WEBVTT - From the Vault: Mud, Part 4 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:09.000 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:11.520 is Robert Lamb and it's Saturday. So we have another 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:13.800 vault episode for you. This is going to be Part four, 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.400 the final episode in our series from last year on Mud. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:21.239 This one originally published seven eighteen, twenty twenty three. We 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.319 hope you've enjoyed these episodes, either enjoyed them originally or 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.880 enjoying them in in vault format here, so let's go 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:35.240 ahead and sync once more into the world of Mud. 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.320 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.360 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:48.040 is Robert. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.680 Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.560 Part four. And I would say probably it's got to 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:56.360 be the final part right now, at least the final 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.520 part for now of our series on Mud. So in 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.280 previous episodes in the series, which if you haven't listened 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:05.080 to them, you should go back and check those out first. 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.639 But we talked about the history of mud on Earth. 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.240 It's a more surprising and dynamic story than you might imagine. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.040 That was in part one. We talked a bit about 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.319 what defines mud. You know, it tends to be of course, 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.200 wet soil of a smaller particle size that gives it 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:26.480 that sticky consistency. We talked in part two about animal 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:32.040 behavior and mud, such as pig wallowing, Arnold Schwarzenegger wallowing mud, 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.959 what do they call it, mud skippers, the fish that 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.560 have these interesting mud habitat behaviors, and other things like that. 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.560 In the episode just before this one, we talked a 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.119 lot about mud bricks, the history of mud in human construction, 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.360 and today we're back to sort of round things out 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.360 with a grab bag of different little topics that didn't 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:53.360 make it anywhere else. 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.800 That's right. Yeah, I think this will be the capstone 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.120 for this series, but mud does open up the possibility 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.680 for some standalone episodes later on. I think there's a 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.160 It ends up touching on so many different aspects of 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:14.720 the world and our habitats and also human creation. So 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:16.919 who knows, there may be more mud in the future, 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:18.640 but this is going to be like the This is 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.560 the bedrock mud. This is the initial foundation of mud 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.519 bricks upon on which we might build future episodes. 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.760 That's right, that's right. So to kick things off today, 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.360 I wanted to start by thinking about a principle that 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.320 maybe should be used in the natural sciences. We'll see, 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.000 and it's basically the heavy metal principle of nature, which 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:42.400 states that for every phenomenon in nature, there's a good 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.720 chance there is a heavy metal version of that phenomenon. 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.200 If you start with the kind of like an easy 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.720 listening or jazz or country of your classic mud puddle, 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.520 the heavy metal version, I think is the mud pot. 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.440 So you think of a normal mud puddle, there usually 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.840 a depression in the ground where surface water collects after 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.200 rain soaks through the soil, especially if the soil particle 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.959 particles are small, creates an area of plastic or even 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.280 fully liquid mud, and if water stops flowing into the 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.760 puddle from above, it can dry up. But now imagine 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.600 a mud puddle with a thick liquid consistency, sort of 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:26.400 like paint, but boiling bubbling like a big pot of stew, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.080 forming opaque bubbles of gas that the gas is clearly 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.400 trapped in those clay particles rising up from below, and 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.960 you can see them form into spheres on the surface 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.520 sometimes and they'll stay there for a moment before they 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.960 finally burst and, depending on the consistency of the mud, 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.480 might splatter all over the place when they do burst, 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.320 maybe even throwing clumps of mud up into the air 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:53.280 such that it piles around this puddle of mud, forming mounds, 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.560 or even a cone that the mud puddle rises from, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.560 or a weird kind of collar of mud splatter all around. 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.680 This is a mud pot, and it's also it could 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.720 develop into one example of a term. There's a term 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.680 called mud volcano that actually seems to be used to 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.440 refer to a multiple very different things. But one thing 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:16.760 that gets called a mud volcano is the kind of 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.640 mound that can build up from the life cycle of 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.159 a mud pot. 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.920 Quick Weird House cinema trivia here for you, Joe, Can 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.000 you name two movies that we've covered that feature boiling 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.600 mud or the appearance of boiling mud, no matter how 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.040 they actually created it via actual footage or some other 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:36.000 kind of technique. 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:39.520 Oh wow, you are really stumping me. I seem to 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.599 recall there's some boiling mud in Legend. Isn't that where 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.039 meg Mucklebones lives? But I don't think we actually watched 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:47.200 Legend for Weird House. 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.800 Did we? No? No, not as of this recording. 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.520 Oh wait a minute, did we do Labyrinth? No, we 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.640 didn't do Labyrinth. But Labyrinth has boiling mud, doesn't it. 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.599 Uh yeah, or something that looks like it. No, the 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.960 two movies that I believe we've watched that have boiling 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.760 mud or the effect of boiling mud, Planet of the 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.719 Vampires and nineteen seventy eight's Beauty and the Beast. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.360 You're exactly right, Both of those just escaped my memory. 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.320 But yeah, two masterpieces in their own right. 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:17.600 Came into my head as you were describing it because 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.920 it is a very like otherworldly feeling thing. Though even 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.760 though it is very much all of this world, it 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:28.440 kind of lends itself to alien environments or environments like 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.120 in Beauty and the Beast, which are supposed to be 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.320 kind of like on the edge of the civilized world, 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.960 sort of bordering on the supernatural. Yeah. 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.920 Yeah, in The Beauty and the Beast, there's like boiling mud, 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.520 or at least bubbling mud even within the grounds of 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.760 the castle, I think, isn't there. I think, so, yeah, 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.680 there's like a courtyard that has mud pots within it, 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.400 and that seems, yeah, at the edge of fantasy. But 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.560 to look at a mudpot and understand what's going on here, 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:55.919 I think we should start with the concept of a 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:01.160 hot spring. So hot springs form when water heated by 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.719 geothermal energy deep underground rises to the surface and forms 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.920 a pool, or when water that collects at the surface 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:12.240 due to regular runoff and surface features is heated by 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.839 steam more heat from below, and this surface water can 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:21.160 be anywhere between you know, pleasantly warm bathtub temperature and 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.040 lethal boiling. So you do not ever want to jump 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.359 into a hot spring unless it's one that is like 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.160 very well known in advance to be a consistent safe temperature. 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.800 If in doubt, stay away. I've read something like twenty 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.560 people are known to have died from jumping into or 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.560 falling into hot springs at Yellowstone National Park in the 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:44.039 United States alone. 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.400 Yeah, I remember reading about some of this when we 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:51.440 were doing some episodes on springs and holy waters associated 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:52.040 with springs. 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.480 Yeah, and sometimes it can be deceiving, like there are 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.320 tragic cases of people just trying to like get close 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.839 to see what the temperature is like and then falling 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.360 in and dying. There was a case like this I 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.760 was reading about from the year twenty sixteen where let's 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:10.760 see well, so I was reading an article about it 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:15.040 from the local news station KULR eight in Billings. I 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:20.720 guess Billings, Montana near Yellowstone, And so the headline was 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.920 man killed in Yellowstone hot spring allegedly trying to quote 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.720 hot pot. I guess hot potting is like, you know, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:29.960 jumping into a hot spring to hang out in it. 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.840 But to read from the article, it says the man 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.640 who died in a Yellowstone hot spring last summer was 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.840 apparently looking for a place to hot pot in the park. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.560 Yellowstone officials recently released the final report on the incident 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.000 following a Freedom of Information Act request. The victim's sister 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.600 recorded the incident on her cell phone. The accident happened 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.200 in Norris Geyser Basin on the afternoon of June seventh. 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.000 Deputy Chief Ranger Laurent Veress says, it is a very 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.600 dangerous area with boiling acidic waters. So the article tells 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.520 the story of how the man and his sister went 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.600 off the approved path and they were checking out a 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:10.560 different like hot springs or maybe more mudpot type areas 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.760 to see what the temperature was, and unfortunately, the man, 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.480 while trying to get close to check the temperature, slipped 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.360 and fell in. And the article says, quote search and 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.400 Rescue rangers who arrived later did find the victim's body 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.920 in the pool, along with his wallet and flip flops, 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.720 but a lightning storm stopped the recovery efforts. The next day, 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.280 workers could not find any remains. Veras says the water 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.800 was churning and acidic. He remarked, quote in a very 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:42.400 short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving. So 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:47.880 the apparently boiling and acidic conditions in the water essentially 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.480 disintegrated the victim's remains. 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.280 Oh wow, So it is no joke. 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:56.400 Do not mess around with like, oh, maybe I'll go 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:58.319 check out this hot spring and see if I should 0:08:58.320 --> 0:08:58.640 get in. 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.440 Yeah, listen to your park obey signage. 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.520 But so, okay, So that's hot springs, water that pools 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.440 on the surface that is either connected to a hydrothermal 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.000 system that heats it or is heated by heat coming 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:15.880 off of a hydrothermal system below in the ground. So 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.160 also in this family of surface outlets for geothermal energy 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.800 are fumaroles, which are holes in the earth where steam 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:26.160 rising from geothermally heated water escapes. A mud pot is 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.880 in a way still a type of mud puddle. Mudpots 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:34.640 are pools where water collects and mixes with clay particles, 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.880 forming a thick liquid mud, usually gray or cream colored, 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.240 sometimes black, but there are other colors possible too. This 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.360 mud puddle is heated by geothermal activity from below, or 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.720 at least is permeated by gas that's released from below, 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.880 and mudpots often release hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.480 rotten eggs. And while people who see these things often 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.800 describe them as marvelous, one of the most amazing things 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.560 they've seen in nature, if not exactly beautiful, an element 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.680 of the mudpott encounter described at least as often is 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.160 the dank, putrid smell, which is in the air before 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.520 you can even see the thing. You might maybe you 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.559 hear it, but you smell it now. An interesting thing 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.040 is I wonder if this reflects a development in the 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.560 understanding of mudpots. But I've read different accounts of the 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.199 most common ways that mudpots are formed, so I want 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.120 to start with an older account from a reputable source, 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:34.280 but an older one then. This is from a textbook 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.280 from the nineteen twenties by the American geologist Lewis V. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:42.000 Pearson that essentially describes a mudpot as like a hot 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.720 spring but with limited water supply, and Pearson says it 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:50.160 goes like this. If there is basically a net positive 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:54.200 flow of water into a hot spring, meaning that more 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.800 water is flowing into the hot spring, either from below 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.360 or from above, or the combination of both, than the 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.800 rate of evaporation of that water, this will lead to 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.280 overflow from the spring, and you know, the water will 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.600 overflow the basin of the pool and drain away. And 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:10.800 in fact, if you look up pictures of hot springs, 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:15.319 you can often see rocks nearby stained where the runoff 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.800 from the spring is going. It'll maybe carry a colorful 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.800 extremophile microbes with it, so you'll see almost kind of 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.480 like a little red river running off the side of it. 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.439 And so in these cases, if the flow of water 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:31.280 into the pool is positive, the water stays relatively clear, 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.520 relatively limpid, in Pearson's words, often a deep blue or 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.280 green color, though it can appear different colors like red 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.880 or yellow, again due to extremophiles present. 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:41.440 Now. 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.160 Of course, presumably if the net flow of water into 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.600 the pool is strongly negative, the pool will just dry up. 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.600 But Pearson says if the rate of evaporation is roughly 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.400 equal to the rate of inflow of water into the pool. 0:11:55.760 --> 0:12:00.079 The hot spring neither dries up nor overflows. Then the 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:04.200 acidic water sitting in the pool dissolves the surrounding rock 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:08.400 into clay, which then mixes with the water and forms mud, 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.120 and you are left with a pool of hot, bubbling mud, 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.960 which is sometimes described as boiling because of the way 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.600 that it bubbles. It certainly can look like it is boiling, 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:23.199 but technically, I've read that these mudpots have variable temperature. 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.840 They are sometimes less hot than the boiling point of water, which, 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.760 of course one atmosphere of pressure is one hundred degree 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.640 c or two twelve fahrenheit. In some cases the mud 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:35.760 pot is actually much cooler than that, but the mud 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.080 is still bubbling because of hot gases from below, so 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.079 hot gases in the earth are still rising up through it. 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.280 In that case, it's not actually the mud boiling, it's 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.520 just it's being permeated by gas that's trying to rise. 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.960 Pearson says that the mud in these pots can be 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.360 different colors. It can be white, yellow, red, purple, or black. 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.560 This is often due to the presence of oxides of 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.800 iron or manganese. I think manganese oxides tend to be 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.920 more black. Of course, iron oxide tends to be more red. 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.760 And for this reason of all these different colors, these 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.800 mudpots are sometimes called paint pots. They can look like 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:17.360 a bubbling pool of paint of different colors mixed together. Now, 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:21.400 Pearson says that as more clay is dissolved into the water, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.240 the mud becomes thicker. Of course, so you're getting more 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.640 soil to the same roughly the same amount of water. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.839 So as you mix in more sediment, it becomes a 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:35.360 thicker consistency, and this makes the ebullition, meaning the bubbling, 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:40.000 less regular. So imagine the way that, like a soup 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.320 in a pot on the stove, as it becomes thicker, 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:48.120 the bubbling becomes less regular and more kind of random 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.680 and chaotic and violent rob it. Do you know what 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.200 I'm talking about From cooking experiences. 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.040 Yes, yeah, it can kind of even like shake the 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:57.560 pot a little bit, right, yeah. 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.160 Yeah, So this is my experience in the kitchen. Like 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.040 you boil something with basically a watery consistency or broth 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:09.120 like consistency, the bubbles will be pretty even. There'll be 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.360 a steady rate, you know, they'll pop evenly as long 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:14.640 as the heat is consistently applied. But if you were 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.960 talking about like a very thick stew, you can sometimes 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:22.040 get much less predictable and more explosive bubbles. So it 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:23.720 might not bubble at all for a bit, and then 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.400 suddenly a huge bubble pops and it splatters all over 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:27.120 the stovetop. 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.800 Yeah, yeah, I was cooking one of these just last night. 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.360 Well, apparently a similar thing that happens as the mud 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.840 in a mud pot thickens. With thick mud, steam builds 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.680 up higher pressure before rising to the top and popping, 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.360 which means it can happen, in Pearson's words quote spasmodically 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.280 and with some violence, the mud being thrown into the 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.000 air and about the vent where it collects inconsiderable masses. 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.720 And this is one version of the concept of the 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.640 mud volcano. Because the mud pot that bubbles this way 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.400 and kind of builds up mud around it, it can 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:05.160 form a cone that looks like a volcano mountain, it 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.600 looks like a cone volcano, or it can kind of 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.640 form a caldera around itself made out of ejected mud. Now, 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.880 often this mud erodes very easily, so this building process 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:20.320 can be kind of cyclical. But yeah, it can build 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.200 up a little sort of mini volcano made out of 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.480 mud and just kind of keep popping and spewing onto itself. 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.880 Pearson says that this usually marks the end of the 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.720 period of activity for a hot spring, sort of as 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.240 the activity of a hot spring is dying away, it's 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:37.400 more likely to go through a mud pot and a 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:40.960 volcano period. Now, I mentioned I came across some different 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.400 accounts of what is exactly going on in a mud pot. 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.080 That was the older account. A lot of the more 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:52.040 recent sources I was looking at describe the source of 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:56.320 the water going into the mud pot as placing more 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.120 emphasis on that being surface water. So, for example, the 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.880 National Parks has some materials about what's going on with 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:07.120 the mudpots at Yellowstone, and these sources claim that it 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.720 essentially acts more like a double boiler. So, again with 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.360 kitchen analogies, I guess that's where we have a lot 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:17.920 of our experience with boiling liquids a double boiler. If 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.120 you never used this, rob it's like you put like 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.720 a glass bowl on top of a pot that has 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.520 a little bit of water boiling in it, and the 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.800 steam from the boiling water rises and it gently heats 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.360 the bowl from below, as opposed to just you know, 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:35.480 putting whatever you have in the bowl in the pot 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.560 directly and having hot metal applied to it. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.640 I don't think i've ever done this myself. Interesting. 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.120 Sometimes it's used usually when you need to heat something 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.360 very gently, like if you're trying to heat something that 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.800 could easily overheat and would be ruined by doing so, 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.600 like if you are making It's used sometimes in baking 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.520 when you need to melt chocolate to a particular temperature 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.720 to get the indconsistency want, or if you're making like 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.720 a hollandaise sauce because you know, you heat a hollandaise 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:06.679 sauce too much, and you know, with scrambled eggs. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:08.800 Okay, all right, But so. 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.960 Anyway, it's just like letting the steam from below do 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.160 the heating of the food, as opposed to letting applying 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.280 direct heat from the heating element through the metal to 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.520 the food. And the source from the National Park Service 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.399 claims that in the case of these mudpots, what's usually 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.159 happening is that water from the surface collects in a 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.760 basin or a depression that is not actually connected to 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.040 the water flow from from the hydrothermal systems in the 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.200 ground instead. The bottom of the basin or the depression 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:43.520 is usually considered impermeable because of lining with fine particles 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:45.919 of clay, So that's sort of your bowl. The bottom 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.840 of the double boiler and the hydrothermal system below releases 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.760 steam and usually some hydrogen sulfide gas, which rises through 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.360 the bottom layers of clay and causes the mud puddle 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.639 to both heat up and bubble as the gas rises 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:05.560 to the top. Then you have again extremophile organisms microorganisms 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.600 in these pools that can use the hydrogen sulfide gas 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.919 to make energy, and in the process they create sulfuric acid, 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.560 which turns the mud pool extremely acidic, and then it 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:21.040 helps dissolve more rock in the surrounding basin and turns 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.199 that into clay, and so the mud just like you know, 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.679 you get continuous supply of new clay particles from that dissolution, 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.960 and it gets thicker and thicker. And this source also 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.240 says that mud pots can be affected by the season, 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.640 so like rain and melting snow can make the mud 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.640 and the pots cooler and thinner, and then hot, dry 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:40.679 weather in the summer it can cause them to thicken 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.040 or even dry up completely, which means that these are 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:47.960 ultimately somewhat transient and dynamic features. Like a mud pot 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.040 or a mud volcano of this variety might only be 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.240 active for a few months. It can also be active 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.040 much much longer, but it might just be a very brief, 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.119 shortly lived thing before maybe it just transforms into a 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.439 kind of fixed fume role where steam is coming out 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:12.639 of a hole in the ground. Now, there is another 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.640 use of the term mud volcano that can refer to 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.359 a different geological process that can in some cases be 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:24.520 extremely explosive and large in scale and violent. I was 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.200 reading about this in an article from December twenty twenty 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.600 by a ut Austin geologist named Michael R. Hudik that 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:36.400 is describing like it's it's a particular example of a 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.080 mud volcano that occurred in Indonesia in two thousand and 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:44.840 six in the Siduarjo regency that is known sometimes as 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.880 the Lumpur Siduarju. Lumpur is the word for mud And 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.520 there was this massive sudden eruption. There was like steam 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.720 releasing from a vent in the ground and rumbling, and 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.680 then it started just exploding with these huge amounts of 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:04.200 mud that ended completely engulfing villages in the surrounding area. 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.280 It was like many acres and people had to be 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.480 evacuated in order to get out of harm's way. These 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.639 villages were completely swallowed up in mud. They were like 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.520 these farming villages in the area. And so this is 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.280 not like a little mound of mud ejected by a puddle. 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.760 This was like a landscape destroying, violent ejection of mud. 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.560 And it seems like in many of these cases where 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:33.640 there is this large explosive kind of mud eruption, one 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.439 thing that might be going on is the interaction with 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.920 hydrocarbon gases, so for example, methane, and of course methane 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:45.120 being very flammable, can make these eruptions actually flaming eruptions, 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.040 where like when the hot methane comes into the atmosphere, 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.880 it can ignite. The cause of this particular mud volcano 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.320 eruption in two thousand and six is apparently controversial. It 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.600 seems like a lot of people have attributed it to 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.400 drilling of an app gas well in the area by 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:04.919 an oil and gas company. Of course, the oil and 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.080 gas company claims, no, it wasn't us. It was a 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.480 naturally occurring event. But it did seem to be significant 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:15.040 hydrocarbon gas involved in this kind of eruption. And this 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.159 kind of thing is scary because it's hard to imagine. 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:19.320 I mean, I guess we are familiar with the concept 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:23.080 of like an igneous volcanic eruption, you know, where it's 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.199 like a rock volcano erupting and it's releasing all of 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:30.600 this gas and rock and molten rock and pyroclastic flow 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.400 and all these things. And so I guess we are 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:38.080 already familiar with the concept of large destructive volcanoes. But 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.720 the idea that it could just like flood a landscape 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:46.600 with mud is another stranger and differently frightening version of 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:47.960 that kind of image. 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.840 Yeah. I mean, it's one thing to have vast quantities 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.840 of mud where you know, mud will be seasonally otherwise. 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.160 It's another thing for mud to just suddenly appear where 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:00.080 it's not expected. And this seems to be like one 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.679 of the more exaggerated cases of it, you know, whereas 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:05.680 the vast quantities of mud just emerging and taking over 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:09.639 people's homes and so forth. Now, on the subject of 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.560 mud volcanoes, I have also been reading a little bit 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.560 about this idea of mud volcanoes on Mars. I don't 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.280 know if you came across any of this. I was 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:23.280 looking at a paper from twenty twenty quoting Peter Burroughs, 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:27.640 a professor of geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:33.800 and basically he proposed that mud from mud volcanoes may 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.159 have flowed in Mars past, and therefore some of the 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.480 things we see in visuals from Mars that looks like 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.960 it could be the result of lava flows could perhaps 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:47.800 be the result of mud flows in the past. So 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:50.760 he and his team conducted experiments to see how this 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:53.480 would work, and found that while the mud eventually would 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:57.439 freeze under those Chili Martian conditions, there would be a 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.680 little time for it to flow, freezing and crusting over 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:03.960 at the surface, initially enabling it to move a bit 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:08.240 before the freeze firmly took hold. Because I guess that, 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.359 you know, it's one of the things about thinking about 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:13.720 mud elsewhere in the universe. We have plenty of sci 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:17.920 fi visions of muddy planets, but for mud to be there, 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:22.520 you need some sort of moisture to be there as well. Yeah, 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:25.160 but we do I think love the idea of mud planets. 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:27.680 You know, take any especially any kind of like exotic 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:33.439 terrestrial environment, and somebody somewhere has turned a whole planet 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:35.359 into that. You know, So you have jungle planets, you 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:39.000 have desert planets like Oracus. If you look at Star Wars, 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:42.760 you have planets like dagobas just a swamp world. Not 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:44.119 only does it have a lot of mud, like the 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:46.880 mud and the muck will just swallow up whole spaceships. 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:50.160 That's true, though, you know, it's interesting they never say 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.080 in the Star Wars movies that the entire planet Dagoba 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:55.639 is a swamp, but you just assume that's the case. 0:23:56.280 --> 0:24:00.479 Yeah. I think I've seen some maps and these are 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:02.800 you know, like you know, artistic interpretations that kind of 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:04.440 run with that, and it's like, oh, yeah, the whole 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.720 planet just swamp. And that raises a lot of questions 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:10.480 like what how would that work? That would the entire 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:12.679 planet be a swamp? Does that mean it doesn't have oceans? 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:16.800 It just has swamp. I don't know. I should look 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:18.800 into this and say, I'm sure some people have written 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:20.199 some papers about this sort of thing. 0:24:20.840 --> 0:24:23.240 Yeah, I wonder if like, could you have a swamp 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:26.480 if you didn't have other types of regions to support 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:29.800 the like the geological and atmospheric conditions that would create 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:30.959 a swamp. Yeah. 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:33.399 Now I'll come back to Star Wars in just a second, 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:35.159 but I want to hit another couple of sort of 0:24:35.200 --> 0:24:42.880 cosmic mud examples. One concerns SMAP SMAP, which is also 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:46.120 a Japanese boy band. Apparently this this became obvious when 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:48.960 I was researching this, but in this case it stands 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:55.879 for Soil Moisture Active Passive. That's NASA's environmental monitoring satellite, 0:24:56.160 --> 0:24:59.280 launched in twenty fifteen and still active as of this recording. 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:01.240 I think it's supposed to be active through at least 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:04.119 the end of twenty twenty three. But it can measure 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:07.880 land surface soil moisture up to a certain depth. So 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:11.919 it's an eye in the sky essentially on mud. And 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:14.439 the data that it collects is useful because it spills 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:17.800 over into better understandings of the carbon cycle, weather and 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.199 climate models, drought monitoring, and so much more. But of 0:25:22.200 --> 0:25:25.159 course that's concerning Earth. We know there's mud on Earth. 0:25:26.080 --> 0:25:28.240 This is another idea I ran across this, the idea 0:25:28.240 --> 0:25:32.240 that you, at one point anyway had just cosmic mud 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:33.919 balls flying around through space. 0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:40.360 Okay, so if you imagine like a comet as a 0:25:40.600 --> 0:25:45.399 formation of ice and dust that's flying around in space, 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:48.280 of course all the ice is frozen, like what if 0:25:48.280 --> 0:25:49.479 a comet was wet? 0:25:49.960 --> 0:25:53.720 Yeah. I actually found some discussion of this in a 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:57.520 twenty seventeen article for New Scientists by Sam Wong. In 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:01.719 this it doesn't conserve comets, but it concerns asteroids, particularly 0:26:02.240 --> 0:26:07.080 early asteroids or carbonaceous asteroids, that may have delivered water 0:26:07.200 --> 0:26:11.320 and organic molecules to Earth, and apparently it can be 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:15.679 helpful to model them as just big old mudboss. So 0:26:15.760 --> 0:26:20.000 the idea here is that ice, dust, and chondrules come 0:26:20.040 --> 0:26:24.040 together and the pressure has not yet compacted it all 0:26:24.080 --> 0:26:27.639 into rock right away. It will in time, but at 0:26:27.640 --> 0:26:30.440 this point early on, it hasn't all been compacted into rock, 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:34.240 and the ice will end up melting due to decaying 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:37.879 radioactive atoms in the dust and gas, resulting in a 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:42.560 quote unquote schuldgi mud and this would eventually become rock again, 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:46.480 but for a time they would be muddy asteroids. According 0:26:46.560 --> 0:26:51.000 to the modeling by Philip Bland at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, 0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:54.520 and his collaborator, Brian Travis at the Planetary Science Institute 0:26:54.560 --> 0:26:55.600 in Tucson, Arizona. 0:26:56.200 --> 0:27:00.119 That is interesting. Okay, so they've got a pretty strong 0:27:00.160 --> 0:27:03.320 internal heat source because they've got all these young radioactive 0:27:03.359 --> 0:27:06.240 atoms in them that are still decaying at a pretty 0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:12.000 rapid rate. So they're keeping the ice content like melted 0:27:12.040 --> 0:27:14.000 and moist. And then of course they've got all like 0:27:14.040 --> 0:27:18.040 the dust and rock soil content in them. And yeah, wow, 0:27:18.119 --> 0:27:20.439 there's like big balls of mud flying through space. 0:27:20.920 --> 0:27:23.800 Yeah. Yeah, so I before I ran across this, I 0:27:23.800 --> 0:27:25.800 didn't even think this was possible. You know, you think 0:27:25.840 --> 0:27:29.000 of mud as being something you're going to encounter, particularly 0:27:29.000 --> 0:27:32.280 on an earth like world. Now, coming back to Earth 0:27:32.440 --> 0:27:35.479 like worlds and mud. Another Star Wars planet of note, 0:27:36.440 --> 0:27:39.200 especially if you've seen the movie Solo, which came out 0:27:39.200 --> 0:27:44.080 several years back. There's a planet called Mimbon, and in 0:27:44.119 --> 0:27:47.720 that movie we see Imperial mud troopers or swamp troopers 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:51.520 as they're sometimes called, engaged in some sort of drawn 0:27:51.560 --> 0:27:54.320 out battle on this world. And Joe, in case you 0:27:54.359 --> 0:27:56.520 haven't seen this, I included an image here of what 0:27:56.600 --> 0:28:00.119 mud troopers look like as compared to just normal Imperial. 0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:02.879 Storm troopers looks like a dirty job, looks like they 0:28:03.760 --> 0:28:06.480 this may be like the last thing that, like all 0:28:06.520 --> 0:28:09.000 the other troopers try to sign up for different detail 0:28:09.600 --> 0:28:12.560 and you know, the last picks for all the other ones, 0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:14.679 like Nope, you cannot go to Hawth and be a 0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:16.800 snow trooper. You got to be a mud trooper. 0:28:17.400 --> 0:28:19.360 Yeah, so, and I think that's the way it's presented 0:28:19.400 --> 0:28:21.680 in the movie too, like Han Solo, a young Han 0:28:21.720 --> 0:28:24.879 Solo is a mud trooper on this awful world. Then 0:28:24.920 --> 0:28:27.639 of course they're also drawing in a lot of comparisons 0:28:27.680 --> 0:28:31.640 to trench warfare and war's past and so forth, which 0:28:31.680 --> 0:28:34.360 well we'll get back to in a bit. But one 0:28:34.400 --> 0:28:36.040 of the interesting things, of course, this is kind of 0:28:36.080 --> 0:28:38.440 across the board when you look at sci fi. Sci 0:28:38.520 --> 0:28:42.000 fi often is looking backwards and taking things from the 0:28:42.040 --> 0:28:45.560 past and putting this futuristic spin on them. Because I 0:28:45.640 --> 0:28:47.480 don't recall, and I could be wrong, it's been a 0:28:47.480 --> 0:28:49.920 while since I've seen Solo, but I don't think the 0:28:49.960 --> 0:28:53.320 Imperial mud Troopers leveraged any kind of sci fi technology 0:28:53.360 --> 0:28:55.680 to deal with the mud. It seems like they would 0:28:55.720 --> 0:28:58.440 have leaned heavily on repulsor technology to kind of float 0:28:58.440 --> 0:29:01.760 above it, or to use some sort of technology to 0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:06.560 either rapidly dry out muddy conditions or to like flash 0:29:06.600 --> 0:29:09.080 freeze them so that you wouldn't have to get slogged 0:29:09.080 --> 0:29:11.560 down in them. It seems like that would be something 0:29:11.600 --> 0:29:15.120 to try if the imperial budget allowed for it. I 0:29:15.120 --> 0:29:18.080 guess they spent that all on big walking machines that 0:29:18.120 --> 0:29:21.200 are gonna, I guess, in theory, not get bogged down 0:29:21.200 --> 0:29:24.400 in the mud. Off the top of my head, I 0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:27.720 don't think I can even think of another sci fi 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:30.680 vision where there's any kind of like sci fi treatment 0:29:30.720 --> 0:29:33.080 of mud like this. I could be wrong, because I'm not. 0:29:33.120 --> 0:29:35.600 I mean, there's a lot of military sci fi out there, 0:29:36.840 --> 0:29:39.880 so someone might have looked at it. I do remember 0:29:39.880 --> 0:29:43.280 a gadget in John Steekley's Armor that is like a 0:29:43.440 --> 0:29:47.320 people in power armor versus insect aliens on a desert 0:29:47.400 --> 0:29:50.760 world that involves sand clotters and a machine that would 0:29:50.840 --> 0:29:54.640 turn the sand of the desert into solid walls of fortification. 0:29:55.080 --> 0:29:57.360 So I imagine you'd want something like that, something that, 0:29:57.720 --> 0:30:00.959 through sci fi shenanigans, can instantly eye out an area 0:30:01.440 --> 0:30:05.640 or make it solid as opposed to shifting sand or 0:30:05.680 --> 0:30:07.760 in this case like mud that's going to cling to 0:30:07.800 --> 0:30:10.560 you and suck you down into the muck. 0:30:11.440 --> 0:30:13.200 I don't know if sand is the best choice for that. 0:30:13.240 --> 0:30:15.760 Wouldn't it be better to use a cohesive soil with 0:30:15.800 --> 0:30:17.720 smaller particles like clay or silt. 0:30:18.360 --> 0:30:20.960 Yeah? Yeah, So I don't know any of you out 0:30:20.960 --> 0:30:23.520 there who certainly are more red and military sci fi 0:30:23.840 --> 0:30:25.760 than me, there might be an example of this, So 0:30:25.800 --> 0:30:26.840 write in and let us know. 0:30:27.280 --> 0:30:30.080 Now. Of course you keep saying military sci fi in particular, 0:30:30.120 --> 0:30:32.120 and it makes sense why you would do that because 0:30:32.160 --> 0:30:35.680 of the significance of mud in combat and warfare in 0:30:35.760 --> 0:30:36.480 human history. 0:30:36.920 --> 0:30:41.360 That's right, Yeah, you know mud. I was thinking about 0:30:41.360 --> 0:30:44.440 this a lot like mud is not only an environmental 0:30:44.440 --> 0:30:46.520 condition that occurs naturally in the world, but it's often 0:30:46.560 --> 0:30:49.880 this condition that is at an interaction point between the 0:30:49.960 --> 0:30:53.720 natural world and human activity. You would think of muddy roads, right, 0:30:53.800 --> 0:30:57.480 We think of paths that are not well maintained, that 0:30:57.600 --> 0:31:01.760 get really muddy and sloppy in places. And then there 0:31:01.800 --> 0:31:06.120 are several walks that my family does like this in 0:31:06.160 --> 0:31:08.400 the area where you know, we know exactly where that 0:31:08.480 --> 0:31:11.160 muddy stretch is, and there are often a lot of 0:31:11.440 --> 0:31:14.760 slapdash efforts to mitigate it, you know, boards that are 0:31:14.800 --> 0:31:18.960 thrown down the rockport. Yeah, and you know that works 0:31:19.000 --> 0:31:21.680 for a little bit sort of. That also creates additional 0:31:21.720 --> 0:31:24.560 splash hazards and new and exciting ways to slip and 0:31:24.600 --> 0:31:28.680 fall in the mud. But yeah, mud is also a 0:31:28.720 --> 0:31:32.120 big factor in human warfare and has been for a 0:31:32.160 --> 0:31:35.960 long long time. You pointed this out to me, and 0:31:36.000 --> 0:31:39.560 this is something that has been covered in various articles 0:31:39.560 --> 0:31:41.400 over the last couple of years. But there is a 0:31:41.720 --> 0:31:47.000 Russian term putitsa that refers to a season or seasons 0:31:47.040 --> 0:31:50.000 of the year when unpaved roads become treacherous due to 0:31:50.040 --> 0:31:53.440 the mud created by rain and or melting snow on 0:31:53.560 --> 0:31:56.960 said roads. It's had a major impact on land wars 0:31:57.000 --> 0:32:01.200 in Russia and Eastern Europe, for ages, impacting the Mongol invasion, 0:32:01.600 --> 0:32:05.719 both World Wars, and also the Russo Ukrainian War that 0:32:05.760 --> 0:32:08.760 as of this recording, is still ongoing. It's been observed 0:32:08.760 --> 0:32:11.880 that among Russia's mistakes during the twenty twenty two invasion 0:32:11.880 --> 0:32:15.840 of Ukraine, they underestimated the muddy road season that was 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:18.720 just kicking off at that time, right. 0:32:18.600 --> 0:32:21.040 So this is sort of one of the factors affecting 0:32:21.200 --> 0:32:25.520 the seasonal planning of offensives in conflict in Eastern Europe. 0:32:26.320 --> 0:32:31.120 Yes. Yeah. And on the other hand, another major area 0:32:31.680 --> 0:32:35.440 for mud and war is the First World War. And 0:32:36.320 --> 0:32:38.640 I mean you can instantly picture this probably if you've 0:32:38.680 --> 0:32:46.240 seen images, footage and fictional recreations of those trench warfare environments. 0:32:46.280 --> 0:32:48.880 What do you think of You think of like blasted landscape, 0:32:48.920 --> 0:32:52.000 You think of mud, You think of these just awful 0:32:52.040 --> 0:32:56.040 conditions where like the natural world is just worn away 0:32:56.440 --> 0:32:59.960 and all that remains is mud and fortifications and explosion 0:33:00.320 --> 0:33:01.240 and death and pain. 0:33:01.800 --> 0:33:05.800 Yeah, like in heavily shelled or trodden over areas where 0:33:05.960 --> 0:33:07.760 it seems like a lot of the plant life has 0:33:07.800 --> 0:33:10.440 been killed and stripped away, and now like the roots 0:33:10.440 --> 0:33:13.400 are it's not really holding the soil together the way 0:33:13.400 --> 0:33:15.040 it was, and now it's just mud. 0:33:15.640 --> 0:33:19.360 Yeah. And if you've ever taken a poetry class, you 0:33:19.760 --> 0:33:21.560 may have run across the fact that, Yeah, there's a 0:33:21.600 --> 0:33:25.800 lot of great but depressing poetry and writings in general 0:33:25.840 --> 0:33:29.320 that came out of this time period, people describing these conditions, 0:33:29.360 --> 0:33:32.040 describing the horrors of war and the horrors of chemical 0:33:32.080 --> 0:33:37.560 warfare and so forth. One of the best literary treatments 0:33:37.640 --> 0:33:40.800 of war and mud, however, just has to be that 0:33:40.880 --> 0:33:45.000 of American British war nurse turned novelist and poet Mary Borden. 0:33:45.640 --> 0:33:49.000 In nineteen seventeen, she wrote a poem called The Song 0:33:49.240 --> 0:33:52.400 of the Mud. You can find this in full on 0:33:52.520 --> 0:33:58.280 Poetry Foundation dot org. But it's really really good. Joe, 0:33:58.320 --> 0:33:59.920 were you familiar with this poem? 0:34:00.440 --> 0:34:01.120 I don't think so. 0:34:01.720 --> 0:34:03.400 Yeah, this one is a new one for me. I 0:34:03.720 --> 0:34:06.400 this is not one that I remember covering in poetry classes. 0:34:06.400 --> 0:34:11.520 But she writes of quote the frothing, squirting, spurting liquid 0:34:11.600 --> 0:34:15.439 mud that gurgles along the road beds unquote, as well 0:34:15.480 --> 0:34:18.799 as quote the thick, elastic mud that is kneaded and 0:34:18.880 --> 0:34:22.640 pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of the horses. Though 0:34:22.680 --> 0:34:26.880 she also juxtaposes this with more natural seeming aspects of mud, 0:34:27.160 --> 0:34:30.439 even like mud as something that can be beautiful. From 0:34:30.480 --> 0:34:33.920 afar m I'm gonna read the final stanza from the poem, 0:34:33.920 --> 0:34:35.799 but again I encourage everyone to go out and read 0:34:35.840 --> 0:34:39.080 it in full. Quote. This is the song of the mud, 0:34:39.560 --> 0:34:43.360 The beautiful, glistening, golden mud that covers the hills like satin, 0:34:43.880 --> 0:34:48.400 the mysterious, gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel 0:34:48.520 --> 0:34:52.880 over the valleys. Mud, the disguise of the war zone. Mud, 0:34:53.040 --> 0:34:56.759 the mantle of battles, mud, the smooth, fluid grave of 0:34:56.800 --> 0:34:59.680 our soldiers. This is the song of the mud. 0:35:00.200 --> 0:35:04.560 Well, that's interesting, and I don't know the connotations of 0:35:04.640 --> 0:35:07.400 mud is used, and that stands at least are more 0:35:08.200 --> 0:35:10.320 I don't know, more positive than I would have expected. 0:35:10.960 --> 0:35:13.600 Yeah, I mean there's a lot of dark imagery in 0:35:13.640 --> 0:35:16.520 there about it, like swallowing up guns and taking people 0:35:16.560 --> 0:35:20.480 down into like not only like the physical power of 0:35:20.520 --> 0:35:23.520 the mud, but also like the emotional toll of the mud, 0:35:23.880 --> 0:35:25.680 which I'll come back to you in a bit as well. 0:35:26.440 --> 0:35:29.640 When I was thinking of World War One poetry and 0:35:29.680 --> 0:35:32.279 the concept of mud, I thought of the one of 0:35:32.280 --> 0:35:34.160 the poems of Wilfrid Owen. I just had to look 0:35:34.200 --> 0:35:36.719 it up because I didn't remember the name, but it's 0:35:36.760 --> 0:35:40.560 the apology of pro poemate Mayo, which I think means 0:35:41.160 --> 0:35:44.520 defense of my poetry. And this is by Wilfrid Owen, 0:35:44.520 --> 0:35:47.520 who was a British poet who fought in World War One. 0:35:47.880 --> 0:35:50.440 Wrote a lot of poetry associated with the war, like 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:53.200 anthem for Doomed Youth, you might have read. But the 0:35:53.239 --> 0:35:56.600 opening stands of this poem was, I too saw God 0:35:56.680 --> 0:35:59.880 through mud, the mud that cracked on cheeks when wretch's 0:36:00.120 --> 0:36:03.680 mild war brought more glory to their eyes than blood, 0:36:04.000 --> 0:36:06.840 and gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child. 0:36:07.400 --> 0:36:10.480 Oh wow, Yeah, I don't remember that that bit, but 0:36:10.520 --> 0:36:13.120 I remember Owen. He's definitely one of the names that 0:36:13.200 --> 0:36:17.640 comes up when a poetry class steers sharply into the trenches. 0:36:18.080 --> 0:36:18.840 Yeah. 0:36:18.920 --> 0:36:22.120 Now, a book that I mentioned earlier in this series, Mud, 0:36:22.160 --> 0:36:26.320 a Military History by ce Wood, is a full book 0:36:26.360 --> 0:36:28.400 dealing with mud in war. And so if you if 0:36:28.440 --> 0:36:31.120 you need more of this, I highly recommend you pick 0:36:31.200 --> 0:36:33.560 up that book. It's it's it's very well written, it's 0:36:33.680 --> 0:36:37.560 very you know, it's very absorbable. But in it would 0:36:37.600 --> 0:36:41.120 stresses that while more permanent domains of mud are certainly 0:36:41.120 --> 0:36:44.120 important in warfare, you need to know where the swamps, marshes, 0:36:44.120 --> 0:36:47.759 and bogs are and how to either circumnavigate them or 0:36:47.920 --> 0:36:50.560 utilize them, force the enemy to move through them, that 0:36:50.600 --> 0:36:53.239 sort of thing. But the main area of interest in 0:36:53.280 --> 0:36:57.759 the book is transitional mud, that is the kind that 0:36:57.920 --> 0:37:01.280 arrives and departs without significant warning. 0:37:01.880 --> 0:37:06.239 Okay, so this previously traversible landscape suddenly has mud in 0:37:06.280 --> 0:37:08.480 it that is going to interfere with your progress. 0:37:09.120 --> 0:37:12.839 Yeah, and this becomes key because I mean, this is 0:37:12.840 --> 0:37:16.719 not something you can necessarily plan for, or planning can 0:37:16.760 --> 0:37:19.960 fall short of taking it into account. And it's a 0:37:20.000 --> 0:37:22.080 variety of mud that has played a crucial role in 0:37:22.080 --> 0:37:25.239 the history of armed conflict. One of Wood's main focuses 0:37:25.239 --> 0:37:29.320 in this is how mud hinders forward advancement in warfare, 0:37:29.680 --> 0:37:33.520 so impacting combatants, animals, and machines of war, and of 0:37:33.560 --> 0:37:36.279 course not just war machines and soldiers and tanks and 0:37:36.640 --> 0:37:38.560 horses with knights on them and that sort of thing, 0:37:38.840 --> 0:37:42.279 but of course everything that supports a war effort, that 0:37:42.360 --> 0:37:45.600 supports an army and its advancement, you know, the vehicles 0:37:45.640 --> 0:37:51.279 that are carrying food, any kind of medical support that 0:37:51.360 --> 0:37:53.320 is in tow all of that sort of thing as well. 0:37:53.800 --> 0:37:56.480 So generals have to contend with the impact of permanent mud, 0:37:56.680 --> 0:38:00.160 seasonal mud, random transitional mud, in addition to all the 0:38:00.200 --> 0:38:03.880 other threats and challenges of battle, all the other environmental 0:38:04.400 --> 0:38:07.880 concerns that will come into play, and there are also 0:38:08.200 --> 0:38:12.080 huge human health and mental health challenges with mud that 0:38:12.760 --> 0:38:15.960 the author deals with in greater detail. There's a great 0:38:16.000 --> 0:38:19.080 quote in the book though, about this, attributed to historian 0:38:19.400 --> 0:38:23.640 Martin Gilbert. Quote at night, crouching in a shell hole 0:38:23.920 --> 0:38:27.560 and filling it, the mud watches like an enormous octopus. 0:38:28.120 --> 0:38:32.040 The victim arrives, it throws its poisonous slobber out at him, 0:38:32.320 --> 0:38:36.239 blinds him, closes round him, buries him. For men die 0:38:36.280 --> 0:38:39.440 of mud as they die of bullets. But more horribly, 0:38:39.920 --> 0:38:43.080 mud is where men sink, and what is worse, where 0:38:43.120 --> 0:38:46.680 their souls sink. Hell is not fire, That would not 0:38:46.840 --> 0:38:49.440 be the ultimate in suffering. Hell is mud. 0:38:49.800 --> 0:38:52.520 Wow, Well, there is something I think interesting there in 0:38:52.560 --> 0:38:57.680 that mud in a way militates against people's ability to 0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:01.080 see their own suffering as noble or to see it 0:39:01.120 --> 0:39:04.880 in any grandiose terms. That there's something kind of humbling 0:39:04.960 --> 0:39:09.160 and humiliating about suffering brought on by an environment of mud, 0:39:09.200 --> 0:39:13.560 and thus, like death in mud is an image that 0:39:14.280 --> 0:39:17.200 brings a lot more despair than the idea of a 0:39:17.280 --> 0:39:19.760 sort of like violent death or death in fire. 0:39:20.560 --> 0:39:26.120 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now on thinking about this though, hell 0:39:26.239 --> 0:39:29.960 is mud, that of course made me think of Dante's Inferno, 0:39:30.040 --> 0:39:31.799 and I was like I remember there being some mud 0:39:31.800 --> 0:39:34.960 in Dante's Inferno. Somewhere. You have varied all the different 0:39:35.040 --> 0:39:40.520 circles and bulgas, and in Inferno they have different characteristics, 0:39:40.520 --> 0:39:46.440 different flavors. And indeed there is a circle in Dante's 0:39:46.480 --> 0:39:48.840 Inferno where there is mud. It is the third Circle. 0:39:49.480 --> 0:39:50.880 And I had to I had to look it back 0:39:50.920 --> 0:39:54.840 up again. I was looking in my translation by Durling 0:39:54.880 --> 0:39:59.399 and Martinez, and this is just a couple of lines 0:39:59.440 --> 0:40:01.920 from it. Quote, I am in the third Circle with 0:40:02.000 --> 0:40:05.680 the eternal cursed, cold and heavy rain. Its rule and 0:40:05.800 --> 0:40:11.120 quality never change. Great hailstones, filthy water, and snow poured 0:40:11.160 --> 0:40:16.240 down through the dark air. The earth stinks that received them. 0:40:16.280 --> 0:40:19.400 It's also the realm of Cerberus. But when quote the 0:40:19.440 --> 0:40:22.560 great worm opens his mouth to growl at Dante and Virgil, 0:40:22.880 --> 0:40:27.160 Virgil throws dirt into the monster's three mouths, and the 0:40:27.200 --> 0:40:28.600 monster gobbles it all down. 0:40:28.960 --> 0:40:30.480 M delicious. 0:40:30.840 --> 0:40:35.880 Yeah. Yeah. As Durling and Martinez explained in the notes 0:40:35.960 --> 0:40:40.160 in my translation of Inferno, the mud of food connection 0:40:40.440 --> 0:40:43.480 is key here. Quote. The rain, hail and snow and 0:40:43.560 --> 0:40:46.319 resulting mud are versions of the food and drink to 0:40:46.320 --> 0:40:49.680 which the gluttons were addicted in the last analysis, merely 0:40:49.800 --> 0:40:53.000 visions of the elements earth and water. 0:40:54.080 --> 0:40:58.120 Sort of portraying the like the worthlessness of the pleasures 0:40:58.160 --> 0:41:02.000 of gluttony, that like you just sort of concerning yourself 0:41:02.040 --> 0:41:05.560 with material rubbish rather than having your mind on heavenly things. 0:41:06.200 --> 0:41:09.000 Yeah, and also like the sense that it's all mud anyway, 0:41:09.600 --> 0:41:13.080 or even that it's it's all excrement. There's also a 0:41:13.120 --> 0:41:15.880 lot of dog imagery here. Obviously we have Cerberus with 0:41:15.920 --> 0:41:18.279 the three dog heads, and then we also have pig 0:41:18.320 --> 0:41:21.840 imagery thrown in and also mud excrement comparisons as well. 0:41:22.320 --> 0:41:26.200 Hey, pig imagery bringing us back to pig mud wallowing, 0:41:26.280 --> 0:41:29.880 which actually turns out to be a quite clever adaptation 0:41:29.960 --> 0:41:30.480 of nature. 0:41:31.000 --> 0:41:41.040 Yeah. 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:44.919 Anyway, so brief, brief departure into hell, but coming back 0:41:44.920 --> 0:41:46.799 to the surface world and the hell we make for 0:41:46.840 --> 0:41:51.319 ourselves there. Coming back to war as what explains that 0:41:51.360 --> 0:41:54.919 the mere challenge of moving around and mud can lead 0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:59.200 to exhaustion for the individual soldier, and this exhaustion can 0:41:59.320 --> 0:42:02.280 prove fatal. Can also hold true for pack animals as well. 0:42:02.760 --> 0:42:05.360 So you know, if you're in a very muddy situation 0:42:05.440 --> 0:42:08.000 and you're having to just move through mud, constantly or 0:42:08.040 --> 0:42:10.760 for a lengthy period of time, like that's just making 0:42:10.840 --> 0:42:13.719 every step so much harder. And there's a good chance 0:42:13.719 --> 0:42:17.799 you're already doing something exhausting, that is mentally trying, that 0:42:17.800 --> 0:42:21.200 you're already under a great deal of stress. And now 0:42:21.320 --> 0:42:24.960 each each time you try and lift your boot your 0:42:25.000 --> 0:42:30.279 foot out of the mud, more effort is required of you. Now. 0:42:30.280 --> 0:42:33.560 There have been efforts to improve footwear for soldiers at 0:42:33.600 --> 0:42:37.160 different time periods, such as having wider essentially kind of 0:42:37.200 --> 0:42:40.120 like plank bottom shoes that the US Army experimented with 0:42:40.120 --> 0:42:42.640 special mud boots and shoes in World War Two and 0:42:42.680 --> 0:42:47.279 then again in Vietnam. Would include several prototype photos here. 0:42:47.360 --> 0:42:50.160 Joe I included a screen cap here for you to 0:42:50.160 --> 0:42:52.279 look at these. They're not much to look at, but 0:42:52.320 --> 0:42:56.640 you can see they're like basically different designs of wide 0:42:57.160 --> 0:43:00.560 flat surfaces that would be scrapped or somehow toach the 0:43:00.560 --> 0:43:01.480 bottom of boots. 0:43:01.760 --> 0:43:03.719 Some of them look like huge wooden hoofs. 0:43:04.560 --> 0:43:08.680 Yeah, they do. And you know, I'm not certain because 0:43:09.040 --> 0:43:12.640 it's just the subtitle. He was very brief, but I 0:43:12.640 --> 0:43:15.720 guess it's possible that some of these could be for horses. 0:43:15.760 --> 0:43:18.040 I don't know, maybe the round one that's kind of 0:43:18.080 --> 0:43:20.840 hoof shaped is for a horse. I don't know, huh, 0:43:21.200 --> 0:43:24.760 because certainly, you know, horses would be of concern. And well, 0:43:24.800 --> 0:43:28.000 not all of these military engagements. Of some of them, 0:43:28.640 --> 0:43:33.200 Tracked vehicles like tanks and half tracks can perform better 0:43:33.239 --> 0:43:36.160 in some muddy situations, but a tract vehicles certainly can 0:43:36.239 --> 0:43:38.480 get stuck in the mud. As Wood points out, they 0:43:38.520 --> 0:43:41.160 can also slide out of control through the mud and 0:43:41.200 --> 0:43:45.680 down muddy hillsides as well. Tracks can spread weight out 0:43:45.719 --> 0:43:50.000 more evenly than tires, So that's one of the appeals 0:43:50.000 --> 0:43:53.720 of having tracks or half tracked designs in these vehicles. 0:43:53.760 --> 0:43:56.239 But yeah, they're still not perfect. And then if you 0:43:56.280 --> 0:44:00.799 throw trenches into the mix, as it was encountered in 0:44:00.840 --> 0:44:02.920 the First World War, especially, you know that one of 0:44:03.000 --> 0:44:06.160 these big tanks can get stuck in the trench, and 0:44:06.200 --> 0:44:10.400 therefore you need, like other vehicles to lay down temporary 0:44:10.440 --> 0:44:15.759 bridges so that the tanks can make it across those trenches. Now, 0:44:15.800 --> 0:44:19.480 coming back to health though human health and mud, Wood 0:44:19.520 --> 0:44:22.719 also points out that extremely muddy conditions often lead to 0:44:23.120 --> 0:44:28.840 deteriorating sanitary conditions. Wood points out that wounded soldiers rarely 0:44:28.880 --> 0:44:32.799 reach medical facilities clean. So then this makes sense. You're 0:44:32.800 --> 0:44:37.120 in muddy conditions, you're going to enter into the medical 0:44:37.160 --> 0:44:41.200 facilities muddy and that. And also it means that oftentimes 0:44:41.280 --> 0:44:43.160 it's not just like any kind of pure mud, that 0:44:43.239 --> 0:44:45.239 mud is going to be mixed with all manner of 0:44:45.360 --> 0:44:49.719 unhygienic ingredients from the war zone. Muddy conditions also severely 0:44:49.800 --> 0:44:53.600 hinder the ability to just evacuate the wounded or to 0:44:53.760 --> 0:44:56.600 have medical personnel come in to deal with people who 0:44:56.640 --> 0:44:57.200 are wounded. 0:44:57.920 --> 0:45:01.040 Yeah. Now, in addition to all these general concerns, it 0:45:01.080 --> 0:45:04.799 seems like I have memories of reading about, at least 0:45:04.840 --> 0:45:09.600 interpretations of some decisive battles in history where mud played 0:45:09.640 --> 0:45:12.160 a role in how the battle turned out, or at 0:45:12.239 --> 0:45:15.160 least some historians believed that it did. Like I seem 0:45:15.200 --> 0:45:17.920 to recall the Battle of Agincore as one example. 0:45:18.320 --> 0:45:21.040 Yeah, the Battle of Agincore is a big one. This 0:45:21.160 --> 0:45:24.600 is from fourteen fifteen English victory over the French in 0:45:24.640 --> 0:45:27.880 one Hundred Years War. The French had to advance heavily 0:45:27.960 --> 0:45:32.680 armored knights through very muddy conditions. And the key to this, 0:45:32.800 --> 0:45:35.560 too is that this was transient mud. I've read this 0:45:35.680 --> 0:45:38.480 was these were not muddy conditions that were expected. This 0:45:38.680 --> 0:45:41.239 was I believe there was like a huge storm, so 0:45:41.520 --> 0:45:44.239 they weren't prepared for it. They marched anyway, and they 0:45:44.360 --> 0:45:46.600 end up sinking in the mud, especially if they've been 0:45:46.680 --> 0:45:51.040 knocked off their horse, easily immobilized once unhorsed in all 0:45:51.040 --> 0:45:53.560 that heavy armor. And it's said that, you know, some 0:45:53.640 --> 0:45:56.839 of the French knights drowned in the mud there. 0:45:57.280 --> 0:45:59.040 And this seems to be kind of a pattern that 0:45:59.080 --> 0:46:02.920 emerges in history, like it is bad to be caught 0:46:03.040 --> 0:46:05.799 as the side in a battle that is trying to 0:46:05.880 --> 0:46:07.400 advance through the mud. 0:46:08.000 --> 0:46:09.920 Yeah, because I mean, all these factors are going to 0:46:09.960 --> 0:46:12.880 come into play. It's going to slow you down, this 0:46:12.880 --> 0:46:15.800 stuff's going to get stuck, and then when the battle 0:46:15.920 --> 0:46:18.160 turns against you, it's going to turn even worse. A 0:46:18.200 --> 0:46:21.799 couple of other examples that come up frequently. There's the 0:46:21.880 --> 0:46:24.960 mud March from the Battle of Fredericksburg eighteen sixty two 0:46:25.000 --> 0:46:29.879 in the American Civil War. This was on the Union side, 0:46:29.880 --> 0:46:34.359 General Burnside's troops and it ended up having to go 0:46:34.400 --> 0:46:37.160 through some really muddy conditions and a number of key 0:46:37.239 --> 0:46:40.920 artillery pieces and wagons became trapped in the mud. Delaying 0:46:40.960 --> 0:46:44.320 the Union advance, and this was due to like sudden 0:46:44.360 --> 0:46:47.760 stormy conditions that were not expected that made it difficult 0:46:47.760 --> 0:46:50.560 to move these key pieces. Now, the Battle of the 0:46:50.600 --> 0:46:54.960 Son from nineteen sixteen, this is another example that comes 0:46:55.040 --> 0:46:57.239 up now. This one, though, is an inconclusive battle of 0:46:57.280 --> 0:47:01.640 the First World War between German forces and some British 0:47:01.640 --> 0:47:05.319 and French forces. Entailed massive casualties on both sides in 0:47:05.520 --> 0:47:10.360 very muddy trench warfare conditions. So not a situation where 0:47:10.400 --> 0:47:13.560 like the mud gave either side an advantage, but just 0:47:13.600 --> 0:47:16.399 made it seem to contribute it to it just being 0:47:16.480 --> 0:47:20.960 like an awful, awful battle for both sides. Now, as 0:47:20.960 --> 0:47:24.600 I mentioned already, like muddy conditions, muddy trench warfare, it's 0:47:24.640 --> 0:47:26.799 like just kind of you instantly picture it when you're 0:47:26.840 --> 0:47:29.560 thinking of World War One in particular, or perhaps like 0:47:29.640 --> 0:47:32.080 Germany's in the Eastern Front and World War Two, and 0:47:32.160 --> 0:47:35.479 both of these are theaters of war that have been 0:47:36.080 --> 0:47:39.960 recreated in various films over the years and TV shows 0:47:39.960 --> 0:47:42.719 and the like. But also you just tend to see 0:47:42.760 --> 0:47:47.640 a lot of muddy war conditions and muddy battlefields and 0:47:47.880 --> 0:47:51.839 especially muddy conditions after the battle. In other films and 0:47:51.880 --> 0:47:54.839 also in video games. And I had never really thought 0:47:54.880 --> 0:47:58.000 of this before, but I was reading a little bit 0:47:58.000 --> 0:48:00.880 about this on the blog The Excellent Blog, a collection 0:48:01.000 --> 0:48:06.280 of Unmitigated Pedantry by historian Brett Devereaux. I've referred to 0:48:06.400 --> 0:48:09.040 this blog a few times because it's a great read. 0:48:10.320 --> 0:48:15.560 He does things like, you know, analyze the warfare in 0:48:15.640 --> 0:48:18.160 The Lord of the Rings, both the books and the 0:48:18.160 --> 0:48:21.640 Peter Jackson movies and so forth, does a lot of 0:48:21.680 --> 0:48:24.080 talking about Roman military, so. 0:48:24.040 --> 0:48:27.439 It's like a military historian writing about topics nerds would 0:48:27.440 --> 0:48:28.160 be interested in. 0:48:28.520 --> 0:48:30.920 Yes, very much so. So if you're into a lot 0:48:30.920 --> 0:48:34.480 of these nerdy settings, or you're into ancient warfare and 0:48:34.560 --> 0:48:38.120 medieval warfare and so forth, I definitely recommend it. But 0:48:38.320 --> 0:48:40.480 I was reading one of his posts where he points 0:48:40.520 --> 0:48:43.200 out that that, yeah, you see a lot of films 0:48:43.239 --> 0:48:46.600 and especially video games that depict the aftermath of pre 0:48:46.719 --> 0:48:50.600 modern battles as being just muddy and bloody messes. And 0:48:51.120 --> 0:48:53.760 he points out that this doesn't seem to be the norm, 0:48:54.200 --> 0:48:57.719 you mean, in reality, In reality, yes, it was not. 0:48:57.760 --> 0:49:00.840 Always just a muddy mess after a after an ancient 0:49:01.160 --> 0:49:02.879 or medieval battle took place. 0:49:02.880 --> 0:49:05.120 Right Now, that's not to say that you don't have 0:49:05.360 --> 0:49:08.560 the examples we're discussing where you have definite muddy places 0:49:08.800 --> 0:49:11.560 that either erupt because there's a great like it's a 0:49:11.600 --> 0:49:13.760 road where there's a lot, a great deal of travel, 0:49:13.800 --> 0:49:16.520 and then it becomes muddy, and then you have transient 0:49:16.600 --> 0:49:20.840 mud in the mix. You have muddy conditions popping up 0:49:20.840 --> 0:49:25.320 because of extreme storm activity that's taken place. But he 0:49:25.360 --> 0:49:28.000 points out that if you just have like a normal 0:49:28.280 --> 0:49:31.920 grassy environment field somewhere where there's a battle taking place, 0:49:32.760 --> 0:49:37.040 it's not like a single battle taking place there over 0:49:37.080 --> 0:49:38.840 the course of a day or even a couple of days, 0:49:39.080 --> 0:49:42.080 is going to just wear down all the vegetation and 0:49:42.160 --> 0:49:45.759 turn it into mud. In particular, he points to photographic 0:49:45.800 --> 0:49:49.680 evidence from the American Civil War that shows that, yeah, 0:49:49.680 --> 0:49:52.360 you can have a large army, say, moving through an area, 0:49:52.800 --> 0:49:54.719 and it's not going to kill off the grass and 0:49:54.880 --> 0:49:57.000 muddy things up over the course of a single day 0:49:57.080 --> 0:49:59.120 or a couple of days. It's the sort of thing 0:49:59.160 --> 0:50:03.680 that occurs due to longed traffic, prolonged activity, and also 0:50:03.800 --> 0:50:06.319 environmental conditions thrown in there as well. So you know, 0:50:06.360 --> 0:50:08.280 all of those things you see with like a trench 0:50:08.320 --> 0:50:11.520 warfare environment. But it's not just going to pop up 0:50:11.560 --> 0:50:13.719 over the course of a couple of days because an 0:50:13.840 --> 0:50:17.200 army moved through a place, or even because two armies 0:50:17.239 --> 0:50:19.080 clashed at a particular location. 0:50:19.480 --> 0:50:21.920 Yeah, so maybe when when people are dug in and 0:50:22.040 --> 0:50:25.680 there's there's frequent foot traffic or heavy machinery moving around, 0:50:25.760 --> 0:50:29.040 or when an area is subject to prolonged shelling or 0:50:29.080 --> 0:50:29.839 something like that. 0:50:30.320 --> 0:50:32.880 Yeah, I mean, I see the appeal of it in 0:50:33.320 --> 0:50:37.399 cinematic portrayals and dramatic portrayals of the aftermath of war, 0:50:37.520 --> 0:50:41.560 because it's like, we have been bloodied, people are suffering 0:50:41.600 --> 0:50:44.640 and wounded, and it makes sense that that you sort 0:50:44.640 --> 0:50:47.280 of heighten that feeling that the earth itself, the world 0:50:47.440 --> 0:50:50.000 is wounded by all of this, like the wrongness of 0:50:50.040 --> 0:50:54.720 everything that has occurred here. So like, I like that connection, 0:50:54.840 --> 0:50:57.960 and I think I think it certainly plays well. But 0:50:58.120 --> 0:51:03.080 it's it's you know, a fun or an interesting commentary 0:51:03.120 --> 0:51:05.319 on this to sort of put it in, you know, 0:51:05.480 --> 0:51:08.120 look at it within the perspective of how battles seem 0:51:08.200 --> 0:51:11.840 to have actually impacted or not impacted the environment. 0:51:12.040 --> 0:51:14.600 So it's not necessarily the battle of a single day 0:51:14.600 --> 0:51:16.400 that can turn a place muddy, but it's more like 0:51:16.440 --> 0:51:20.239 the prolonged human presence, which maybe why you can see 0:51:20.239 --> 0:51:23.120 places become very muddy if they're also like the site 0:51:23.200 --> 0:51:27.359 of a festival or fair grounds. How muddy that can get. 0:51:27.920 --> 0:51:31.719 Yeah, it gets very muddy very quickly. You see this 0:51:31.840 --> 0:51:36.200 with places that even you know are more or less permanent. 0:51:36.280 --> 0:51:38.279 You know that they're having to continually figure out how 0:51:38.360 --> 0:51:40.359 figuring out how the water flows and how to keep 0:51:40.719 --> 0:51:43.640 mud from becoming a problem. But yeah, it's it's you 0:51:43.640 --> 0:51:45.400 do see it at festivals a lot. I guess that 0:51:45.480 --> 0:51:49.960 what the nineties Woodstock oh an example of really muddy 0:51:49.960 --> 0:51:52.479 conditions and people getting into the mud and it also 0:51:52.480 --> 0:51:55.840 becoming sort of a hell escape in that particular encounter. 0:51:56.400 --> 0:51:58.440 But there was also mud at the original Woodstock, and 0:51:58.920 --> 0:52:03.640 you know, they're these scenes of sort of innocent, hippy 0:52:03.880 --> 0:52:07.600 enjoyment of muddy conditions, you know, slattering yourself with mud. 0:52:08.320 --> 0:52:10.279 So you know, being covered in mud and trapped in 0:52:10.360 --> 0:52:13.920 mud is not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly, you know, 0:52:14.080 --> 0:52:18.000 in if you're also engaging in a bloody battle, I 0:52:18.000 --> 0:52:20.480 don't think anyone's going to be a fan. All Right, 0:52:20.520 --> 0:52:22.960 we're looking at the clock here and we realize we 0:52:23.080 --> 0:52:26.160 have to end Mud Part four, despite the fact that 0:52:26.200 --> 0:52:28.960 we did want to get in a little bit at 0:52:29.040 --> 0:52:32.880 least into the discussion of mud and religion. One of 0:52:33.360 --> 0:52:36.279 one of the most obvious aspects of this being that 0:52:36.800 --> 0:52:42.560 so many religions, especially ancient religions and mythologies, involves some 0:52:43.719 --> 0:52:47.880 idea of humans being made for mud or clay or dirt, 0:52:48.640 --> 0:52:52.359 but particularly clay and mud, you know, very much leaning 0:52:52.440 --> 0:52:55.359 into the idea of a creator deity or deities as 0:52:55.400 --> 0:52:59.720 being potters are that are molding us and perhaps baking 0:52:59.800 --> 0:53:02.759 us in making us what we are. But then we 0:53:03.040 --> 0:53:05.879 also had some other stuff to say about that, so well, 0:53:05.920 --> 0:53:07.520 I don't know, we'll have to come back to this 0:53:07.800 --> 0:53:09.759 in some form. I'm not saying we're gonna come back 0:53:09.800 --> 0:53:11.880 and do Mud Part five, because we already said we 0:53:11.880 --> 0:53:15.560 wouldn't do that, but we did leave the door open 0:53:15.719 --> 0:53:21.359 for various mud creatures to slather in. So yeah, we'll 0:53:21.400 --> 0:53:24.319 discuss it off Mike and come back. All right, Well, 0:53:24.320 --> 0:53:25.759 we're going to go and close it up, but we'd 0:53:25.760 --> 0:53:27.600 love to hear from everyone out there if you have 0:53:27.680 --> 0:53:31.360 thoughts on just mud in general, experience with mud, experiences 0:53:31.360 --> 0:53:35.600 with muddy conditions, mud, in military science fiction mud, and 0:53:35.600 --> 0:53:39.759 in military history. All of it is fair game right in. 0:53:40.080 --> 0:53:42.359 We would love to hear from your reminder that are 0:53:42.440 --> 0:53:44.600 core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind here on 0:53:44.640 --> 0:53:46.640 Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:53:46.680 --> 0:53:50.919 podcast feed. 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