It isn’t easy being you. I know I couldn’t do it, and I don’t think anyone else could. When I think of all that went into and goes into your makeup, I marvel that you haven’t had a meltdown leading to an explosive ending. How does all that incongruity stay together?
Geologists of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century had a long-standing model of how volcanic island arcs, such as the Aleutians, got their lava. The standard explanation was that subduction (“led under”) was the ultimate cause. As an ocean plate like the Pacific’s collides with more buoyant rock of a continent or equally dense rock of another ocean floor, it dives into the mantle, or subducts. Before ocean crust sinks, however, it accumulates vast quantities of water-laden sediment composed of the hard parts of organisms and rock debris, including dust blown off continents. Prior to a recent discovery, subduction was thought to release fluids and partially melted rock that rise, eventually mix, and alter the melting point of overlying rock. The mix becomes a magma that breaks out at the surface as lava, forming volcanoes. Anyway, that’s the old model.
In the new model, a mélange that is a mixture of metamorphosed (“changed by heat”) sediment lies atop the slab of rock before it undergoes mixing in the mantle as the ocean plate subducts. That “premixed” magma eventually makes its way to the surface.*
Lavas at the surface reflect the composition of the mélange. Geologists can trace the kind of lava to the mélange that produces it by examining isotopes in the resultant lava. Wherever the melt is “andesitic” and “rhyolitic” the eruptions can be quite Mt.-St.-Helens-or-Vesuvius-like: Very violent. Those majestic volcanoes of the Cascades, the Aleutians, and the rest of the Ring of Fire’s volcanoes are products of this process.
Back to you being you and no one else being you. Just as isotopic fingerprints of a mélange can be found in volcanic rocks and just as the composition of lavas reflects their source, so, too, you have traces of those incongruities in your makeup, the isotopes of inculcations both remembered and forgotten. They aren’t always easy to detect, but they are there, nonetheless. Everyone—and that includes you—has a mélange in his or her background.
The melting, rising, and reappearance of a mélange is an ongoing process. We don’t usually keep our makeup deeply hidden until an eventual release and later mixing. We are already mixed before we arrive at the surface. Our personal volcanoes are predetermined by the mélange. There are hints in our past of what will rise and form. But like an ocean floor mélange hidden beneath water, our personal mélanges are partly hidden from us. A mélange is a mélange because of the diversity of sediments it contains. A mélange has an incongruous composition. You, too.
The difference between an ocean floor mélange and your personal mélange is that you can filter what reaches the surface. And again, just as geologists study isotopes to determine the nature of the original mélange, so you can look at the hints of your personal lavas. You are in control of the surface features that form regardless of the isotopic composition of the underlying magma in your life. You can sort through your personal incongruities, but I can’t. That’s one of the reasons that you—and no one else—can be you.
*Sune Nielsen of the Woods Hole Oceanograhic Institute
https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/137612.php
Geologists of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century had a long-standing model of how volcanic island arcs, such as the Aleutians, got their lava. The standard explanation was that subduction (“led under”) was the ultimate cause. As an ocean plate like the Pacific’s collides with more buoyant rock of a continent or equally dense rock of another ocean floor, it dives into the mantle, or subducts. Before ocean crust sinks, however, it accumulates vast quantities of water-laden sediment composed of the hard parts of organisms and rock debris, including dust blown off continents. Prior to a recent discovery, subduction was thought to release fluids and partially melted rock that rise, eventually mix, and alter the melting point of overlying rock. The mix becomes a magma that breaks out at the surface as lava, forming volcanoes. Anyway, that’s the old model.
In the new model, a mélange that is a mixture of metamorphosed (“changed by heat”) sediment lies atop the slab of rock before it undergoes mixing in the mantle as the ocean plate subducts. That “premixed” magma eventually makes its way to the surface.*
Lavas at the surface reflect the composition of the mélange. Geologists can trace the kind of lava to the mélange that produces it by examining isotopes in the resultant lava. Wherever the melt is “andesitic” and “rhyolitic” the eruptions can be quite Mt.-St.-Helens-or-Vesuvius-like: Very violent. Those majestic volcanoes of the Cascades, the Aleutians, and the rest of the Ring of Fire’s volcanoes are products of this process.
Back to you being you and no one else being you. Just as isotopic fingerprints of a mélange can be found in volcanic rocks and just as the composition of lavas reflects their source, so, too, you have traces of those incongruities in your makeup, the isotopes of inculcations both remembered and forgotten. They aren’t always easy to detect, but they are there, nonetheless. Everyone—and that includes you—has a mélange in his or her background.
The melting, rising, and reappearance of a mélange is an ongoing process. We don’t usually keep our makeup deeply hidden until an eventual release and later mixing. We are already mixed before we arrive at the surface. Our personal volcanoes are predetermined by the mélange. There are hints in our past of what will rise and form. But like an ocean floor mélange hidden beneath water, our personal mélanges are partly hidden from us. A mélange is a mélange because of the diversity of sediments it contains. A mélange has an incongruous composition. You, too.
The difference between an ocean floor mélange and your personal mélange is that you can filter what reaches the surface. And again, just as geologists study isotopes to determine the nature of the original mélange, so you can look at the hints of your personal lavas. You are in control of the surface features that form regardless of the isotopic composition of the underlying magma in your life. You can sort through your personal incongruities, but I can’t. That’s one of the reasons that you—and no one else—can be you.
*Sune Nielsen of the Woods Hole Oceanograhic Institute
https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/137612.php
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