So the big news of today: my advisor is coming back this Friday instead of next Tuesday. This is even bigger news than the whole "we just found flowing water on Mars" thing from last week. At least for us in the department.

As Sam so succinctly said, "I think it could be worse... I just can't think of how right now."

AHHHHH!

As PI said, "So... one more... maybe one and a half more days of peace and quiet... and then all hell breaks loose. Son of a bitch. Don't tell him I said that."

A little ditty keeps running through my head, it goes a little bit like this: "My advisor's back and you're gonna be in trouble (hey-yah, hey-yah, my advisor's back)"
hmm... I don't think those are the original lyrics... hmmm....

Accordingly, upon the completion of my remote sensing term paper this afternoon I turned my attentions not to my cratering term paper nor my geophysics final but to Wrinkle Ridges.

Don't know what a wrinkle ridge is?


These are wrinkle ridges.
Got any idea how they form? Cause I would sure like to know. Preferably before Friday but really any time in the next 5 years would do.

Some folks think that wrinkle ridges are formed when you have a sheet of lava pouring out and it kind of folds over itself or bunches up or whatever and ta-da, a wrinkle ridge forms. Other people think that they're caused by the whole globe shrinking just a little bit and the surface contracting in response (meaning that the ridges themselves are reverse (thrust) faults that don't quite reach the surface). Still others think that the ridges are indeed blind thrust faults, but that they are caused by a huge change in the atmosphere, which, instead of causing the planet to shrink, causes just the surface layer to expand a little bit because it's warmer. Once again the crust is a little too big for the planet, and faulting occurs. My leading theory right now is that the lava layers laid out on the planet were so thick that they didn't cool right away, and they were sort of flowing downhill ever so slowly, and as they did they bunched up and froze. That would kind of mean they were buckling like thick rug rather than faulting, but they could fault too, if they wanted to. I'm not going to stop them.

You see a lot of times wrinkle ridges come in sets, they look like sand dunes almost, only they're made out of the crust as opposed to sitting upon it. They're parallel and evenly spaced. That would suggest some kind of geophysical mechanism like buckling, rather than volcanism or something like that. But the volcanism could be evenly spaced because the surface cracked evenly and then the lava just took advantage of the cracks!

Obviously I've been focused on wrinkle ridges way too much today. As Sam was holding out a card to me I found myself watching his arm and thinking about how his criss-crossing veins looked very much like anastomosing wrinkle ridges on the surface of Mercury. Point of fact they actually called wrinkle ridges some crazy word in latin or greek that mean "vein" because they look like veins protruding beneath the surface.

Well, t-5 days til All Hell just became t-1 day, so I guess I'd better get my act together, which means for the moment cranberry juice, colby cheese, wheat thins, and a bit of repose.

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