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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and it's Saturday. So we have another

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Speaker 1: vault episode for you. This is going to be Part four,

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Speaker 1: the final episode in our series from last year on Mud.

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Speaker 1: This one originally published seven eighteen, twenty twenty three. We

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Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed these episodes, either enjoyed them originally or

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Speaker 1: enjoying them in in vault format here, so let's go

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Speaker 1: ahead and sync once more into the world of Mud.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: 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 a grab bag of different little topics that didn't

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Speaker 3: make it anywhere else.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, I think this will be the capstone

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Speaker 1: for this series, but mud does open up the possibility

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Speaker 1: for some standalone episodes later on. I think there's a

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Speaker 1: It ends up touching on so many different aspects of

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Speaker 1: the world and our habitats and also human creation. So

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Speaker 1: who knows, there may be more mud in the future,

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Speaker 1: but this is going to be like the This is

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Speaker 1: the bedrock mud. This is the initial foundation of mud

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Speaker 1: 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 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'll 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 mounds,

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Speaker 3: 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 1: Quick Weird House cinema trivia here for you, Joe, Can

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Speaker 1: you name two movies that we've covered that feature boiling

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Speaker 1: mud or the appearance of boiling mud, no matter how

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Speaker 1: they actually created it via actual footage or some other

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Speaker 1: 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 1: 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 1: Uh yeah, or something that looks like it. No, the

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Speaker 1: two movies that I believe we've watched that have boiling

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Speaker 1: mud or the effect of boiling mud, Planet of the

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Speaker 1: Vampires and nineteen seventy eight's 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 1: Came into my head as you were describing it because

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Speaker 1: it is a very like otherworldly feeling thing. Though even

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Speaker 1: though it is very much all of this world, it

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Speaker 1: kind of lends itself to alien environments or environments like

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Speaker 1: in Beauty and the Beast, which are supposed to be

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Speaker 1: kind of like on the edge of the civilized world,

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Speaker 1: sort of bordering on the supernatural. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, in The Beauty and the Beast, there's like boiling mud,

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

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Speaker 3: 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 mudpot and understand what's going on here,

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Speaker 3: I think we should start with the concept of a

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Speaker 3: hot spring. So hot springs form when water heated by

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Speaker 3: geothermal energy deep underground rises to the surface and forms

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Speaker 3: a pool, or when water that collects at the surface

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Speaker 3: due to regular runoff and surface features is heated by

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Speaker 3: steam more heat from below, and this surface water can

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Speaker 3: be anywhere between you know, pleasantly warm bathtub temperature and

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Speaker 3: lethal boiling. So you do not ever want to jump

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Speaker 3: into a hot spring unless it's one that is like

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Speaker 3: very well known in advance to be a consistent safe temperature.

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Speaker 3: If in doubt, stay away. I've read something like twenty

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Speaker 3: people are known to have died from jumping into or

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Speaker 3: falling into hot springs at Yellowstone National Park in the

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Speaker 3: United States alone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember reading about some of this when we

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Speaker 1: were doing some episodes on springs and holy waters associated

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Speaker 1: 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

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Speaker 3: see well, so I was reading an article about it

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Speaker 3: from the local news station KULR eight in Billings. I

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Speaker 3: guess Billings, Montana near Yellowstone, And so the headline was

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Speaker 3: man killed in Yellowstone hot spring allegedly trying to quote

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Speaker 3: hot pot. I guess hot potting is like, you know,

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Speaker 3: jumping into a hot spring to hang out in it.

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Speaker 3: But to read from the article, it says the man

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Speaker 3: who died in a Yellowstone hot spring last summer was

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Speaker 3: apparently looking for a place to hot pot in the park.

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Speaker 3: Yellowstone officials recently released the final report on the incident

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Speaker 3: following a Freedom of Information Act request. The victim's sister

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Speaker 3: recorded the incident on her cell phone. The accident happened

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Speaker 3: in Norris Geyser Basin on the afternoon of June seventh.

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Speaker 3: Deputy Chief Ranger Laurent Veress says, it is a very

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Speaker 3: dangerous area with boiling acidic waters. So the article tells

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

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Speaker 3: off the approved path and they were checking out a

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Speaker 3: different like hot springs or maybe more mudpot type areas

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Speaker 3: to see what the temperature was, and unfortunately, the man,

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Speaker 3: while trying to get close to check the temperature, slipped

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Speaker 3: and fell in. And the article says, quote search and

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Speaker 3: Rescue rangers who arrived later did find the victim's body

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Speaker 3: in the pool, along with his wallet and flip flops,

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Speaker 3: but a lightning storm stopped the recovery efforts. The next day,

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Speaker 3: workers could not find any remains. Veras says the water

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Speaker 3: was churning and acidic. He remarked, quote in a very

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Speaker 3: short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving. So

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Speaker 3: the apparently boiling and acidic conditions in the water essentially

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Speaker 3: disintegrated the victim's remains.

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Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah, listen to your park 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. Mudpots

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Speaker 3: 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 mudpott 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 then. This is from a textbook

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

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Speaker 3: Pearson that essentially describes a mudpot as like a hot

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Speaker 3: spring but with limited water supply, and Pearson says it

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: overflow from the spring, and you know, the water will

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Speaker 3: overflow the basin of the pool and drain away. And

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Speaker 3: in fact, if you look up pictures of hot springs,

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Speaker 3: you can often see rocks nearby stained where the runoff

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Speaker 3: from the spring is going. It'll maybe carry a colorful

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Speaker 3: extremophile microbes with it, so you'll see almost kind of

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Speaker 3: like a little red river running off the side of it.

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Speaker 3: And so in these cases, if the flow of water

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Speaker 3: into the pool is positive, the water stays relatively clear,

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Speaker 3: relatively limpid, in Pearson's words, often a deep blue or

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Speaker 3: green color, though it can appear different colors like red

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Speaker 3: or yellow, again due to extremophiles present.

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Speaker 1: 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 mudpots 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 one atmosphere of pressure is one hundred degree

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: hot gases in the earth are still rising up through it.

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

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

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Speaker 3: Pearson 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. Now,

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Speaker 3: Pearson 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 ebullition, 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 1: Yes, yeah, it can kind of even like shake the

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Speaker 1: pot a little bit, right, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So this is my experience in the kitchen. Like

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Speaker 3: you boil something with basically a watery consistency or broth

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Speaker 3: like consistency, the bubbles will be pretty even. There'll be

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Speaker 3: a steady rate, you know, they'll pop evenly as long

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Speaker 3: as the heat is consistently applied. But if you were

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Speaker 3: talking about like a very thick stew, you can sometimes

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Speaker 3: get much less predictable and more explosive bubbles. So it

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Speaker 3: might not bubble at all for a bit, and then

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Speaker 3: suddenly a huge bubble pops and it splatters all over

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Speaker 3: the stovetop.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was cooking one of these just last night.

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

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Speaker 3: in a mud pot thickens. With thick mud, steam builds

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: And this is one version of the concept of the

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Speaker 3: mud volcano. Because the mud pot that bubbles this way

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Speaker 3: and kind of builds up mud around it, it can

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

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Speaker 3: looks like a cone volcano, or it can kind of

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Speaker 3: form a caldera around itself made out of ejected mud. Now,

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

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

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Speaker 3: up a little sort of mini volcano made out of

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

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

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Speaker 3: period of activity for a hot spring, sort of as

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Speaker 3: the activity of a hot spring is dying away, it's

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Speaker 3: more likely to go through a mud pot and a

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Speaker 3: volcano period. Now, I mentioned I came across some different

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Speaker 3: accounts of what is exactly going on in a mud pot.

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Speaker 3: That was the older account. A lot of the more

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: National Parks 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 1: 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 indconsistency want, or if you're making like

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

305
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Speaker 3: sauce too much, and you know, with scrambled eggs.

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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, But so.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, it's just like letting the steam from below do

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Speaker 3: the heating of the food, as opposed to letting applying

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Speaker 3: direct heat from the heating element through the metal to

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Speaker 3: the food. And the source from the National Park Service

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Speaker 3: claims that in the case of these mudpots, what's usually

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Speaker 3: happening is that water from the surface collects in a

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Speaker 3: basin or a depression that is not actually connected to

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Speaker 3: the water flow from from the hydrothermal systems in the

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Speaker 3: ground instead. The bottom of the basin or the depression

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Speaker 3: is usually considered impermeable because of lining with fine particles

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Speaker 3: of clay, So that's sort of your bowl. The bottom

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Speaker 3: of the double boiler and the hydrothermal system below releases

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Speaker 3: steam and usually some hydrogen sulfide gas, which rises through

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Speaker 3: the bottom layers of clay and causes the mud puddle

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Speaker 3: to both heat up and bubble as the gas rises

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Speaker 3: to the top. Then you have again extremophile organisms microorganisms

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Speaker 3: in these pools that can use the hydrogen sulfide gas

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Speaker 3: to make energy, and in the process they create sulfuric acid,

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Speaker 3: which turns the mud pool extremely acidic, and then it

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Speaker 3: helps dissolve more rock in the surrounding basin and turns

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Speaker 3: that into clay, and so the mud just like you know,

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Speaker 3: you get continuous supply of new clay particles from that dissolution,

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Speaker 3: and it gets thicker and thicker. And this source also

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Speaker 3: says that mud pots can be affected by the season,

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Speaker 3: so like rain and melting snow can make the mud

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Speaker 3: and the pots cooler and thinner, and then hot, dry

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Speaker 3: weather in the summer it can cause them to thicken

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Speaker 3: or even dry up completely, which means that these are

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Speaker 3: ultimately somewhat transient and dynamic features. Like a mud pot

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Speaker 3: or a mud volcano of this variety might only be

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

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Speaker 3: much much longer, but it might just be a very brief,

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Speaker 3: shortly lived thing before maybe it just transforms into a

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Speaker 3: kind of fixed fume role where steam is coming out

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Speaker 3: of a hole in the ground. Now, there is another

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Speaker 3: use of the term mud volcano that can refer to

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Speaker 3: a different geological process that can in some cases be

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Speaker 3: extremely explosive and large in scale and violent. I was

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Speaker 3: reading about this in an article from December twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: by a ut Austin geologist named Michael R. Hudik that

347
00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:36,400
Speaker 3: is describing like it's it's a particular example of a

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

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

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

351
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Speaker 3: there was this massive sudden eruption. There was like steam

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

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

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Speaker 3: mud that ended 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. They were like

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

359
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Speaker 3: not like a little mound of mud ejected by a puddle.

360
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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, one

363
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Speaker 3: thing that might be going on is the interaction with

364
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Speaker 3: hydrocarbon gases, so for example, methane, and of course methane

365
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Speaker 3: being very flammable, can make these eruptions actually flaming eruptions,

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

367
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Speaker 3: it can ignite. The cause of this particular mud volcano

368
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Speaker 3: eruption in two thousand and six is apparently controversial. It

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

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Speaker 3: drilling of an app 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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00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:07,080
Speaker 3: gas company claims, no, it wasn't us. It was a

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Speaker 3: naturally occurring event. But it did seem to be significant

374
00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:15,040
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

379
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Speaker 3: this gas and rock and molten rock and pyroclastic flow

380
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:34,400
Speaker 3: and all these things. And so I guess we are

381
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:38,080
Speaker 3: already familiar with the concept of large destructive volcanoes. But

382
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Speaker 3: the idea that it could just like flood a landscape

383
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Speaker 3: with mud is another stranger and differently frightening version of

384
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Speaker 3: that kind of image.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's one thing to have vast quantities

386
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Speaker 1: of mud where you know, mud will be seasonally otherwise.

387
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Speaker 1: It's another thing for mud to just suddenly appear where

388
00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:00,080
Speaker 1: it's not expected. And this seems to be like one

389
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:02,679
Speaker 1: of the more exaggerated cases of it, you know, whereas

390
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Speaker 1: the vast quantities of mud just emerging and taking over

391
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Speaker 1: people's homes and so forth. Now, on the subject of

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Speaker 1: mud volcanoes, I have also been reading a little bit

393
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Speaker 1: about this idea of mud volcanoes on Mars. I don't

394
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Speaker 1: know if you came across any of this. I was

395
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Speaker 1: looking at a paper from twenty twenty quoting Peter Burroughs,

396
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Speaker 1: a professor of geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences,

397
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Speaker 1: and basically he proposed that mud from mud volcanoes may

398
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:37,159
Speaker 1: have flowed in Mars past, and therefore some of the

399
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,480
Speaker 1: things we see in visuals from Mars that looks like

400
00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:43,960
Speaker 1: it could be the result of lava flows could perhaps

401
00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:47,800
Speaker 1: be the result of mud flows in the past. So

402
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 1: he and his team conducted experiments to see how this

403
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: would work, and found that while the mud eventually would

404
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:57,439
Speaker 1: freeze under those Chili Martian conditions, there would be a

405
00:22:57,520 --> 00:23:00,680
Speaker 1: little time for it to flow, freezing and crusting over

406
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: at the surface, initially enabling it to move a bit

407
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:08,240
Speaker 1: before the freeze firmly took hold. Because I guess that,

408
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:10,359
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of the things about thinking about

409
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,720
Speaker 1: mud elsewhere in the universe. We have plenty of sci

410
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 1: fi visions of muddy planets, but for mud to be there,

411
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: you need some sort of moisture to be there as well. Yeah,

412
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:25,160
Speaker 1: but we do I think love the idea of mud planets.

413
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 1: You know, take any especially any kind of like exotic

414
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:33,439
Speaker 1: terrestrial environment, and somebody somewhere has turned a whole planet

415
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 1: into that. You know, So you have jungle planets, you

416
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: have desert planets like Oracus. If you look at Star Wars,

417
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: you have planets like dagobas just a swamp world. Not

418
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:44,119
Speaker 1: only does it have a lot of mud, like the

419
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:46,880
Speaker 1: mud and the muck will just swallow up whole spaceships.

420
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Speaker 3: That's true, though, you know, it's interesting they never say

421
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 3: in the Star Wars movies that the entire planet Dagoba

422
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 3: is a swamp, but you just assume that's the case.

423
00:23:56,280 --> 00:24:00,479
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I've seen some maps and these are

424
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, artistic interpretations that kind of

425
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:04,440
Speaker 1: run with that, and it's like, oh, yeah, the whole

426
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 1: planet just swamp. And that raises a lot of questions

427
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: like what how would that work? That would the entire

428
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:12,679
Speaker 1: planet be a swamp? Does that mean it doesn't have oceans?

429
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: It just has swamp. I don't know. I should look

430
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: into this and say, I'm sure some people have written

431
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:20,199
Speaker 1: some papers about this sort of thing.

432
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if like, could you have a swamp

433
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 3: if you didn't have other types of regions to support

434
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 3: the like the geological and atmospheric conditions that would create

435
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:30,959
Speaker 3: a swamp. Yeah.

436
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:33,399
Speaker 1: Now I'll come back to Star Wars in just a second,

437
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:35,159
Speaker 1: but I want to hit another couple of sort of

438
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 1: cosmic mud examples. One concerns SMAP SMAP, which is also

439
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 1: a Japanese boy band. Apparently this this became obvious when

440
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 1: I was researching this, but in this case it stands

441
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: for Soil Moisture Active Passive. That's NASA's environmental monitoring satellite,

442
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 1: launched in twenty fifteen and still active as of this recording.

443
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to be active through at least

444
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,119
Speaker 1: the end of twenty twenty three. But it can measure

445
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,880
Speaker 1: land surface soil moisture up to a certain depth. So

446
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,919
Speaker 1: it's an eye in the sky essentially on mud. And

447
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,439
Speaker 1: the data that it collects is useful because it spills

448
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: over into better understandings of the carbon cycle, weather and

449
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:22,199
Speaker 1: climate models, drought monitoring, and so much more. But of

450
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 1: course that's concerning Earth. We know there's mud on Earth.

451
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 1: This is another idea I ran across this, the idea

452
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: that you, at one point anyway had just cosmic mud

453
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:33,919
Speaker 1: balls flying around through space.

454
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:40,360
Speaker 3: Okay, so if you imagine like a comet as a

455
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 3: formation of ice and dust that's flying around in space,

456
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 3: of course all the ice is frozen, like what if

457
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:49,479
Speaker 3: a comet was wet?

458
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually found some discussion of this in a

459
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen article for New Scientists by Sam Wong. In

460
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:01,719
Speaker 1: this it doesn't conserve comets, but it concerns asteroids, particularly

461
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: early asteroids or carbonaceous asteroids, that may have delivered water

462
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: and organic molecules to Earth, and apparently it can be

463
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:15,679
Speaker 1: helpful to model them as just big old mudboss. So

464
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: the idea here is that ice, dust, and chondrules come

465
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: together and the pressure has not yet compacted it all

466
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: into rock right away. It will in time, but at

467
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 1: this point early on, it hasn't all been compacted into rock,

468
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: and the ice will end up melting due to decaying

469
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,879
Speaker 1: radioactive atoms in the dust and gas, resulting in a

470
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: quote unquote schuldgi mud and this would eventually become rock again,

471
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: but for a time they would be muddy asteroids. According

472
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: to the modeling by Philip Bland at Curtin University in Perth, Australia,

473
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: and his collaborator, Brian Travis at the Planetary Science Institute

474
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: in Tucson, Arizona.

475
00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 3: That is interesting. Okay, so they've got a pretty strong

476
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 3: internal heat source because they've got all these young radioactive

477
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 3: atoms in them that are still decaying at a pretty

478
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 3: rapid rate. So they're keeping the ice content like melted

479
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 3: and moist. And then of course they've got all like

480
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 3: the dust and rock soil content in them. And yeah, wow,

481
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,439
Speaker 3: there's like big balls of mud flying through space.

482
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so I before I ran across this, I

483
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: didn't even think this was possible. You know, you think

484
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: of mud as being something you're going to encounter, particularly

485
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: on an earth like world. Now, coming back to Earth

486
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:35,479
Speaker 1: like worlds and mud. Another Star Wars planet of note,

487
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 1: especially if you've seen the movie Solo, which came out

488
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: several years back. There's a planet called Mimbon, and in

489
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 1: that movie we see Imperial mud troopers or swamp troopers

490
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: as they're sometimes called, engaged in some sort of drawn

491
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: out battle on this world. And Joe, in case you

492
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: haven't seen this, I included an image here of what

493
00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 1: mud troopers look like as compared to just normal Imperial.

494
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 3: Storm troopers looks like a dirty job, looks like they

495
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 3: this may be like the last thing that, like all

496
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 3: the other troopers try to sign up for different detail

497
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 3: and you know, the last picks for all the other ones,

498
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,679
Speaker 3: like Nope, you cannot go to Hawth and be a

499
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 3: snow trooper. You got to be a mud trooper.

500
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:19,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, and I think that's the way it's presented

501
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 1: in the movie too, like Han Solo, a young Han

502
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 1: Solo is a mud trooper on this awful world. Then

503
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: of course they're also drawing in a lot of comparisons

504
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 1: to trench warfare and war's past and so forth, which

505
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,360
Speaker 1: well we'll get back to in a bit. But one

506
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: of the interesting things, of course, this is kind of

507
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: across the board when you look at sci fi. Sci

508
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: fi often is looking backwards and taking things from the

509
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: past and putting this futuristic spin on them. Because I

510
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: don't recall, and I could be wrong, it's been a

511
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: while since I've seen Solo, but I don't think the

512
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: Imperial mud Troopers leveraged any kind of sci fi technology

513
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: to deal with the mud. It seems like they would

514
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: have leaned heavily on repulsor technology to kind of float

515
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: above it, or to use some sort of technology to

516
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: either rapidly dry out muddy conditions or to like flash

517
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: freeze them so that you wouldn't have to get slogged

518
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: down in them. It seems like that would be something

519
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: to try if the imperial budget allowed for it. I

520
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 1: guess they spent that all on big walking machines that

521
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: are gonna, I guess, in theory, not get bogged down

522
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: in the mud. Off the top of my head, I

523
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 1: don't think I can even think of another sci fi

524
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: vision where there's any kind of like sci fi treatment

525
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: of mud like this. I could be wrong, because I'm not.

526
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of military sci fi out there,

527
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: so someone might have looked at it. I do remember

528
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: a gadget in John Steekley's Armor that is like a

529
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: people in power armor versus insect aliens on a desert

530
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: world that involves sand clotters and a machine that would

531
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: turn the sand of the desert into solid walls of fortification.

532
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: So I imagine you'd want something like that, something that,

533
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,959
Speaker 1: through sci fi shenanigans, can instantly eye out an area

534
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: or make it solid as opposed to shifting sand or

535
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: in this case like mud that's going to cling to

536
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: you and suck you down into the muck.

537
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 3: I don't know if sand is the best choice for that.

538
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 3: Wouldn't it be better to use a cohesive soil with

539
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 3: smaller particles like clay or silt.

540
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So I don't know any of you out

541
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: there who certainly are more red and military sci fi

542
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: than me, there might be an example of this, So

543
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: write in and let us know.

544
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 3: Now. Of course you keep saying military sci fi in particular,

545
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 3: and it makes sense why you would do that because

546
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 3: of the significance of mud in combat and warfare in

547
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 3: human history.

548
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, you know mud. I was thinking about

549
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: this a lot like mud is not only an environmental

550
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: condition that occurs naturally in the world, but it's often

551
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: this condition that is at an interaction point between the

552
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: natural world and human activity. You would think of muddy roads, right,

553
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: We think of paths that are not well maintained, that

554
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: get really muddy and sloppy in places. And then there

555
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 1: are several walks that my family does like this in

556
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: the area where you know, we know exactly where that

557
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: muddy stretch is, and there are often a lot of

558
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: slapdash efforts to mitigate it, you know, boards that are

559
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: thrown down the rockport. Yeah, and you know that works

560
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: for a little bit sort of. That also creates additional

561
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: splash hazards and new and exciting ways to slip and

562
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: fall in the mud. But yeah, mud is also a

563
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: big factor in human warfare and has been for a

564
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 1: long long time. You pointed this out to me, and

565
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: this is something that has been covered in various articles

566
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: over the last couple of years. But there is a

567
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: Russian term putitsa that refers to a season or seasons

568
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 1: of the year when unpaved roads become treacherous due to

569
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: the mud created by rain and or melting snow on

570
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: said roads. It's had a major impact on land wars

571
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: in Russia and Eastern Europe, for ages, impacting the Mongol invasion,

572
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:05,719
Speaker 1: both World Wars, and also the Russo Ukrainian War that

573
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: as of this recording, is still ongoing. It's been observed

574
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: that among Russia's mistakes during the twenty twenty two invasion

575
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 1: of Ukraine, they underestimated the muddy road season that was

576
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: just kicking off at that time, right.

577
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 3: So this is sort of one of the factors affecting

578
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 3: the seasonal planning of offensives in conflict in Eastern Europe.

579
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. And on the other hand, another major area

580
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: for mud and war is the First World War. And

581
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: I mean you can instantly picture this probably if you've

582
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 1: seen images, footage and fictional recreations of those trench warfare environments.

583
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: What do you think of You think of like blasted landscape,

584
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: You think of mud, You think of these just awful

585
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: conditions where like the natural world is just worn away

586
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 1: and all that remains is mud and fortifications and explosion

587
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: and death and pain.

588
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, like in heavily shelled or trodden over areas where

589
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 3: it seems like a lot of the plant life has

590
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 3: been killed and stripped away, and now like the roots

591
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 3: are it's not really holding the soil together the way

592
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 3: it was, and now it's just mud.

593
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you've ever taken a poetry class, you

594
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: may have run across the fact that, Yeah, there's a

595
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 1: lot of great but depressing poetry and writings in general

596
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: that came out of this time period, people describing these conditions,

597
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: describing the horrors of war and the horrors of chemical

598
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: warfare and so forth. One of the best literary treatments

599
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: of war and mud, however, just has to be that

600
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: of American British war nurse turned novelist and poet Mary Borden.

601
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventeen, she wrote a poem called The Song

602
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: of the Mud. You can find this in full on

603
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 1: Poetry Foundation dot org. But it's really really good. Joe,

604
00:33:58,320 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: were you familiar with this poem?

605
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 3: I don't think so.

606
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one is a new one for me. I

607
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: this is not one that I remember covering in poetry classes.

608
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: But she writes of quote the frothing, squirting, spurting liquid

609
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:15,439
Speaker 1: mud that gurgles along the road beds unquote, as well

610
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 1: as quote the thick, elastic mud that is kneaded and

611
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of the horses. Though

612
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: she also juxtaposes this with more natural seeming aspects of mud,

613
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:30,439
Speaker 1: even like mud as something that can be beautiful. From

614
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: afar m I'm gonna read the final stanza from the poem,

615
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 1: but again I encourage everyone to go out and read

616
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: it in full. Quote. This is the song of the mud,

617
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: The beautiful, glistening, golden mud that covers the hills like satin,

618
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 1: the mysterious, gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel

619
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: over the valleys. Mud, the disguise of the war zone. Mud,

620
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: the mantle of battles, mud, the smooth, fluid grave of

621
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: our soldiers. This is the song of the mud.

622
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 3: Well, that's interesting, and I don't know the connotations of

623
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 3: mud is used, and that stands at least are more

624
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:10,320
Speaker 3: I don't know, more positive than I would have expected.

625
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of dark imagery in

626
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: there about it, like swallowing up guns and taking people

627
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: down into like not only like the physical power of

628
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: the mud, but also like the emotional toll of the mud,

629
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: which I'll come back to you in a bit as well.

630
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 3: When I was thinking of World War One poetry and

631
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 3: the concept of mud, I thought of the one of

632
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 3: the poems of Wilfrid Owen. I just had to look

633
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 3: it up because I didn't remember the name, but it's

634
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 3: the apology of pro poemate Mayo, which I think means

635
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 3: defense of my poetry. And this is by Wilfrid Owen,

636
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 3: who was a British poet who fought in World War One.

637
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 3: Wrote a lot of poetry associated with the war, like

638
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 3: anthem for Doomed Youth, you might have read. But the

639
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 3: opening stands of this poem was, I too saw God

640
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 3: through mud, the mud that cracked on cheeks when wretch's

641
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 3: mild war brought more glory to their eyes than blood,

642
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 3: and gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

643
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah, I don't remember that that bit, but

644
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: I remember Owen. He's definitely one of the names that

645
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: comes up when a poetry class steers sharply into the trenches.

646
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 3: Yeah.

647
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: Now, a book that I mentioned earlier in this series, Mud,

648
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:26,320
Speaker 1: a Military History by ce Wood, is a full book

649
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:28,400
Speaker 1: dealing with mud in war. And so if you if

650
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: you need more of this, I highly recommend you pick

651
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 1: up that book. It's it's it's very well written, it's

652
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 1: very you know, it's very absorbable. But in it would

653
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: stresses that while more permanent domains of mud are certainly

654
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: important in warfare, you need to know where the swamps, marshes,

655
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 1: and bogs are and how to either circumnavigate them or

656
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: utilize them, force the enemy to move through them, that

657
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But the main area of interest in

658
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 1: the book is transitional mud, that is the kind that

659
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:01,280
Speaker 1: arrives and departs without significant warning.

660
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:06,239
Speaker 3: Okay, so this previously traversible landscape suddenly has mud in

661
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 3: it that is going to interfere with your progress.

662
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this becomes key because I mean, this is

663
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: not something you can necessarily plan for, or planning can

664
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 1: fall short of taking it into account. And it's a

665
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: variety of mud that has played a crucial role in

666
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 1: the history of armed conflict. One of Wood's main focuses

667
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 1: in this is how mud hinders forward advancement in warfare,

668
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: so impacting combatants, animals, and machines of war, and of

669
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,279
Speaker 1: course not just war machines and soldiers and tanks and

670
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: horses with knights on them and that sort of thing,

671
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: but of course everything that supports a war effort, that

672
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: supports an army and its advancement, you know, the vehicles

673
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: that are carrying food, any kind of medical support that

674
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,320
Speaker 1: is in tow all of that sort of thing as well.

675
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 1: So generals have to contend with the impact of permanent mud,

676
00:37:56,680 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: seasonal mud, random transitional mud, in addition to all the

677
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 1: other threats and challenges of battle, all the other environmental

678
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,880
Speaker 1: concerns that will come into play, and there are also

679
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 1: huge human health and mental health challenges with mud that

680
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: the author deals with in greater detail. There's a great

681
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: quote in the book though, about this, attributed to historian

682
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 1: Martin Gilbert. Quote at night, crouching in a shell hole

683
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 1: and filling it, the mud watches like an enormous octopus.

684
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 1: The victim arrives, it throws its poisonous slobber out at him,

685
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 1: blinds him, closes round him, buries him. For men die

686
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 1: of mud as they die of bullets. But more horribly,

687
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: mud is where men sink, and what is worse, where

688
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 1: their souls sink. Hell is not fire, That would not

689
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: be the ultimate in suffering. Hell is mud.

690
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 3: Wow, Well, there is something I think interesting there in

691
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 3: that mud in a way militates against people's ability to

692
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 3: see their own suffering as noble or to see it

693
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 3: in any grandiose terms. That there's something kind of humbling

694
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 3: and humiliating about suffering brought on by an environment of mud,

695
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 3: and thus, like death in mud is an image that

696
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 3: brings a lot more despair than the idea of a

697
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:19,760
Speaker 3: sort of like violent death or death in fire.

698
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now on thinking about this though, hell

699
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: is mud, that of course made me think of Dante's Inferno,

700
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: and I was like I remember there being some mud

701
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: in Dante's Inferno. Somewhere. You have varied all the different

702
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: circles and bulgas, and in Inferno they have different characteristics,

703
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 1: different flavors. And indeed there is a circle in Dante's

704
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 1: Inferno where there is mud. It is the third Circle.

705
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 1: And I had to I had to look it back

706
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 1: up again. I was looking in my translation by Durling

707
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:59,399
Speaker 1: and Martinez, and this is just a couple of lines

708
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:01,920
Speaker 1: from it. Quote, I am in the third Circle with

709
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: the eternal cursed, cold and heavy rain. Its rule and

710
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: quality never change. Great hailstones, filthy water, and snow poured

711
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:16,240
Speaker 1: down through the dark air. The earth stinks that received them.

712
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: It's also the realm of Cerberus. But when quote the

713
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: great worm opens his mouth to growl at Dante and Virgil,

714
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: Virgil throws dirt into the monster's three mouths, and the

715
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: monster gobbles it all down.

716
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 3: M delicious.

717
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. As Durling and Martinez explained in the notes

718
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 1: in my translation of Inferno, the mud of food connection

719
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: is key here. Quote. The rain, hail and snow and

720
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: resulting mud are versions of the food and drink to

721
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 1: which the gluttons were addicted in the last analysis, merely

722
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 1: visions of the elements earth and water.

723
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 3: Sort of portraying the like the worthlessness of the pleasures

724
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 3: of gluttony, that like you just sort of concerning yourself

725
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 3: with material rubbish rather than having your mind on heavenly things.

726
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also like the sense that it's all mud anyway,

727
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: or even that it's it's all excrement. There's also a

728
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: lot of dog imagery here. Obviously we have Cerberus with

729
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: the three dog heads, and then we also have pig

730
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: imagery thrown in and also mud excrement comparisons as well.

731
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 3: Hey, pig imagery bringing us back to pig mud wallowing,

732
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 3: which actually turns out to be a quite clever adaptation

733
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 3: of nature.

734
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 4: Yeah.

735
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,919
Speaker 1: Anyway, so brief, brief departure into hell, but coming back

736
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 1: to the surface world and the hell we make for

737
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 1: ourselves there. Coming back to war as what explains that

738
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,919
Speaker 1: the mere challenge of moving around and mud can lead

739
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: to exhaustion for the individual soldier, and this exhaustion can

740
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:02,280
Speaker 1: prove fatal. Can also hold true for pack animals as well.

741
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 1: So you know, if you're in a very muddy situation

742
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: and you're having to just move through mud, constantly or

743
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,760
Speaker 1: for a lengthy period of time, like that's just making

744
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 1: every step so much harder. And there's a good chance

745
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:17,799
Speaker 1: you're already doing something exhausting, that is mentally trying, that

746
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: you're already under a great deal of stress. And now

747
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: each each time you try and lift your boot your

748
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: foot out of the mud, more effort is required of you. Now.

749
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: There have been efforts to improve footwear for soldiers at

750
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: different time periods, such as having wider essentially kind of

751
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: like plank bottom shoes that the US Army experimented with

752
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: special mud boots and shoes in World War Two and

753
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 1: then again in Vietnam. Would include several prototype photos here.

754
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: Joe I included a screen cap here for you to

755
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 1: look at these. They're not much to look at, but

756
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 1: you can see they're like basically different designs of wide

757
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: flat surfaces that would be scrapped or somehow toach the

758
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: bottom of boots.

759
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:03,719
Speaker 3: Some of them look like huge wooden hoofs.

760
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, they do. And you know, I'm not certain because

761
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 1: it's just the subtitle. He was very brief, but I

762
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:15,720
Speaker 1: guess it's possible that some of these could be for horses.

763
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe the round one that's kind of

764
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 1: hoof shaped is for a horse. I don't know, huh,

765
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:24,760
Speaker 1: because certainly, you know, horses would be of concern. And well,

766
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: not all of these military engagements. Of some of them,

767
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: Tracked vehicles like tanks and half tracks can perform better

768
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: in some muddy situations, but a tract vehicles certainly can

769
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: get stuck in the mud. As Wood points out, they

770
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: can also slide out of control through the mud and

771
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: down muddy hillsides as well. Tracks can spread weight out

772
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: more evenly than tires, So that's one of the appeals

773
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:53,720
Speaker 1: of having tracks or half tracked designs in these vehicles.

774
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 1: But yeah, they're still not perfect. And then if you

775
00:43:56,280 --> 00:44:00,799
Speaker 1: throw trenches into the mix, as it was encountered in

776
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:02,920
Speaker 1: the First World War, especially, you know that one of

777
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 1: these big tanks can get stuck in the trench, and

778
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: therefore you need, like other vehicles to lay down temporary

779
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 1: bridges so that the tanks can make it across those trenches. Now,

780
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 1: coming back to health though human health and mud, Wood

781
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 1: also points out that extremely muddy conditions often lead to

782
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 1: deteriorating sanitary conditions. Wood points out that wounded soldiers rarely

783
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,799
Speaker 1: reach medical facilities clean. So then this makes sense. You're

784
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 1: in muddy conditions, you're going to enter into the medical

785
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 1: facilities muddy and that. And also it means that oftentimes

786
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: it's not just like any kind of pure mud, that

787
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: mud is going to be mixed with all manner of

788
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: unhygienic ingredients from the war zone. Muddy conditions also severely

789
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 1: hinder the ability to just evacuate the wounded or to

790
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: have medical personnel come in to deal with people who

791
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: are wounded.

792
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, in addition to all these general concerns, it

793
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 3: seems like I have memories of reading about, at least

794
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 3: interpretations of some decisive battles in history where mud played

795
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 3: a role in how the battle turned out, or at

796
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 3: least some historians believed that it did. Like I seem

797
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 3: to recall the Battle of Agincore as one example.

798
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Battle of Agincore is a big one. This

799
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: is from fourteen fifteen English victory over the French in

800
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 1: one Hundred Years War. The French had to advance heavily

801
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: armored knights through very muddy conditions. And the key to this,

802
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: too is that this was transient mud. I've read this

803
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 1: was these were not muddy conditions that were expected. This

804
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: was I believe there was like a huge storm, so

805
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: they weren't prepared for it. They marched anyway, and they

806
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: end up sinking in the mud, especially if they've been

807
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: knocked off their horse, easily immobilized once unhorsed in all

808
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 1: that heavy armor. And it's said that, you know, some

809
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:56,839
Speaker 1: of the French knights drowned in the mud there.

810
00:45:57,280 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 3: And this seems to be kind of a pattern that

811
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 3: emerges in history, like it is bad to be caught

812
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 3: as the side in a battle that is trying to

813
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 3: advance through the mud.

814
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, all these factors are going to

815
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 1: come into play. It's going to slow you down, this

816
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:15,800
Speaker 1: stuff's going to get stuck, and then when the battle

817
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 1: turns against you, it's going to turn even worse. A

818
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,799
Speaker 1: couple of other examples that come up frequently. There's the

819
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: mud March from the Battle of Fredericksburg eighteen sixty two

820
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:29,879
Speaker 1: in the American Civil War. This was on the Union side,

821
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 1: General Burnside's troops and it ended up having to go

822
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: through some really muddy conditions and a number of key

823
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 1: artillery pieces and wagons became trapped in the mud. Delaying

824
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,320
Speaker 1: the Union advance, and this was due to like sudden

825
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:47,760
Speaker 1: stormy conditions that were not expected that made it difficult

826
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 1: to move these key pieces. Now, the Battle of the

827
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: Son from nineteen sixteen, this is another example that comes

828
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 1: up now. This one, though, is an inconclusive battle of

829
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: the First World War between German forces and some British

830
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:05,319
Speaker 1: and French forces. Entailed massive casualties on both sides in

831
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 1: very muddy trench warfare conditions. So not a situation where

832
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 1: like the mud gave either side an advantage, but just

833
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:16,399
Speaker 1: made it seem to contribute it to it just being

834
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: like an awful, awful battle for both sides. Now, as

835
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 1: I mentioned already, like muddy conditions, muddy trench warfare, it's

836
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:26,799
Speaker 1: like just kind of you instantly picture it when you're

837
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 1: thinking of World War One in particular, or perhaps like

838
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: Germany's in the Eastern Front and World War Two, and

839
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:35,479
Speaker 1: both of these are theaters of war that have been

840
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: recreated in various films over the years and TV shows

841
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 1: and the like. But also you just tend to see

842
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: a lot of muddy war conditions and muddy battlefields and

843
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 1: especially muddy conditions after the battle. In other films and

844
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,839
Speaker 1: also in video games. And I had never really thought

845
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 1: of this before, but I was reading a little bit

846
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 1: about this on the blog The Excellent Blog, a collection

847
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:06,280
Speaker 1: of Unmitigated Pedantry by historian Brett Devereaux. I've referred to

848
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: this blog a few times because it's a great read.

849
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 1: He does things like, you know, analyze the warfare in

850
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: The Lord of the Rings, both the books and the

851
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 1: Peter Jackson movies and so forth, does a lot of

852
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: talking about Roman military, so.

853
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:27,439
Speaker 3: It's like a military historian writing about topics nerds would

854
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 3: be interested in.

855
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 1: Yes, very much so. So if you're into a lot

856
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: of these nerdy settings, or you're into ancient warfare and

857
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: medieval warfare and so forth, I definitely recommend it. But

858
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 1: I was reading one of his posts where he points

859
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 1: out that that, yeah, you see a lot of films

860
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: and especially video games that depict the aftermath of pre

861
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: modern battles as being just muddy and bloody messes. And

862
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:53,760
Speaker 1: he points out that this doesn't seem to be the norm,

863
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 1: you mean, in reality, In reality, yes, it was not.

864
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:00,840
Speaker 3: Always just a muddy mess after a after an ancient

865
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:02,879
Speaker 3: or medieval battle took place.

866
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: Right Now, that's not to say that you don't have

867
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: the examples we're discussing where you have definite muddy places

868
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 1: that either erupt because there's a great like it's a

869
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 1: road where there's a lot, a great deal of travel,

870
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: and then it becomes muddy, and then you have transient

871
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,840
Speaker 1: mud in the mix. You have muddy conditions popping up

872
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:25,320
Speaker 1: because of extreme storm activity that's taken place. But he

873
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: points out that if you just have like a normal

874
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,920
Speaker 1: grassy environment field somewhere where there's a battle taking place,

875
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: it's not like a single battle taking place there over

876
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: the course of a day or even a couple of days,

877
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 1: is going to just wear down all the vegetation and

878
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: turn it into mud. In particular, he points to photographic

879
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: evidence from the American Civil War that shows that, yeah,

880
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 1: you can have a large army, say, moving through an area,

881
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: and it's not going to kill off the grass and

882
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 1: muddy things up over the course of a single day

883
00:49:57,080 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: or a couple of days. It's the sort of thing

884
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 1: that occurs due to longed traffic, prolonged activity, and also

885
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:06,319
Speaker 1: environmental conditions thrown in there as well. So you know,

886
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:08,280
Speaker 1: all of those things you see with like a trench

887
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 1: warfare environment. But it's not just going to pop up

888
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:13,719
Speaker 1: over the course of a couple of days because an

889
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:17,200
Speaker 1: army moved through a place, or even because two armies

890
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: clashed at a particular location.

891
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, so maybe when when people are dug in and

892
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,680
Speaker 3: there's there's frequent foot traffic or heavy machinery moving around,

893
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:29,040
Speaker 3: or when an area is subject to prolonged shelling or

894
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:29,839
Speaker 3: something like that.

895
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I see the appeal of it in

896
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:37,399
Speaker 1: cinematic portrayals and dramatic portrayals of the aftermath of war,

897
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 1: because it's like, we have been bloodied, people are suffering

898
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 1: and wounded, and it makes sense that that you sort

899
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,280
Speaker 1: of heighten that feeling that the earth itself, the world

900
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: is wounded by all of this, like the wrongness of

901
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:54,720
Speaker 1: everything that has occurred here. So like, I like that connection,

902
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 1: and I think I think it certainly plays well. But

903
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, a fun or an interesting commentary

904
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,319
Speaker 1: on this to sort of put it in, you know,

905
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 1: look at it within the perspective of how battles seem

906
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 1: to have actually impacted or not impacted the environment.

907
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 3: So it's not necessarily the battle of a single day

908
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 3: that can turn a place muddy, but it's more like

909
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:20,239
Speaker 3: the prolonged human presence, which maybe why you can see

910
00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 3: places become very muddy if they're also like the site

911
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 3: of a festival or fair grounds. How muddy that can get.

912
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:31,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets very muddy very quickly. You see this

913
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 1: with places that even you know are more or less permanent.

914
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 1: You know that they're having to continually figure out how

915
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:40,359
Speaker 1: figuring out how the water flows and how to keep

916
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: mud from becoming a problem. But yeah, it's it's you

917
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:45,400
Speaker 1: do see it at festivals a lot. I guess that

918
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:49,960
Speaker 1: what the nineties Woodstock oh an example of really muddy

919
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,479
Speaker 1: conditions and people getting into the mud and it also

920
00:51:52,480 --> 00:51:55,840
Speaker 1: becoming sort of a hell escape in that particular encounter.

921
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 1: But there was also mud at the original Woodstock, and

922
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 1: you know, they're these scenes of sort of innocent, hippy

923
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 1: enjoyment of muddy conditions, you know, slattering yourself with mud.

924
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:10,279
Speaker 1: So you know, being covered in mud and trapped in

925
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 1: mud is not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly, you know,

926
00:52:14,080 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 1: in if you're also engaging in a bloody battle, I

927
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: don't think anyone's going to be a fan. All Right,

928
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 1: we're looking at the clock here and we realize we

929
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: have to end Mud Part four, despite the fact that

930
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: we did want to get in a little bit at

931
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:32,880
Speaker 1: least into the discussion of mud and religion. One of

932
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: one of the most obvious aspects of this being that

933
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: so many religions, especially ancient religions and mythologies, involves some

934
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 1: idea of humans being made for mud or clay or dirt,

935
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:52,359
Speaker 1: but particularly clay and mud, you know, very much leaning

936
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:55,359
Speaker 1: into the idea of a creator deity or deities as

937
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:59,720
Speaker 1: being potters are that are molding us and perhaps baking

938
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 1: us in making us what we are. But then we

939
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:05,879
Speaker 1: also had some other stuff to say about that, so well,

940
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll have to come back to this

941
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:09,759
Speaker 1: in some form. I'm not saying we're gonna come back

942
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:11,880
Speaker 1: and do Mud Part five, because we already said we

943
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that, but we did leave the door open

944
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:21,359
Speaker 1: for various mud creatures to slather in. So yeah, we'll

945
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:24,319
Speaker 1: discuss it off Mike and come back. All right, Well,

946
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 1: we're going to go and close it up, but we'd

947
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:27,600
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone out there if you have

948
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:31,360
Speaker 1: thoughts on just mud in general, experience with mud, experiences

949
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 1: with muddy conditions, mud, in military science fiction mud, and

950
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 1: in military history. All of it is fair game right in.

951
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:42,359
Speaker 1: We would love to hear from your reminder that are

952
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:44,600
Speaker 1: core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind here on

953
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:46,640
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Stuff to Blow your Mind

954
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:50,919
Speaker 1: podcast feed. We have listener mail episodes on Monday, short

955
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 1: form artifact or monster Fact on Wednesday, and on Fridays.

956
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:55,640
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957
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:57,799
Speaker 1: a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

958
00:53:58,040 --> 00:54:01,320
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio pre ser jj Posway.

959
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:03,080
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960
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

961
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:08,120
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962
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

963
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:19,080
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964
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:22,120
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965
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:24,959
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00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:41,680
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