Martin Gilbert. Quote. At night, crouching in a shell 0:37:51.000 --> 0:37:55.239 hole and filling it, the mud watches like an enormous octopus. 0:37:55.760 --> 0:37:59.680 The victim arrives, it throws its poisonous slobber out at him, 0:38:00.120 --> 0:38:03.879 lines him, closes round him, buries him. For men die 0:38:03.920 --> 0:38:07.080 of mud as they die of bullets. But more horribly, 0:38:07.560 --> 0:38:10.759 mud is where men sink, and what is worse, where 0:38:10.760 --> 0:38:14.319 their souls sink. Hell is not fire, that would not 0:38:14.480 --> 0:38:17.080 be the ultimate in suffering. Hell is mud? 0:38:17.440 --> 0:38:20.160 Wow? Well, there is something I think interesting there in 0:38:20.200 --> 0:38:25.319 that mud in a way militates against people's ability to 0:38:25.520 --> 0:38:28.759 see their own suffering as noble or to see it 0:38:28.800 --> 0:38:32.560 in any grandiose terms, that there's something kind of humbling 0:38:32.600 --> 0:38:36.800 and humiliating about suffering brought on by an environment of mud. 0:38:36.840 --> 0:38:41.279 And thus like death in mud is an image that 0:38:41.920 --> 0:38:44.880 brings a lot more despair than the idea of a 0:38:44.920 --> 0:38:47.400 sort of like violent death or death in fire. 0:38:48.200 --> 0:38:53.799 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now on thinking about this though, hell 0:38:53.880 --> 0:38:57.600 is mud, that of course made me think of Dante's Inferno, 0:38:57.680 --> 0:38:59.399 and I was like, I remember there being some mud 0:38:59.400 --> 0:39:02.600 in Dante's Ferno somewhere. You have varied all the different 0:39:02.680 --> 0:39:09.080 circles and bulgs in Inferno. They have different characteristics, different flavors. 0:39:09.640 --> 0:39:14.719 And indeed there is a circle in Dante's Inferno where 0:39:14.760 --> 0:39:17.600 there is mud. It is the third Circle. And I 0:39:17.640 --> 0:39:18.879 had to I had to look it back up again. 0:39:18.920 --> 0:39:23.279 I was looking in my translation by Durling and Martinez, 0:39:23.920 --> 0:39:27.840 and this is just a couple of lines from it. Quote, 0:39:28.200 --> 0:39:30.760 I am in the third circle with the eternal cursed, 0:39:30.840 --> 0:39:34.880 cold and heavy rain. It's rule and quality never change. 0:39:35.360 --> 0:39:39.360 Great hailstones, filthy water and snow poured down through the 0:39:39.480 --> 0:39:44.359 dark air. The earth stinks that received them. It's also 0:39:44.400 --> 0:39:47.720 the realm of Cerberus. But when quote the great worm 0:39:47.760 --> 0:39:50.880 opens his mouth to growl at Dante and Virgil, Virgil 0:39:50.960 --> 0:39:55.160 throws dirt into the monster's three mouths, and the monster 0:39:55.280 --> 0:40:01.320 gobbles it all down delicious. Yeah. Yeah, is durling, and 0:40:01.400 --> 0:40:05.080 Martinez explained in the notes in my translation of Inferno, 0:40:05.480 --> 0:40:10.440 the mud food connection is key here. Quote the rain, hail, 0:40:10.520 --> 0:40:13.440 and snow and resulting mud are versions of the food 0:40:13.480 --> 0:40:16.000 and drink to which the gluttons were addicted in the 0:40:16.080 --> 0:40:20.719 last analysis, merely visions of the elements earth and water. 0:40:21.760 --> 0:40:25.239 Sort of portraying the like the the worthlessness of the 0:40:25.239 --> 0:40:28.360 pleasures of gluttony. That like that you're just sort of 0:40:28.680 --> 0:40:32.160 concerning yourself with material rubbish rather than having your mind 0:40:32.200 --> 0:40:33.200 on heavenly things. 0:40:33.840 --> 0:40:35.920 Yeah, and also like the sense that it's it's all 0:40:36.000 --> 0:40:40.399 mud anyway, or even that it's it's all excrement. There's 0:40:40.440 --> 0:40:42.880 also a lot of dog imagery here. Obviously we have 0:40:42.960 --> 0:40:45.520 Cerberus with the three dog heads, and then we also 0:40:45.560 --> 0:40:49.000 have pig imagery thrown in and also mud excrement comparisons 0:40:49.040 --> 0:40:49.480 as well. 0:40:50.000 --> 0:40:53.840 Hey, pig imagery bringing us back to pig mud wallowing, 0:40:53.920 --> 0:40:57.520 which actually turns out to be a quite clever adaptation 0:40:57.640 --> 0:40:58.120 of nature. 0:40:58.640 --> 0:41:08.680 Yeah. 0:41:08.719 --> 0:41:12.680 Anyway, so brief departure into hell, but coming back to 0:41:12.800 --> 0:41:15.160 the surface world and the hell we make for ourselves there. 0:41:15.719 --> 0:41:19.359 Coming back to war as what explains that the mere 0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:23.320 challenge of moving around and mud can lead to exhaustion 0:41:23.520 --> 0:41:27.600 for the individual soldier, and this exhaustion can prove fatal. 0:41:27.600 --> 0:41:29.920 It can also hold true for pack animals as well. 0:41:30.400 --> 0:41:33.000 So you know, if you're in a very muddy situation 0:41:33.120 --> 0:41:35.680 and you're having to just move through mud constantly or 0:41:35.680 --> 0:41:38.400 for a lengthy period of time, like that's just making 0:41:38.480 --> 0:41:41.359 every step so much harder. And there's a good chance 0:41:41.360 --> 0:41:45.640 you're already doing something exhausting, that is mentally trying. You're 0:41:45.680 --> 0:41:49.280 already under a great deal of stress, and now each 0:41:49.800 --> 0:41:52.960 each time you try and lift your boot your foot 0:41:53.160 --> 0:41:57.920 out of the mud, more effort is required of you. Now, 0:41:57.960 --> 0:42:01.239 there have been efforts to improve footwear for soldiers at 0:42:01.239 --> 0:42:04.800 different time periods, such as having wider essentially kind of 0:42:04.840 --> 0:42:07.759 like plank bottom shoes that the US Army experimented with 0:42:07.760 --> 0:42:10.319 special mud boots and shoes in World War Two, and 0:42:10.320 --> 0:42:14.920 then again in Vietnam would include several prototype photos here. 0:42:15.040 --> 0:42:17.799 Joe I included a screen cap here for you to 0:42:17.840 --> 0:42:19.960 look at these. They're not much to look at, but 0:42:20.000 --> 0:42:24.360 you can see they're like basically different designs of wide 0:42:24.800 --> 0:42:28.200 flat surfaces that would be scrapped or somehow attached the 0:42:28.200 --> 0:42:29.080 bottom of boots. 0:42:29.400 --> 0:42:31.360 Some of them look like huge wooden hoofs. 0:42:32.200 --> 0:42:36.360 Yeah, they do. And you know, I'm not certain because 0:42:36.680 --> 0:42:40.279 it's just the subtitle. He was very brief, but I 0:42:40.280 --> 0:42:43.360 guess it's possible that some of these could be for horses. 0:42:43.400 --> 0:42:45.719 I don't know. Maybe the round one that's kind of 0:42:45.719 --> 0:42:48.480 hoof shaped is for a horse. I don't know, huh, 0:42:48.880 --> 0:42:52.400 because certainly, you know, horses would be of concern, and well, 0:42:52.480 --> 0:42:55.640 not all of these military engagements. Of some of them. 0:42:56.320 --> 0:43:01.000 Tracked vehicles like tanks and half tracks perform better in 0:43:01.040 --> 0:43:04.080 some muddy situations, but a tract vehicles certainly can get 0:43:04.080 --> 0:43:06.319 stuck in the mud. As Wood points out, they can 0:43:06.360 --> 0:43:09.040 also slide out of control through the mud and down 0:43:09.120 --> 0:43:13.560 muddy hillsides as well. Tracks can spread weight out more 0:43:13.600 --> 0:43:17.759 evenly than tires, So that's one of the appeals of 0:43:17.800 --> 0:43:22.000 having tracks or half tracked designs in these vehicles, but yeah, 0:43:22.040 --> 0:43:24.719 they're still not perfect. And then if you throw trenches 0:43:24.880 --> 0:43:28.799 into the mix, as it was encountered in the First 0:43:28.840 --> 0:43:32.200 World War, especially, you know that one of these big 0:43:32.239 --> 0:43:34.600 tanks can get stuck in the trench, and therefore you need, 0:43:35.200 --> 0:43:39.200 like other vehicles to lay down temporary bridges so that 0:43:39.239 --> 0:43:43.680 the tanks can make it across those trenches. Now, coming 0:43:43.719 --> 0:43:47.399 back to health though, human health and mud, Wood also 0:43:47.480 --> 0:43:51.640 points out that extremely muddy conditions often lead to deteriorating 0:43:52.000 --> 0:43:56.759 sanitary conditions. Wood points out that wounded soldiers rarely reach 0:43:56.880 --> 0:44:00.440 medical facilities clean, so and then this make sense. You're 0:44:00.480 --> 0:44:04.800 in muddy conditions, you're going to enter into the medical 0:44:04.800 --> 0:44:08.839 facilities muddy and that and also it means that oftentimes 0:44:08.960 --> 0:44:10.840 it's not just like any kind of pure mud, That 0:44:10.880 --> 0:44:12.880 mud is going to be mixed with all manner of 0:44:13.000 --> 0:44:17.360 unhygienic ingredients from the war zone. Muddy conditions also severely 0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:21.279 hinder the ability to just evacuate the wounded or to 0:44:21.400 --> 0:44:24.279 have medical personnel come in to deal with people who 0:44:24.320 --> 0:44:24.880 are wounded. 0:44:25.560 --> 0:44:28.719 Yeah, Now, in addition to all these general concerns, it 0:44:28.719 --> 0:44:32.439 seems like I have memories of reading about at least 0:44:32.480 --> 0:44:37.240 interpretations of some decisive battles in history where mud played 0:44:37.280 --> 0:44:39.799 a role in how the battle turned out, or at 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:42.759 least some historians believed that it did. Like I seem 0:44:42.840 --> 0:44:45.560 to recall the Battle of Agincore as one example. 0:44:46.000 --> 0:44:48.759 Yeah, the Battle of Agincore is a big one. This 0:44:48.840 --> 0:44:52.239 is from fourteen fifteen English victory over the French in 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:55.000 the One Hundred Years War. The French had to advance 0:44:55.120 --> 0:45:00.120 heavily armored knights through very muddy conditions. And this key 0:45:00.160 --> 0:45:02.839 to this too is that this was transient mud. I've 0:45:02.880 --> 0:45:05.759 read this was These were not muddy conditions that were expected. 0:45:06.040 --> 0:45:08.040 This was I believe there is like a huge storm, 0:45:08.719 --> 0:45:11.759 so they weren't prepared for it. They marched anyway, and 0:45:11.800 --> 0:45:14.120 they end up sinking in the mud, especially if they've 0:45:14.160 --> 0:45:18.520 been knocked off their horse, easily immobilized once unhorsed in 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:20.960 all that heavy armor. And it's said that, you know, 0:45:21.040 --> 0:45:24.520 some of the French knights drowned in the mud there. 0:45:24.920 --> 0:45:26.680 And this seems to be kind of a pattern that 0:45:26.760 --> 0:45:30.560 emerges in history, like it is bad to be caught 0:45:30.680 --> 0:45:33.440 as the side in a battle that is trying to 0:45:33.560 --> 0:45:35.040 advance through the mud. 0:45:35.680 --> 0:45:37.600 Yeah, because I mean all these factors are going to 0:45:37.640 --> 0:45:40.560 come into play. It's going to slow you down. This 0:45:40.560 --> 0:45:43.440 stuff's going to get stuck, and then when the battle 0:45:43.560 --> 0:45:45.840 turns against you, it's going to turn even worse. A 0:45:45.840 --> 0:45:49.480 couple of other examples that come up frequently. There's the 0:45:49.560 --> 0:45:52.640 mud March from the Battle of Fredericksburg eighteen sixty two 0:45:52.640 --> 0:45:57.520 in the American Civil War. This was on the Union side. 0:45:57.560 --> 0:46:01.400 General Burnside's troops were and it ended up having to 0:46:01.840 --> 0:46:04.520 go through some really muddy conditions and a number of 0:46:04.600 --> 0:46:07.840 key artillery pieces and wagons became trapped in the mud, 0:46:08.080 --> 0:46:11.640 delaying the Union advance. And this was due to like 0:46:11.680 --> 0:46:14.960 sudden stormy conditions that were not expected that made it 0:46:15.000 --> 0:46:18.120 difficult to move these key pieces. Now, the Battle of 0:46:18.120 --> 0:46:21.919 the So from nineteen sixteen, this was this is another 0:46:21.960 --> 0:46:23.680 example that comes up now. This one, though, is an 0:46:23.680 --> 0:46:27.600 inconclusive battle of the First World War between German forces 0:46:27.960 --> 0:46:32.200 and some British and French forces. Entailed massive casualties on 0:46:32.239 --> 0:46:36.960 both sides in very muddy trench warfare conditions. So not 0:46:37.040 --> 0:46:40.880 a situation where like the mud gave either side an advantage, 0:46:40.880 --> 0:46:43.160 but just made it. It seemed to contribute it to 0:46:43.520 --> 0:46:48.480 it just being like an awful, awful battle for both sides. Now, 0:46:48.480 --> 0:46:52.040 as I mentioned already, like muddy conditions, muddy trench warfare. 0:46:52.080 --> 0:46:54.279 It's like just kind of you instantly picture it when 0:46:54.280 --> 0:46:57.080 you're thinking of World War One in particular, or perhaps 0:46:57.120 --> 0:46:59.359 like Germany's in the Eastern Front and World War Two, 0:46:59.600 --> 0:47:02.840 and both of these are theaters of war that have 0:47:02.920 --> 0:47:07.200 been recreated in various films over the years and TV 0:47:07.320 --> 0:47:10.120 shows and the like. But also you just tend to 0:47:10.160 --> 0:47:14.720 see a lot of muddy war conditions and muddy battlefields 0:47:15.160 --> 0:47:19.320 and especially muddy conditions after the battle in other films 0:47:19.360 --> 0:47:22.279 and also in video games. And I had never really 0:47:22.280 --> 0:47:25.520 thought of this before, but I was reading a little 0:47:25.520 --> 0:47:28.120 bit about this on the blog The Excellent Blog, a 0:47:28.160 --> 0:47:33.560 collection of Unmitigated Pedantry by historian Brett Devereaux. I've referred 0:47:33.560 --> 0:47:36.680 to this blog a few times because it's a great read. 0:47:37.960 --> 0:47:43.200 He does things like, you know, analyze the warfare in 0:47:43.280 --> 0:47:45.799 The Lord of the Rings, both the books and the 0:47:45.800 --> 0:47:49.279 Peter Jackson movies and so forth, does a lot of 0:47:49.320 --> 0:47:51.640 talking about Roman military, So. 0:47:51.680 --> 0:47:55.080 It's like a military historian writing about topics nerds would 0:47:55.080 --> 0:47:56.879 be interested in, yes. 0:47:56.600 --> 0:47:58.640 Very much so. So if you're into a lot of 0:47:58.640 --> 0:48:02.600 these nerdy settings, or you're into ancient warfare and medieval 0:48:02.600 --> 0:48:06.080 warfare and so forth, I definitely recommend it. But I 0:48:06.120 --> 0:48:08.359 was reading one of his posts where he points out 0:48:08.360 --> 0:48:10.920 that that, yeah, you see a lot of films and 0:48:11.000 --> 0:48:14.720 especially video games that depict the aftermath of pre modern 0:48:14.760 --> 0:48:18.840 battles as being just muddy and bloody messes. And he 0:48:18.920 --> 0:48:21.400 points out that this doesn't seem to be the norm, 0:48:21.840 --> 0:48:25.279 you mean, in reality. In reality, yes, it was not 0:48:25.400 --> 0:48:29.320 always just a muddy mess after an ancient or medieval 0:48:29.360 --> 0:48:32.040 battle took place. Right now, that's not to say that 0:48:32.160 --> 0:48:34.600 you don't have, like the examples we're discussing, where you 0:48:34.640 --> 0:48:38.520 have definite muddy places that either erupt because there's a 0:48:38.560 --> 0:48:40.560 great like it's a road where there's a lot, a 0:48:40.560 --> 0:48:43.239 great deal of travel, and then it becomes muddy. And 0:48:43.280 --> 0:48:46.080 then you have transient mud in the mix. You have 0:48:47.320 --> 0:48:51.399 muddy conditions popping up because of extreme storm activity that's 0:48:51.440 --> 0:48:54.600 taken place. But he points out that like if you 0:48:54.680 --> 0:48:58.319 just have like a normal grassy environment field somewhere where 0:48:58.320 --> 0:49:03.040 there's a battle taking place, it's not like a single 0:49:03.080 --> 0:49:05.399 battle taking place there over the course of a day 0:49:05.480 --> 0:49:07.520 or even a couple of days is going to just 0:49:07.880 --> 0:49:10.800 wear down all the vegetation and turn it into mud. 0:49:11.400 --> 0:49:14.440 In particular, he points to photographic evidence from the American 0:49:14.440 --> 0:49:17.799 Civil War that shows that, Yeah, you can have a 0:49:17.880 --> 0:49:20.960 large army, say, moving through an area, and it's not 0:49:21.000 --> 0:49:23.279 going to kill off the grass and muddy things up 0:49:23.320 --> 0:49:25.200 over the course of a single day or a couple 0:49:25.200 --> 0:49:27.440 of days. It's the sort of thing that occurs due 0:49:27.480 --> 0:49:32.640 to prolonged traffic, prolonged activity, and also environmental conditions thrown 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:34.440 in there as well. So you know, all of those 0:49:34.480 --> 0:49:37.560 things you see with like a trench warfare environment, but 0:49:37.719 --> 0:49:39.680 it's not just going to pop up over the course 0:49:39.719 --> 0:49:42.279 of a couple of days because an army moved through 0:49:42.360 --> 0:49:45.759 a place, or even because two armies clashed at a 0:49:45.800 --> 0:49:46.720 particular location. 0:49:47.120 --> 0:49:49.919 Yeah, so maybe when people are dug in and there's 0:49:50.080 --> 0:49:53.480 there's frequent foot traffic or heavy machinery moving around, or 0:49:53.520 --> 0:49:57.040 when an area is subject to prolonged shelling or something 0:49:57.120 --> 0:49:57.479 like that. 0:49:58.000 --> 0:50:00.359 Yeah, I mean, I see the appeal of it in 0:50:01.000 --> 0:50:05.080 cinematic portrayals and dramatic portrayals of the aftermath of war, 0:50:05.160 --> 0:50:09.200 because it's like we have been bloodied, people are suffering 0:50:09.239 --> 0:50:12.360 and wounded, and it makes sense that you sort of 0:50:12.400 --> 0:50:15.160 heighten that feeling that the earth itself, the world is 0:50:15.200 --> 0:50:18.080 wounded by all of this, like the wrongness of everything 0:50:18.120 --> 0:50:22.360 that has occurred here. So like I like that connection, 0:50:22.480 --> 0:50:26.400 and I think it certainly plays well. But it's it's 0:50:26.800 --> 0:50:31.440 a fun or an interesting commentary on this to sort 0:50:31.440 --> 0:50:33.759 of put it in, you know, look at it within 0:50:33.800 --> 0:50:38.040 the perspective of how battles seem to have actually impacted 0:50:38.160 --> 0:50:39.520 or not impacted the environment. 0:50:39.719 --> 0:50:42.239 So it's not necessarily the battle of a single day 0:50:42.280 --> 0:50:44.040 that can turn a place muddy, but it's more like 0:50:44.080 --> 0:50:47.879 the prolonged human presence, which maybe why you can see 0:50:47.880 --> 0:50:50.800 places become very muddy if they're also like the site 0:50:50.840 --> 0:50:55.000 of a festival or fair grounds, how muddy that can get. 0:50:55.560 --> 0:50:59.400 Yeah, it gets very muddy very quickly. You see this 0:50:59.480 --> 0:51:02.920 with with places that even you know are more or 0:51:03.040 --> 0:51:05.560 less permanent. You know that they're having to continually figure 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:07.640 out how figuring out how the water flows and how 0:51:07.640 --> 0:51:10.040 to keep mud from becoming a problem. But yeah, it's 0:51:10.160 --> 0:51:12.759 it's you do see it at festivals a lot. I 0:51:12.760 --> 0:51:16.640 guess that what the nineties Woodstock oh a example of 0:51:16.920 --> 0:51:19.719 really muddy conditions and people getting into the mud, and 0:51:19.760 --> 0:51:22.480 it also becoming sort of a hell escape in that 0:51:22.560 --> 0:51:25.920 particular encounter. But there's also mud at the original woodstock, 0:51:25.960 --> 0:51:28.640 and you know, there's sort of these scenes of sort 0:51:28.680 --> 0:51:34.280 of innocent, hippy enjoyment of muddy conditions, you know, slattering 0:51:34.280 --> 0:51:37.439 yourself with mud. So you know, being covered in mud 0:51:37.480 --> 0:51:40.319 and trapped in mud is not necessarily a bad thing, 0:51:40.320 --> 0:51:43.880 but certainly, you know, in if you're also engaging in 0:51:43.960 --> 0:51:46.480 a in a bloody battle, I don't think anyone's going 0:51:46.560 --> 0:51:48.880 to be a fan. All right, We're looking at the 0:51:48.880 --> 0:51:51.680 clock here and we realize we have to end Mud 0:51:51.719 --> 0:51:55.360 Part four, despite the fact that we did want to 0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:58.280 get in a little bit at least into the discussion 0:51:58.320 --> 0:52:03.200 of mud and religion. One of the most obvious aspects 0:52:03.200 --> 0:52:07.800 of this being that so many religions, especially ancient religions 0:52:07.800 --> 0:52:13.680 and mythologies, involves some idea of humans being made for 0:52:13.880 --> 0:52:18.480 mud or clay or dirt, but particularly clay and mud, 0:52:19.040 --> 0:52:21.080 you know, very much leaning into the idea of a 0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:26.320 creator deity or deities as being potters that are molding 0:52:26.400 --> 0:52:29.560 us and perhaps baking us, in making us what we are. 0:52:30.120 --> 0:52:31.759 But then we also had some other stuff to say 0:52:31.760 --> 0:52:34.279 about that, so well, I don't know, we'll have to 0:52:34.320 --> 0:52:36.719 come back to this in some form. I'm not saying 0:52:36.760 --> 0:52:38.840 we're gonna come back and do Mud Part five because 0:52:38.840 --> 0:52:42.200 we already said we wouldn't do that, but we did 0:52:42.320 --> 0:52:47.319 leave the door open for various mud creatures to slather in. 0:52:47.920 --> 0:52:50.640 So yeah, we'll discuss it off Mike and come back. 0:52:51.440 --> 0:52:53.120 All right, Well, we're gonna go and close it up. 0:52:53.160 --> 0:52:54.960 But we'd love to hear from everyone out there if 0:52:55.000 --> 0:52:58.360 you have thoughts on just mud in general, experience with mud, 0:52:58.400 --> 0:53:03.120 experiences with muddy conditions, mud in military science fiction, mud, 0:53:03.120 --> 0:53:07.000 and in military history in all of is fair game 0:53:07.040 --> 0:53:09.320 writ in. 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