Old Earth

by Gary Grossman

  “So, where are you off to this year?”

  “Eastern Montana, a dynamic region in the heart of dinosaur country. My team comes from some of the great universities across the country. Harvard, Michigan, University of Chicago, Berkeley, Penn State, and one from Spain. I think it’s fair to say we’ll have a field day. Or more accurately, if everyone makes it, eight great weeks.”

  “Do people ever drop out?” Rich asked.

  “Rarely. Too much fun. Oh, sometimes, family issues unavoidably come up, but invariably they return before the summer’s through. And occasionally there are some who realize the field is not for them. I see it as a real litmus test and a great way to measure dedication and patience. And believe me, our work requires patience. There’s nothing quick about what we do. Oh, and it takes good knees.”

  Jordan Rich laughed.

  “And what will you find?”

  “What will we find or what do I hope we’ll find?” McCauley responded.

  “Both. Either,” the host replied.

  “I expect we’ll find a go-to favorite. Tyrannosaurus rex fossils. Always a crowd pleaser. In fact, one of the greatest species was uncovered right where we’ll be. But what do I hope for?”

  He paused for only a fraction of a second to rev up.

  “For me, the best discovery of all is that one or more of the students will become superstars and carry on the work with true desire in a world of slash and burn budgets. That’ll help ensure we don’t turn into fossils ourselves.”

  It was a point well worth making; a pitch for new minds to come to the old world.

  Rich asked, “In terms of actual scientific discoveries, what’s still out there? Are there things we don’t yet know?”

  “Can a teenager today imagine a life without smartphones, tablets, the cloud? What’s around the corner? What devices will we be utilizing tomorrow? They’re almost unimaginable. Well, same thing for looking backwards. Say about two hundred, three hundred, four hundred or five hundred million years ago. So, yes, there’s a lot out there. I always hope that we’ll pitch our shovel in the right spot and come up with something really cool. Then we have to figure out how to put the darned thing together.”

  McCauley and Rich bantered for another twelve minutes on the character of dinosaurs, what scientists have discerned about their familial relationships, how much they ate, and conversely, how much they likely stank depending upon whether they were meat eaters or vegetarians.

  “British scientists have estimated that the sauropods, the dinosaur group which includes the Brontosaurus, produced about five hundred twenty million tons of methane per year. That’s enough farting…can I say farting on the air?”

  “You have twice, I think you’re okay,” the host laughed.

  “Well, a bit more delicately, they expelled enough methane to warm the climate about eighteen degrees Fahrenheit more than it is today. Let’s just say that it’s a good thing cave dwellers and the discovery of fire came much later given all the gas in the air. Kaboom!”

  With that, Jordan Rich laughed, then led to a commercial break.

  Ironically, the first spot was for a local New England Ford dealership selling the all-terrain F-150 SVT Raptor.

  Two minutes later, they were back into the show. “We’ll open up to your calls in a few minutes.” Jordan Rich gave the toll-free phone number. “But first, another science lesson. I suppose on the historic timeline, we’re the newbies, but the earth itself and other life-forms are another matter. Without getting into the religious debate, give us what you scientists see about the history of planet Earth.”

  “Perfectly positioned, Jordan. I’m not one to disrespect alternate points of view. However I’ll tell you what I read.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I read the rocks. They have a very old story to tell.”

  McCauley launched into it.

  “The Earth’s outer crust, a rocky crust, solidified billions of years ago. But the crust isn’t a solid shell. It’s broken. I mean it’s really broken. Broken into huge chunks, thick rock plates typically 50-to-250 miles thick that constantly drift over the more viscous upper mantle. It can take eons to see the change or seconds to feel it. These plates move sideways and up and down. They bump into one another, exerting dramatic changes in continental shapes and positions. That’s why the earth is always changing. Has always changed. Will always change.

  “The movement is called plate tectonics. In its most violent motion it creates earthquakes and volcanoes, mountain ranges and deep ocean trenches.”

  “How fast are these plates moving?” Rich asked.

  “Try about a fraction of an inch to four inches a year. Even at that speed, when plates interact, something’s going to shake, rattle, roll, split, spurt, or burst. Think of it all in layers. The top is the Earth’s major land surfaces, the continental crust, and the oceanic crust, which is thinner, denser, and generally more active than the continental crust. The crust is part of what is called the lithosphere. It’s pretty rigid and brittle and is constantly in motion on the top of the viscous, hot upper matter. It’s comprised of iron, magnesium, silicon, and calcium. Below that, the lower mantle. Now when two plates try to occupy the same space, the denser oceanic plate pushes under the lighter continental crust.

  “As the plate descends, it heats up; then melting mantle mixed with melting oceanic crust rises toward the surface to form a volcano, like in Japan and Mount St. Helens. When two continental plates collide, the collision causes an upward thrust producing mountains like the Himalayas. When there’s lateral movement of two plates, stresses build up in fits and starts. When the stress gets too great, it releases quickly. We feel that as an earthquake. The greater the buildup of stress, the bigger the resulting action, the stronger the earthquake. As soon as the earthquake happens, stress starts building up again.

  “With all these forces at work, pushing, pulling, colliding, you can begin to see how the earth is ceaselessly, though imperceptibly changing.”

  “Talk about that.”

  “My favorite part. For a time it was all fused together. One mega continent comprised of all Earth’s land. As a matter of fact, stick around. Computer models tracking continental shift predict they’ll come closer together again in another one hundred fifty to two hundred million years, then split apart. Over and over.”

  “So it never holds in one place?”

  “Never. The geologist who first proposed the supercontinent theory, the one way back, was Alfred Wegener. He named it Pangaea, Greek for ‘all the land.’ It wasn’t that long ago either.”

  “When?” asked the WBZ radio host.

  “1915.

  “No, when did the Pangaea exist?”

  “Oh, sorry. 1915 for Wegener’s theory. Some three hundred million years ago for Pangaea, but that wasn’t even the first supercontinent! Far from it. Go back billions of years earlier for other supercontinents. But Pangaea was significant for the way it rotated and split, then drifted apart during the Middle Jurassic period, first into two smaller supercontinents, Gondwana and Laurasia. Later, by the end of the Cretaceous period, it was beginning to look more like the map we have today.”

  “And, as you said, it’s not over yet.”

  “Never will be,” McCauley said.

  “And we came along when?”

  “I like to put it this way. Consider 4.6 billion years in terms of the second and minute hands sweeping across sixty minutes on a clock. The earth’s crust was formed in one one-hundredth of the first second of the hour. The oldest preserved rocks on the surface occurred at 10:27. The earliest fossil evidence of life, algae cells, shows up at thirteen minutes and bacteria four and a half minutes later. For the very first cells with a nucleus, jump ahead to 40:26. Look how late into the hour we are and we haven’t hit multi-celled organisms.”

  “When did that begin?”

  “After the fifty-one minute mark. Fish at 53:15; bugs at almost fifty-five minutes.”

  “I’m g
etting the picture.”

  “It speeds up even more, Jordan. The dinosaurs we’ve been talking about begin showing up at 57:01 on the hour clock.”

  “So I have to ask. Humans?”

  “Our upright ancestors around 59:58 and the first modern man—59:59.9.”

  “One tenth of a second ago, Quinn?”

  “Converting 4.6 billion years into an hour, yes, just one tenth of one second ago.”

  Ten

  Glendive, MT

  Two weeks later

  McCauley wished that his teaching assistant was with him for the summer, or even just through orientation. Because DeMeo wasn’t, the first job—airport pickup—was all his. Seven students; seven different trips over two days. He didn’t look forward to repeating himself and missing the opportunity to run his dog and pony act, or as DeMeo called it, his Dilophosaurus and Pentaceratops act, for everyone at the same time. However, the multiple airport runs actually gave him the opportunity to spend individual time, quality time, with his new students. He’d tailor his group orientation differently based on knowing his cast of characters.

  Every greeting started the same. The students landing at Dawson Community Airport, four miles northwest of Glendive, looked around and wondered what planet they’d landed on. Everything was dwarfed by the expanse of Big Sky country. There was no comprehensible scale to the topography.

  “Incredible, isn’t it?” It was easy from there.

  First came Rich Tamburro from the University of Michigan. He had a bright smile and an open face. His long, dark hair almost went to his shoulders, making him look more like a rock star than a rock hound. “You had a hell of a winter in Ann Arbor,” McCauley said using the always handy weather fallback.

  Tamburro parlayed the discussion into weather patterns during the Cretaceous periods, apparently a specialty of his. McCauley was impressed. He was a great get.

  The second trip, he picked up Leslie Cohen, one of two students from Penn State. She was five-seven, with shoulder-length black curly hair and a warm, open smile. She wore shorts, checkered Vans, and a university t-shirt that fit absolutely perfectly. Attractive, he thought.

  Cohen noted where his eyes traveled. “Dr. McCauley, don’t think I’m concerned about getting my nails, dirty. I’m here to dig. I want this to be my life’s work.”

  “Ms. Cohen, you may lead the charge.”

  “Thanks. I do have a favor to ask, though.”

  “Sure.”

  “My boyfriend is due in an hour. He’s part of the same program.”

  “Mr. Lobel?”

  She nodded. “Would it be okay to wait for him?”

  “Sure.”

  There wasn’t much real food to purchase from the machines in the small single story terminal, so they settled on chips and water. While they waited, Cohen talked about the Penn State paleo program, one of the best in the country. The way things were going for him at Yale, he might need to look for another job.

  Adam Lobel arrived on time with a guitar slung over his back. He was close to six feet tall and muscular. However, his red hair and light complexion were going to be a challenge.

  “Hope you bought out SPF 50 sunblock,” McCauley said shaking his hand.

  “Matter of fact, I did. And lots of hats.”

  McCauley felt Lobel and Cohen seemed to complete each other; a matched pair. But they were still young. Considering the hard work ahead, the summer might be a good test of their relationship.

  As they walked to the team vehicle, Cohen said that they’d prefer to bunk together as long as it didn’t cause any problems. He could divide them up any way he wanted during the day, but they hoped they’d be able to sleep together at night.

  McCauley agreed, but he’d make them pitch their own tent.

  Tom Trent, a solid five-feet-ten with short, cropped black hair and deep dark eyebrows, followed later in the day. The Northwestern University PhD candidate got off the plane in a burst of energy. So far, he appeared to be the most serious of the group, offering up his services as camp scribe to catalogue findings and chart progress. McCauley was more than willing to give him the job.

  On day two, the first to arrive was Anna Chohany. She had bright brown eyes, light brown hair, a slim, athletic figure and a look that would never grow old. Just as he thought, the Harvard student was definitely DeMeo’s kind of woman. But his teaching assistant was off on his own quest.

  Chohany carried herself with authority beyond her twenty-six years. From the start she asked detailed, probing questions about their explorations.

  Next, the lone international student, Carlos Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s wavy blond hair, chiseled face, and steel blue eyes gave him a GQ quality. McCauley expected a thick accent, but the University of Madrid student spoke English fluently. “My mother’s from Philadelphia,” he explained. “I used to go to summer camp at Sebago Lake in Maine. That’s where I picked up my first fossils…and ticks.”

  “Well, you’ll have no shortage of fossils, and the things that bite here rattle first!”

  The last to arrive was Al Jaffe, the twenty-eight year old micropaleontology PhD student from University of California, Berkeley. The lean and fit former US Army corporal on the GI Bill was the tallest of the team at six-two. He kept his thick light brown hair just beyond his former regulation length.

  “Professor McCauley?” he said bounding through the gate.

  Jaffe had a deep authoritative voice and a methodical manner that instantly seemed ingrained from the military or reflective of his own attention to detail.

  “That’s me, but make it Dr. McCauley for starters.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Without the sir.”

  “Yes…” Jaffe caught himself, “Dr. McCauley. Pleased to me you.”

  McCauley instantly liked him. Jaffe certainly seemed ready to work.

  This was the group. They seemed as bright as they get: healthy, inquisitive, and dedicated. Now McCauley hoped they’d stay engaged once the initial excitement wore off and the program moved into its evitable long, hot, boring weeks.

  And maybe, just maybe, they’d find something worthwhile and McCauley would get a step closer to tenure.

  Eleven

  Voyages Offices

  London

  Colin Kavanaugh entered the code to the security system outside Room Ten. Ten was on the fifth floor and bore no relation to the way the other twenty-two offices were numbered. The office required special access. General staff members were told it was where serious market research was conducted. Inquiring minds never learned anything from those who worked in Ten. They never mixed with the rest of the staff. Never.

  Kavanaugh had spent a year working in the office. He earned his way in.

  Now as the door swung open, Kavanaugh remembered the day he truly distinguished himself to Martin Gruber, the day he figured out the real reason the room was numbered Ten. This was before he was assigned to the space.

  “Sir, I’m Colin Kavanaugh,” he began after waiting forty-five minutes to see the publisher.

  Without looking up, Gruber said, “I know who you are. I don’t understand why you’re here. You have a supervisor.”

  “Yes, Mr. Gruber, but I felt this was worthy to bring directly to you. The significance of Ten.”

  Gruber raised his eyes. “Pray tell.”

  Kavanaugh smiled. “Precisely. The Bible, sir.”

  “Oh?”

  “Ten. It has so many meanings in numerology. Considering the secrecy you bestow upon the room, it fits perfectly. Absolutely perfectly.”

  Gruber studied the man. He motioned for Kavanaugh to continue.

  “Ten. Ten Commandments. But more than that. There are a total of 603 commandments. Add the ten that God gave Moses atop Mount Sinai, there are 613. Six plus one plus three equals ten. There’s more. John 3:16, the thesis of the Bible, adds up to another ten. Noah was the tenth patriarch prior to the Flood. God says he will not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if ten righteous people step forwar
d. We have ten God-given appendages on our hands; another ten on our feet.”

  Gruber’s silence only encouraged him.

  “Jesus performed thirty-seven miracles. Three and seven. Ten again. He quotes Deuteronomy forty-six times, more than any other book. Ten! And in the original Greek, Jesus uses the word “fulfill” ten times in each Gospel.”

  Colin Kavanaugh caught his breath. “Mr. Gruber, ten is a fulfillment of a duty. You recruited me for a reason. A duty. I believe it’s time you told me what that duty is.”

  Gruber smiled. He followed that with something totally unexpected. Martin Gruber stood up and offered his hand to the young man. “Mr. Kavanaugh, have a seat. Indeed, it is time for us to chat.”

  The entire episode played out in Kavanaugh’s mind. He surveyed the room and wondered if anyone else had ever displayed such insight. Gruber never told him, though he was eager to find out.

  Everyone worked diligently. The people pored through their individual assignments at their own computer workstations. Five read English language newspapers from Great Britain, Canada, Australia and the U.S. They also reviewed The International Herald Tribune. Five others perused the same paper’s websites. Another five wore headphones, monitoring radio broadcasts in various languages. Another five multi-lingual researchers listened to podcasts in Mandarin, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Swedish, among other languages. They also reviewed all emails and correspondence from Voyages’ writers around the world.

  This was the routine. Seven days a week, around the clock. They’d read, listen, research, and when necessary, write evaluations that would go upstairs—to Martin Gruber. The evaluations were based on strict parameters and gut reactions. Everything was considered important. Success was never reported. That’s not to say that the results of their work didn’t make the news later. When that happened it was never discussed up the hierarchical chain of command, and certainly never down.

  Secretum

  Kavanaugh looked over the staff. No one took notice. They didn’t fraternize with one another. They were paid well not to. Only two new people had joined the team in the past five years. No one heard from those who retired. They were given mortgage-free off-shore homes with enough money to more than comfortably live out their years and the assurance that they’d have lifetime subscriptions to Voyages. The underwriting was there as long as they continued to fulfill their obligation: their vow of silence about the true nature of their career.