The Apocalypse Calendar (3 page)

After breakfast, the Miller party drove
off to examine the geologic section at Peregrina Canyon just to the north of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas. The road to the canyon was a well-traveled gravel road with the usual potholes to dodge. The village of La Libertad was at the mouth of the canyon. It was a fairly primitive Mexican village, with adobe houses covered with plaster that was painted white. The roofs were mostly thatched and the floors were dirt. Chickens and dogs ran in and out of the houses.

The geologic section was like a journey backwards through time; it started with sedimentary rocks that were formed during the Late Cretaceous and ended with rocks of Paleozoic and still-older Precambrian age. All of the Cretaceous rocks were formed from sediments deposited on the sea floor; they were generally gray or white in color. The microfossils contained in the rocks indicated that the sediments were formed mostly at water depths exceeding six hundred feet. However, the oldest Cretaceous rocks were formed from sediments deposited at shallower depths. Underlying Late Jurassic rocks were deposited at very shallow depths—below fifty feet. The Late Jurassic strata rested with angular unconformity above non-marine strata of Middle Jurassic age. The Middle Jurassic non-marine strata were formed from sediments deposited on the land by rivers, streams, and lakes. In contrast to the overlying Jurassic and Cretaceous marine strata, which were generally gray or white in color, the Middle Jurassic non-marine strata were dominantly red, yellow, and brown in color and consisted of sandstone and shale.

The Middle Jurassic strata rested with angular unconformity above Late Triassic continental red beds, which in turn rested with angular unconformity on Late Paleozoic marine strata. Miller pointed out the angular unconformities to the students and said, “Each of these angular unconformities reflects a period of mountain-building. The forces in play here were titanic; convection undoubtedly speeded up in the core and the mantle. The angular unconformity between the Middle Jurassic continental non-marine red sandstone and shale and the overlying gray marine shale and limestone reflects the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea.”

Gary asked, “Could this sort of thing happen today?”

Arturo responded, “Sure it could. At the moment, the earth is sleeping; it occasionally gives off a few snorts as it sleeps. If Mother Earth wakes up, we could be in for big trouble!”

Once the students and their professors finished their tour of Peregrina Canyon, they backtracked to Ciudad Victoria and got on Route 85, the Laredo– Mexico City highway. In the old days, this road was part of the Pan-American Highway, but newer roads above on the Mesa Central had displaced it.

The field party finally arrived at the picturesque town of Tamazunchale, which was situated at the base of the Sierra Madre Oriental. Most of the truck traffic from Mexico City to the port city of Tampico came roaring out of the mountains at Tamazunchale; it seemed as if each truck had been freed from bondage. During the day, there was a perpetual roaring from the truck engines; most of the trucks lacked mufflers. The sound of an oncoming truck in the mountains or even in the plains below warned pedestrians to move as far as possible to the side of the road.

The road from Tamazunchale to Mexico City is one of the most spectacular drives in North America, albeit a dangerous one, particularly at night. There are endless hairpin turns; after sunset, dense fog settles on the highway; at times it is difficult to see more than ten feet ahead. Miller had some bad experiences himself traveling the road at night. One time, he and two of his students had to stop because of the fog and camp out at a wide spot in the road beside a hairpin turn. They pitched their tents as far as possible from the road at the edge of a steep cliff, which overlooked the bottom of the canyon of the Río Moctezuma several thousand feet below. Fortunately, the dense fog cut down on road traffic and they managed to have a relatively peaceful night.

The first time Miller stayed in Tamazunchale some ten years ago, he and his students decided to camp out on the south bank of the Río Amajac just upstream from its juncture with the Río Moctezuma. The Río Moctezuma is a polluted river that carries much of the sewage downstream from Mexico City. In contrast, the Río Amajac is a clear mountain river with only sparsely populated villages in its upstream reaches. After Miller and his students pitched their tents and prepared their dinner, they noticed that numerous people started showing up along both banks of the river. Some came in cars; others were on foot. Many of them were local Indians. It turned out that Miller and his students were in for a real treat and a glimpse into Mexico’s not-too-distant Indian heritage.

The natives lit torches and waded out into the river, which was about thirty yards wide where it joined the Río Moctezuma. The torchbearers were usually accompanied by three or four people. One person carried a plastic bucket or a wicker basket. The fisherman himself carried a unique device for catching fish, which consisted of a basket that was more or less rectangular in shape and two or three feet deep. The basket was perched on the end of a pole and pushed along the bottom. Some baskets seemed to have lids that could be quickly closed by pulling on a rope. The locals used this device to scoop up fish from the river bottom by pushing it against the current and then quickly closing the trap door. When the fish were caught, they were dumped into the other container. This method of catching fish was one that had been used along the Río Amajac long before the conquistadors arrived. The fishermen continued to fish all night. At sunrise, they packed up their equipment and departed. One of Miller’s students was told that the locals only fished at certain times of the month when the moon was at the right phase. This was undoubtedly one of the most striking scenes that Miller had ever seen, in Mexico or elsewhere.

In spite of the temptation to camp out along the Río Amajac, the two professors and their students decided to stay at a motel along the Río Moctezuma known as the La Quinta Chilla. La Quinta was situated at the western edge of Tamazunchale. It was probably built during the 1930s. It was basically laid out in the form of separate one- or two-room cabanas. Each cabana had Spanish tile floors, old but functional beds, and large front porches. There was a primitive wood-burning water heater outside of each cabana. The La Quinta owner allowed the geologists to set up their gas stoves for cooking on the front porch of the cabana. After a good bit of bargaining by Arturo, the La Quinta owner finally settled on a price of six dollars per night for the four geologists.

After settling into La Quinta around six o'clock, Arturo said, “Since it’s late, let’s have dinner in town. I know of a good little restaurant that serves a local treat that few people in Mexico know about. Have you guys ever heard of
acamaya
?”

After arriving in the restaurant and having a few beers, the geologists met the
acamaya
. Miller and the two students weren’t quite sure what they were in for, but they soon found out that
acamaya
were large freshwater crawfish that could reach up to a foot in length and were the freshwater cousins of the tropical lobster. They were normally cooked on a grill and bathed in garlic butter. Local fishermen caught the
acamaya
in deep pools in clear waters of the Río Amajac.

The
acamaya
were consumed by all with great pleasure. This was a real treat, as well as an insight into Mexican cuisine that few Mexicans or Americans were aware of. After dinner, the four geologists returned to La Quinta Chilla and sat on the large front porch of their cabana, watching the world go by on the old Pan-American Highway. Naturally, the topic of conversation turned to geology.

Gary said, “In our workshop, we talked about the titanic forces that had to be at work within the earth during the breakup of Pangea. Dr. Miller, you suggested that many people would be killed if something like this happened today. How would we know in advance if such a catastrophe was going to take place?”

Miller said, “The indicators might be rather subtle to start with. You might first see melting of the ice cap around the North Pole. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge trends right under the polar ice cap; here, its extension is known as the Gakkel Ridge. Heat from increased convection along the Gakkel Ridge would start melting the ice. In addition, you might see an increase in volcanic activity along other oceanic ridges as well as on island arcs. To me, this would indicate an increase in convection within the core and the mantle—but I’m an arm-waver. Other geologists and geophysicists might disagree with me.”

“Frank, I think you are right,” Arturo said. “I think mankind is pretty naive to think that this sort of scenario couldn’t happen today. Not only would you have an increase in volcanic activity, but you would also see an increase in the number of earthquakes worldwide.”

Miller said, “Well, I’m about ready to turn in. I still feel like I’m covered with those damn ticks from the Sierra Cruillas! I guess we had all better be careful and make sure we are tick-free. Gary, why don’t you and Felipe set off that insecticide bomb we bought inside the van before you go to bed? I want everyone ready to go at sunrise.”

It was hard not to wake
up at the break of day. Flocks of squawking parrots flew overhead, and the truck traffic increased tenfold on Route 85 to Mexico City. The roaring of the eighteen-wheelers alone was enough to wake the dead. Thick fog covered the valley of the Río Moctezuma.

Miller turned on the gas stove on the front porch of the cabana and began to make coffee, using some of the water they had brought from Dallas. He said, “Gary, why don’t you get the bacon and eggs out of the ice chest, and I’ll start making breakfast. Also, grab some of the bananas that we bought yesterday, and some frozen orange juice. Hopefully, some of this fog will burn off before we start fieldwork.”

In Mexico, it was easy to orient yourself along the highways. There were always kilometer posts; many geological maps showed the kilometer posts along highways. As a consequence, it was possible to plot the map position of important localities along the highway before geological sampling began. This worked, for the most part—but when the Mexican government decided to replace the old, battered kilometer posts, they reversed their order along Route 85 from Mexico City to Laredo. This made it difficult to locate localities cited in the geologic literature by kilometer post.

West of Tamazunchale, towards the village of Taman, two bridges cross the Río Moctezuma. One bridge occurs at Vega Larga. This bridge is a hanging bridge supported by steel cables and made of wooden planks. To reach the bridge at Vega Larga, it is necessary to hike to the bottom of the canyon along a windy dirt trail, which descends into the canyon of the Río Moctezuma from Mexican Route 85 above. The other bridge extends from Taman to the south across the Río Moctezuma to Barrio Guadalupe to the north.

There used to be a hanging bridge at Taman in the old days as well. However, this was replaced by a modern concrete highway bridge. A new unpaved road was built from Barrio Guadalupe to connect with villages to the north. To geologists who worked in the tropics, new roads were godsends, because rock exposures were fresh and unweathered. The weathering of rocks in the tropics to a laterite soil occurs rapidly, often in several years.

The plan for the day was for Arturo and Felipe to examine the strata exposed at the bottom of the canyon, at Vega Larga, and to examine rocks exposed in the hills to the north of the river. Miller and Gary decided to examine the limestone exposed along the road from Vega Larga to Taman.

Miller told Arturo and Felipe that he would pick them up at Vega Larga at five that afternoon, and he drove off with Gary. Miller decided to collect limestone samples every kilometer along the highway. He told Gary, “If we find something interesting in the rock samples, I would like to etch the rock with hydrochloric acid and examine it under the microscope, so we’ll need the microscope, the microscope lamp, and the generator ready to go.” Miller examined the rocks for microfossils known as radiolaria. Because radiolaria had glasslike skeletons made of silica, they could be extracted from the limestone using hydrochloric acid. The limestone dissolved away, whereas the radiolaria did not; instead, they stood up in relief on the surface of the limestone that was etched with acid, resembling snowflakes that were made out of glass. Often the radiolaria were replaced with calcite, the same mineral making up most of the limestone. In such cases, the microfossils would dissolve away. Miller didn’t collect these samples.

At the first stop, Miller and Gary collected about twenty samples. Miller evaluated each sample at his portable laboratory.

Gary asked, “What do you see?”

Miller responded, “There are abundant well-preserved radiolaria present. There are numerous forms, which indicate that these rocks have been displaced from higher latitudes. In other words, this piece of geological real estate should have been situated to the northwest of two thousand miles north of the US–Mexican border. Arturo’s studies show that sedimentary rocks of the same age less than twenty miles north of here were formed essentially at the present latitude and in very shallow water. My studies demonstrate that the limestone along the road here was formed from limey mud at water depths of approximately ten thousand feet. Arturo and I think there has to be a major San Andreas–type fault or megashear present here that separates these two different pieces of geologic real estate. Our data show that this fault line is oriented in a southeast–northwest direction. Movement of geologic real estate to the south of the fault was to the southeast, whereas movement to the north of the fault was to the northwest.”

Gary asked, “What rock formations will we encounter along the road here between Vega Larga and Taman?”

“The limestone with thick beds belongs to the Taman Formation, whereas that with thinner beds belongs both to the upper part of the Taman Formation and to the overlying Pimienta Formation. I’ll show you the differences between the upper Taman and the Pimienta Formations later.”

Miller and Gary collected samples along the highway to Taman until nearly four o'clock. At each stop, they attracted a lot of attention from drivers on the highway as well as from the local inhabitants. A few cars stopped, and Miller tried to explain that he was studying the rocks. The Spanish heritage of these people always came to the surface. They immediately decided that the Americans had to be looking for gold. Only a damn fool would look for anything else in a rock.

The local Indians the two geologists encountered were very shy and tended to avoid getting too close. Most of these people were small in stature, and many of them could speak only a few words in Spanish. Miller remembered going to mass at the Catholic Church in Tamazunchale with his wife. There were only a few Americans present. They towered over the heads of the local Indians. He remembered how his wife had purchased a large handmade beeswax candle from an Indian lady outside of the church for practically nothing. Miller asked the lady in Spanish if she knew where the pharmacy was. She did not understand. It turned out that the pharmacy was a short distance away. A Spanish-speaking Mexican pointed Miller toward the store.

Miller and Gary picked up Arturo and Felipe at Vega Larga and headed back to their home base at the Quinta Chilla. Felipe looked a little green around the gills. Arturo said to Felipe, “I told you never to stop and have coffee with a woman along these mountain trails! Now look at you! You look like you are in a trance!”

Apparently, it was common practice for many of the women out in the mountains to give foreigners an aphrodisiac potion and try to ensnare them. This practice helped the native community strengthen its gene pool, which had been depleted by too much inbreeding. Felipe learned his lesson; it took him a few days to recover from the potion the woman had given him. Fortunately, he had not gotten sexually involved with her.

After cooking their dinner on the porch of their cabana, the geologists noticed that there were two other groups of Americans staying at La Quinta Chilla. They found out that one group consisted of anthropologists from the University of Pittsburgh who were studying the language of local Indian tribes in the mountains.

The second group of Americans was at Tamazunchale to study the migration of Monarch butterflies. It turns out that Tamazunchale is the focal point of Monarch migration. Each year, these butterflies migrate to Tamazunchale during November and early December to breed and spend the winter. In addition to Monarchs, a tremendous number of other butterfly species could be found there. Many species were extremely beautiful, with large silver and iridescent blue wings. One of Miller’s previous graduate students was a butterfly collector who managed to collect numerous specimens during a previous trip.

In the past, at the Quinta Chilla, the two professors had encountered a crew from the Mexican national oil company, PEMEX, who were running a seismic line from the mountains out to the coast at Tampico. Such studies were useful in interpreting the structure of the earth’s crust and could aid PEMEX geologists in finding oil. Whatever the case, La Quinta Chilla seemed to be the headquarters for scientists with low budgets. The university scientists usually did their own cooking at the cabana. The PEMEX guys went out to eat at local restaurants.

The geologists settled down after washing the dinner dishes to discuss their plans for the next day’s fieldwork or anything else that came to mind. Miller said, “Tomorrow, I would like to collect samples from below the bridge over the Río Moctezuma at Taman.”

About this time, two of the American anthropologists from the University of Pittsburgh came over to visit with the geologists. After a while, one of the anthropologists, Dr. Dolores Clark, asked the geologists what they thought about global warming. Dr. Clark was a petite, good-looking brunette with well-proportioned facial features and a figure that would knock most men off their feet. Miller could care less what she looked like. He was much more interested in the question she asked.

Miller said enthusiastically, “Although there may possibly be evidence for the polar ice cap melting in the Northern Hemisphere, it is not likely that the increase in carbon dioxide emissions is the only answer; to blame global warming on man and his doings is a bit of a myopic answer to the problem. Actually, Mother Earth herself may be the cause of most climatic change. We are all just passengers on Mother Earth. For the most part, the earth has been quite warm during its history. However, during the last two million years, it has experienced four periods of continental glaciation; these periods of glaciation had warm interglacial periods between them that were even warmer at times than today’s climate. Ever since I was in college, geologists and climatologists have debated whether the earth is cooling down and is about ready to go into another period of continental glaciation, or whether it’s warming up and ready to go farther into an interglacial period. I think we should all remember that the earth itself is a ‘heat engine.’ For example, oceanic crust in the form of basaltic lava is being continually created along all mid-ocean ridges. It is well known by oceanographers that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge extends right under the polar ice cap. Any increase in thermal activity along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge might result in polar melting and, quite frankly, there is damn little that man can do about it. Politicians can rant and rave all they want, but it will do no good.

“Like everyone else, I am concerned about the amount of polluted junk that man puts into the air we breathe. Some years ago, my wife and I were invited by the Chinese National Academy of Science to attend a conference in Beijing. We were both appalled by the tremendous amount of air pollution. Even on a sunny day you couldn’t see blue sky. Breathing the air was difficult for someone, like me, who has sinus problems. The air was a constant irritation to my nose and throat. The Chinese government paid for our travels throughout China. A Chinese graduate student who spoke excellent English accompanied us wherever we went. On one leg of our trip, we had to fly from Xian to Nanjing. The student who accompanied us had never been on a plane before. I tried to keep him from becoming a white-knuckles flyer. He was really thrilled by the flight. Probably the thing that impressed him the most was that the sky high above China was actually blue instead of the dingy gray color that he observed all of his life. Well, I guess I’ve already spouted off too much. This comes with being a university professor! Tell us what kind of studies that you plan to undertake with the local Mexican Indians.”

Dr. Dolores Clark said with a friendly smile, “We are trying to study the language of Mexican Indians in the mountains near Tamazunchale. Civilization has still not touched many of the local tribes to any great degree. Many of these Indians can speak and understand only a few words in Spanish. Frequently, when we visit a village, the only person who can speak Spanish is the priest at the Catholic Church. We have found that many of these people could not even communicate with fellow Indians in adjoining mountain valleys; their dialects are totally different. Anyhow, we want to study the language and culture of these Indians before they become totally contaminated by Mexican civilization. For the most part, the mountainous countryside in the interior of the Sierra Madre Oriental is penetrated by only winding footpaths. However, each year, new roads are built by the Mexican government that open up the rugged mountainous terrain to the rest of the world.”

Felipe said, “When we visited the shrine to the Virgen de Montserrat in the Sierra Cruillas, we saw a strange diagram carved into the limestone wall of the small cave. It showed a pyramid with a flying-saucer-like object in the pyramid’s center. There was a knob-like structure at the top of the disk, which seemed to depict beams of light radiating out from it. There was also an arrow that pointed to the south. We asked the natives what they knew about the diagram. They claimed that it had always been present in the cave, long before the Virgen de Montserrat made her appearance. Have you anthropologists ever heard of anything like this from your studies of the Indians?”

Dolores Clark said, “As a matter of fact, we have heard a rumor among the Indians that this sort of diagram has something to do with Moctezuma’s Treasure. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea. However, your observations are quite interesting. Let us know if you see any other drawings like this. I find it curious that the diagram shows a disc inside of a pyramid. This doesn’t sound like much of a treasure! The drawing must have some other meaning as well. Perhaps it is a warning. Will you guys be here tomorrow?”

Arturo said, “We plan to spend one more day here. Tomorrow we will sample and measure the thickness of formations near Taman. Then we head south to Huayacocotla to study the Jurassic and Cretaceous formations in the Canyon of the Río Vinasco. Maybe we can all get together tomorrow night. Right now, I guess we had better turn in. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”

Clark said, “Before you turn in, I would like you geologists to tell me what a ‘formation’ is.”