Rocks and the City
Grand Tour Days 63-67 – The subsurface and art of Paris
The city of Paris is huge. While the city proper is a bit smaller than Vancouver land-wise (105 km2 versus 115 km2) the metropolitan area sprawls (14,500 km2 versus Vancouver’s meager 2,900 km2). And population density? I would have thought that with all of the new condos in downtown Vancouver that we are a reasonably dense city but all you have to do is walk through Paris to know that there are many more people here.
Grand Tour Days 47 – 52 – Here, there and bedbugs where?
I’ve been touristing through Paris over the last several days, and after nearly a week of debating with myself about where the scads of bites I’ve been getting were coming from I woke up on Tuesday with a fierce reaction and, luckily, one dead bedbug by my bed (I hope I squashed him in my sleep!). The reason that it was lucky to find a dead bedbug was that now I knew for sure that this ridiculous little insect was what was causing my bites. Anyhow, I’ll get on with the rest of the bedbug story in a bit.
Grand Tour Days 40 – 42 – Champagne! (Need I say more?)
I learned something very profound about geology these last few days – chalk is a type of limestone. Now, I knew that chalk is made of calcium carbonate, but somehow I hadn’t connected the dots between the two (limestone is also made of calcium carbonate). The reason chalk gets its own name is because it is quite a bit softer than many limestones. It is softer, but don’t be deceived (as I was) it still isn’t really ‘soft’ most of the time. Hence my confusion. I’ve been seeing all sorts of cliffs (the north edge of Normandy) that others described as chalk, and I couldn’t really get it. To me a soft stone doesn’t make cliffs. Then I arrive in Champagne where many of the cellars that the champagne is stored in were Gallo-Roman chalk quarries (crayères in French). I couldn’t think of what they would need so much ‘chalk’ for. Turns out it was for building – homes, city walls, the Cathedral and other public buildings. Luckily for us, this chalk limestone is also perfect for growing grapes to make champagne!
The Champagne making process
It begins in the vineyards – only three grapes can be used: chardonnay (a white grape with white juice), pinot noir and pinot meunier (black grapes with white juice).
Grand Tour Day 3 – Truro and Falmouth
Today Dan took me by train to the City of Truro for a bit of a look see. I learned that in Britain, any town that has a cathedral is called a city. Truro isn’t especially big but it does have a cathedral, and quite a lovely one at that.
Iceland – a look at the recent eruptions
There has been a lot of coverage about Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano in mid-April. But other than disrupting us humans the news hasn’t covered much about the volcano itself, such as – Why is the volcano there? Why so much ash from this eruption? Why isn’t it continuing to produce ash? So consider this your Iceland volcano primer.
Riprap
Water is powerful. Much more so than we often give it credit for (or would like to think about). But there are always people in cities that think about water, and what water can do to our homes, our streets, our parks and our lives. And I’m very glad they do! Humans have in many ways been battling, coercing and managing water for thousands of years. Riprap is a great example of one of the tools that we humans use to prevent erosion.
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