April 26, 2022 • 42 mins
It might surprise you to learn that the oldest raging fires on Earth are actually underground. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the world of eternal flames and coal seam fires.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. When
we think about fire, and we do think about fire
a lot on this show, let's come out the time
and time again. What are you are you confessing something
(00:25):
that we that we love fire, that we worship fire,
that we delight in its um, its growth, and its consumption. Um. No,
but it is it must be fed. But it is
an important aspect of Earth. You know, as we discussed
on past episodes. You know, Earth is the only planet
known to have fire, and there was a time when
(00:45):
there was no fire on Earth because it wasn't possible yet. Um.
You know fire. When we think about fire, we think
about its fleeting nature, but also it's potential, it's tremendous
power provided conditions are just right. Um. It's uh. It's
always interesting to think about how fire is in many
ways more un event than a thing, and for it
(01:05):
to happen you need heat, fuel and oxygen, and the
fuel and the oxygen we're not always present on our planet.
Fire is more or less an aspect of the New
Earth and The earliest evidence of charred vegetation dates back
a mere four hundred and forty million years. Right, So
today natural forest fires are just part of the cycle
of life on the surface of Earth. But there was
(01:27):
a time when Earth had its first forest fire. Can
you imagine that, like the first time that ever happened. Yeah, yeah,
it's crazy to imagine. And so this is this has
been an aspect of life under their earth ever since. Um.
And yeah, with with fire, it's it's interesting too because
there's this trifecta. Obviously this necessary for it to exist. Um,
(01:49):
but it is a delicate tripod. Remove one of the
legs of the fire tripod and the fire will perish.
Uh So. Yeah, our relationship with fire is sometimes like
whoe is out of control? And other times it is
you know, I can't get this thing to light at all? Um.
You know. So I think we're all familiar with that,
with the dual nature of fire. Uh So. For today's episode,
(02:12):
and this will spill it into the next episode as well,
I thought we might start with just what I thought
was just really tantalizing question because I'd never really thought
about it before, not not until you brought up this topic.
And that is what is the longest that a single
fire has raged? Uh? And I guess they're all sorts
of sort of artificial parameters we might throw in. You know,
(02:34):
what constitutes a single fire versus multiple fire spread out
over time? Uh? I guess we kind of have to
take the human scenario of like a hearth or a
camp fire and imagine that is sort of our basic principle,
like a single a single flame that keeps eating things,
keeps consuming, maybe it moves. But what is the longest
(02:55):
that such a fire has raged without snuffing out completely
and having to be reset one way or another? Great question? Yeah,
so of course you know the answer, and I that
I know the answer to now. But but putting ourselves
in the mindset of someone who doesn't know the answer,
you might likely turn to a few different categories to
start off. And the first would be what we just
(03:16):
talked about, forest fires. Um. So you know, as long
as we've had forests and fire, uh, this has been
a possibility here on earth. Uh. Many of the worst
forest fires in history, though, are measured in terms of acres, destruction,
and fatality rather than in time. But if you dig,
dig down, you you can start seeing some some time
(03:38):
stamps on things. Many of the worst are dated to
just a single day in human history um. Others last
longer though some of the consist of multiple blazes, So
it becomes perhaps a little more of a challenge to
think of a continuous fire in these cases. Uh, though
in many of the cases I think it does fit.
Some wildfire seasons, of course, span many months, and then
(03:59):
you have you have particular fires that have raged for
a period of time. There's the Coyote Fire of nineteen
siour in Santa Barbara, California, which lasted from September one
to October one. So it seems we might if we're
thinking about about modern forest fires, we're gonna probably look
at something lasting days months, um uh, somewhere in that range. Now,
(04:23):
as for wildfires of yesteryear, as well as blazes caused
by prehistoric extinction events, I I couldn't find any stats
on this, but I suppose it's worth thinking about. But
it's also worth thinking about the fact that when you
have a particularly large energetic fire, it can ultimately become
something entirely different. You've become this this fire storm which
(04:43):
creates and sustains its own wind system. So I mean,
I guess that's one of the reasons when we start
looking at some of these big blazes, they do tremendous damage,
they can cover a pretty large area, but they're still
not lasting long and time because they're just eating through
all of that fuel in a relatively short period of time.
(05:05):
And of course, with when we're talking about wildfires, we
also have to think about the fact that, uh, you know,
the human civilization has a has an impact as well
on just how wildfires will play out through a given
forest scenario. Uh, you know, and to a certain extent,
you know, we've we've been able to to jump in
with um with orchestrated burns, control burns to try and
(05:29):
uh simulate sort of the natural cycle of fires that
would normally occur um. But another area where you have
to factor in human civilization is of course when you're
dealing with urban fires, where the trees and various other
aspects of the natural world have been remade into an
artificial environment a city, and then what happens when that
(05:50):
catches fire. Well, I think a lot of the same
practicalities are involved here as well. Some of the great
fires to ravage cities are often measured to a single
date in time UM, though there are some exceptions. There's
the uh There's the one b C burning of Carthage,
which reportedly took seventeen days. But this was also said
(06:14):
to be a systematic burning of the city by the Romans,
So I'm not sure if that would count UH so
much because it was it was one of these situations obviously,
where the Romans are like, let's burn the city down,
let's make sure everything burns through. There are some other
fires that are that are worth mentioning. There's the Great
Fire of Utricht in the Netherlands that lasted nine days
(06:35):
reportedly in twelve fifty three. There's the eighty nine first
Great Fire of Lynn, Massachusetts, reportedly last two weeks, destroying
roughly a hundred buildings. So it looks like, if we
were going to say it looked to the world of
like urban fires, for some sort of a candidate for
longest fire, you're gonna be looking at something in the
realm of days two weeks, But figures beyond that seemed
(06:57):
kind of doubtful. All right. The next area to think about, though,
would be, of course, human sustained fires. What about situations
in which a human cultivated flame, a flame that's kept
and fed more or less like a pet either for
technological purposes, say like a forge or a pilot light,
or something that's more religious or secular, or a secular
(07:20):
symbol in nature, you know, something like a holy fire
that's kept going, or some sort of a monument that
has an eternal flame hooked up to it. I was
shocked to discover how many monuments there are that have
so called eternal flames on them because I don't know,
maybe it's just uh, my morbid brain, but it seems
like calling a flame eternal is just tempting the faces.
(07:43):
Like you you know, this is not this flame will
not burn forever. It's like settled down. You can't call
it eternal. I was trying to think what you should
call it instead. I can't come up with anything. I
don't know, maybe the long burning flame or something, or
the attempted eternal flame. It's just eternal is not gonna happen, right, Yeah,
I mean I guess, and to a certain extent, I
guess this is obvious. Like they're getting into the idea
(08:04):
of like the fire is something that is that it
can go out and it has to be cultivated. And
you know, a lot of these are tied to two
causes and memories with the with the idea of saying like, hey,
let's let's let's make a point of remembering this individual
or remembering this cause. Um, and and we'll use the
fire as a symbol. Uh. But that that yeah, And
(08:27):
there have been a number of these that that have
sprung up just at the end of the twentieth century
and and even you know, in the twenty one century.
And uh and and it's also and it's certainly with
the older ones that it gets more difficult to really
figure out. Okay, has this been truly a perpetual eternal
fire or has it gone out at least once, if
not multiple times over the span of time that is
(08:49):
attributed to it. I'm sorry that Roger Corman is invading
my brain right now, but I'm thinking of a line
and attack at the Crab Monsters where the giant psychic
crab they're assaulting it with with different types of weapons.
The humans are trying to defeat it, and at some
point they use a fire based weapon and the crab
counters by telling them he says something like that was
(09:09):
quick thinking Dale, but the pity is that all fires
must one day burn out. True, it's true. Um. But
by the way, more fairly recently, someone was asking, I
think in the discord for Stuff to blow your mind,
what are all the episodes in which Joe has mentioned
attack of the crab monsters. No one had a clear answer,
(09:30):
but a few a few episodes were brought up in
which people remembered you you mentioning it. We'll add this
to the list. Okay. Uh So, out of the various
examples that come up, but one that I thought was
pretty interesting is that of the the dast show in
Temple Complex in Japan that has a flame that is
said to have been burning for about twelve hundred years. Obviously,
(09:51):
it's impossible to say with something like this, uh. And
ultimately I guess the it's the idea of the continuous
flame that is most portant here. Uh. But but still
this is an example of one that has supposedly been
burning for over a thousand years. Now. This is not
quite a flame. But I ran across this as well,
(10:12):
and I thought I mentioned just because it's amusing and
and maybe we have some listeners who can who can
report on this firsthand. But there is something known as
the Centennial light bulb in Livermore, California, specifically in the
firehouse there. It's been burning there, uh, the bulb since
nine one, though this has not been continuous. There have
(10:33):
been power outages and electrical issues, etcetera. So I'm not
sure exactly like what the ratio is between the time
during that century plus that the light has been out
versus on. But it's certainly a very old light bulb
that still lights up. And there is a webcam you
can like check in on its status at centennial bulb
(10:55):
dot org. So this is same filament, no, no replaced parts,
it's the same bulb old and it still works, still works,
yeah uh, And and you can go visit it like
on the website. It has information about how you can
see this bulb for yourself. That is very impressive because
obviously this is not an LED bulb or something. This
is Lord knows how they're making light bulbs in nineteen
(11:17):
o one, but this was in some form an incandescent
filament based light bulb. Yes. Now, now getting back to
the idea of fire and technology, I will say that
I don't have an answer regarding things like pilot lights
or you know, forge fires, industrial flames. Um, So there
might be a really good example out there that I
just couldn't find of a of a verified long burning
(11:40):
pilot light or long burning forge fire, that sort of thing.
But if listeners out there have have have something to
submit on that count, let us have it. So, based
on everything I've mentioned here and then, this very much
reflects my mindset going into this. I was thinking, Uh,
(12:02):
you know, before we did any research, before we brought
up the idea of the episode, I would have guessed, well,
the longest raging fire, you know, maybe maybe it's it's gone,
you know, a few weeks, a few months, uh, and
you know the conditions are just right. But beyond that,
I mean, how how long can a fire rage? Uh? Joe,
would you like to get into uh one of the
(12:22):
answers that that we're going to discuss in these episodes. Well,
for the rest of the series, we wanted to talk
about naturally fueled flames. Flames that can burn for a
long long time because humans weren't even necessary to create them, uh,
that they're in they can arise in various ways. We're
going to talk about some major categories I think more
(12:43):
in the next part of this series. But there are
various kinds of of of burning and ignition processes that
it turns out have been going on on the surface
of the Earth for hundreds or even thousands of years,
which of course absolutely just dwarfs everything that that I
(13:03):
that I've mentioned so far. It really puts things on
an entirely different time scale, right, So I wanted to
talk in uh in this episode about one example that
really struck me when I was reading up for this
that's sort of an odd man out, it's not exactly
fitting into the other categories that we're gonna be talking
about in part two, so I figured to be good
to start with this one. So in the Northwest Territories
(13:27):
of Canada, there is a stretch of seaside cliff faces
and hills along the eastern coast of a place called
Cape Bathurst where the earth and the rocks themselves seem
to be perpetually burning, and they have been that way
probably for thousands of years. In English, this place is
(13:51):
known as the Smoking Hills or sometimes the Smoky Mountains,
not to be confused with the ones in along the
Tennessee North Carolina border. Different and smoky mountains literally smoking
in this case, but in the language of the anuvialu It,
and these are the people native to the western Canadian
Arctic region. It is known as nar you At, which
(14:13):
means big fire. And I was poking around for good
historical resources on this place. A lot of the articles
I dug up actually seemed rather confused, offering contradictory details
about early observation. So the best thing I found was
a piece in a magazine called Twosaiosat, which is a
publication devoted to the language, culture and history of the Innuvvaluate.
(14:37):
This article is by Charles Arnold and it's called ing
Near you at the Smoking Hills of Franklin Bay. So
Arnold identifies the earliest written account of the Smoking Hills
as one tracing back to a Scottish naturalist, explorer and
naval surgeon named Sir John Richardson, who wrote about the
(14:57):
hills in the eighteen twenties while documenting an expedition that
he made to chart the coastlines of northern Canada. And
as a side note, this mission was actually organized in
cooperation with another Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, who many
years later in eighteen forty five, would head up the
infamous Lost Franklin Expedition, the goal of which was to
(15:21):
fully chart a northwest sea passage through Canada. They were
hoping to find a way to get around the northern
part of the continent by water. Obviously, this is even
though you know, if you look at a map you'll
see a lot of gaps between the islands of northern Canada.
This is more difficult than it might sound because often
these waterways are are choked with ice. So when Franklin
(15:42):
got lost in the eighteen forties, he was trying to
find this northwest passage. And if you want to know more,
you can look up what's known and unknown about the
voyage of the HMS Terror and the HMS arab Us.
If you want some good hair raising mystery with hints
of cannibalism. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a faculous score. Um.
You know what we've been able to piece together over
(16:03):
the years through you know, the original history and then
the finding of the wreckage and so forth. Um. Dan
Simons wrote a fictional take on the Terror and the
Arabis titled The Terror, which was a brick of a
book that was then made in to an excellent AMC
mini series a few years back. Uh. In this Franklin
(16:23):
is played by the actor Kieren Hines. But I highly
recommend this series. It's a wonderful mix of detailed historic
depiction as well as fantasy and horror. Jared Harris and
Tobias Menzies also star in that. It's really good. Rob
can you do a short version of what we actually
do know about the Lost Franklin expedition? Well, uh, there's
(16:45):
a killer monster that shows up. No, No, that's the
that's the that's the mini series I'm thinking of. Um,
I mean, it's really really story. We could get into
the full episodes really, but but basically, you have these
two vessels that were that we're seeking the North Passage
and they went missing, and and you get into like
what happened to the crew, Like how long were they
(17:06):
marooned out there in the ice and their ships locked
in frozen in Where did where did they get to?
Did anybody actually, you know, make it out. It's presumed,
I think still that they all died. But you know,
there's a lot of there's been a lot of analysis
over the years about uh, you know what happened to them,
and then and then later on we we actually found
(17:27):
the wreckages. There's a famous painting I think that has
to do with this, uh, with this lost voyage called
It's got a really metal album name. It's called something
like Man Proposes, God disposes or something um and it's
the painting is just a polar bearers fighting over scraps
of the wreckage. Yeah, for the for the longest the
(17:49):
wreckage was was just lost entirely, but it was in
September and expedition by Parks Canada discovered first the Arabis
and then two years later they found a terror as
well well. Anyway, coming back to the story, Sorry, so
Dr John Richardson, the author of the account I'm about
to site, was not involved in the lost expedition. He
(18:11):
just was an early collaborator with Franklin. So turning back
to his survey several decades earlier, in traveling along the
shore of the place that would come to be known
as Franklin Bay, Richardson made some observations of something marvelous
cliffs that themselves appeared to be quote on fire giving
(18:32):
out smoke, and where the ground appeared to consist of
quote burnt clay's variously colored yellow, white, and deep red.
I found another source quoting one of Richardson's accounts, where
he says, quote at Cape Bathurst, the northern end of
Franklin Bay, bituminous shale is exposed in many places, and
(18:54):
in my visit there in eighteen six was in a
state of ignition, and the clays which had been thus
at supposed to the heat were baked and vitrified, so
that the spot resembled an old brick field. And I
will say I understand what Richard is is getting at here.
Of course, brick fields are places where bricks are manufactured.
You can look these up on the Internet and you
(19:15):
can see the resemblance with the unnatural look of the
baked earth. But when I look at pictures of the
smoking hills, my computer ruined brain sees these landscapes, and
unfortunately the first place it goes is that it looks
like a level in doom. Yeah, it does. Um it. Also,
I have to say it looks kind of delicious, like
(19:37):
I'm also reminded of I don't like red velvet cake.
It's like red velvet cake emerging from the earth. Yeah, yeah,
And it's very interesting the way they produce these protruding
rock formations. They're very jagged, uh, and they seem to
be rather resistant to weathering compared to the unbaked rock
all around them, which is more smoothed over. Yeah, very jagged, dairy,
(20:00):
and very bloody looking in some cases. Say it looks
like some sort of rock formation that is just gouged
into the flash of a titan. Totally. So that's what
Richardson saw in the eighteen twenties. He says, Hey, you know,
we went past these cliffs. They appeared to be on fire.
They're giving off smoke. We see a lot of burnt clay.
It's yellow white and deep red. Very weird. Looks like
an old brick field. But then the written history of
(20:22):
the Smoking Hills continues after the disappearance of the Franklin
expedition in the eighteen forties. So Franklin, the two ships Franklin,
and the crews go missing, and in the year eighteen fifty,
a ship called the HMS Investigator, under the command of
Captain Robert McClure was searching for survivors of the Franklin
party in the area around Franklin Bay. Once again, when
(20:45):
the crew of this ship came across the same weird
site cliffs by the sea that were strangely covered, and
we're giving off plumes of smoke. And at first they
thought that these might be campfires or signals from the
Franklin survivors, so they sent out a small boat to
check it out, see what's going on. But no, it
(21:06):
was not survivors of the Franklin mission. Arnold in his
article identify as testimony left by a Moravian missionary named
Johann mr Sing who was a member of the shore party.
And this is one where I really wanted to find
the original text, but I don't. I can't if this
has been digitized anywhere, I could not find it. It
(21:26):
appears to be from what's called the Arctic Diary of
Johann mr Ching eighteen fifty eighteen fifty four. That was
that was published in print form in Toronto in nineteen
sixty seven. But but I couldn't find the digital version.
So I'm relying on arnold summaries of of what mr
Ching says. But he says that when they got to
(21:47):
the source of the smoke, they found no human life
alive or dead. Only quote a thick smoke emerging from
various events in the ground, and a smell of sulfur
so strong that we could not approach the smoke pillar
year than ten or fifteen feet flame there was none,
but the ground was so hot that it scorched the
soles of our feet. Arnold says that Mr. Ching compared
(22:09):
the landscape to a huge chemical factory. He says that
water from nearby ponds had been fouled by something from
the earth, and that it that the water tasted sour,
and they brought back samples of rocks from the smoking hills,
brought him back to the ship where he Merching apparently
claims that they ended up burning a hole in the
(22:29):
mahogany table where Captain McClure kept them. So they took
some rocks back to the captain and they're burning up
his furniture. You know this This reminds me again of
the mini series of The Terror because one of the
things that they stressed in that show and Uh, and
they have some of the people involved in the production
that didn't mention this as well. They mentioned that when
(22:49):
then they were researching the ships to portray them on
the show. Uh, there was this this realization that you know,
these were some of them most advanced vessels of any
kind of that time period, and if we were to
compare them to to our modern world, we might well
compare them to spaceships. We might well think of them
(23:12):
in terms of of of something that is meant to
venture beyond our atmosphere. Um. And and here we have
one of the and and Uh. Specifically, this was referring
to the Terror and the Arabis. I'm not quite sure
about the investigator, but I'm assuming that it may have
been a similar in a similar fashion, may have been
a very advanced ship. Um. But but here they are
(23:34):
with the ship essentially arriving at an alien landscape. You know,
it must have just been such a strange sight to behold.
Here you are, um this, you know, this far flung
and ultimately very very hostile, very dangerous environment. And here
here are shores where things are are bloody and burning
and it's like a chemical that, uh, you bring a
(23:55):
piece of it inside the ship and it begins to
burn a hole through the table in front of you.
It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, So here I guess we come
to the question of what is actually causing these hills
to smoke. You might assume, based on background knowledge that, okay,
(24:17):
if there's heat and sulfurous gas coming out of the
ground the sources volcanic, right, that that would be the
obvious assumption. Yeah, that's that's where your mind instantly goes.
But in this case, no, I found one source on
this that that was pretty helpful. It was a paper
called why do the Smoking Hills smoke? Why? Um? It
(24:40):
was published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences in
four by W. H. Matthews and R. M. Bustin. And
this paper invokes a term that I've never heard before.
It refers to areas of fire baked rock as um.
I think this word is French, so I think it
would be pronounced bocan, but it's bo c A N
(25:01):
N E s. And the author is right that you
find these these fire baked rocks in quote cretaceous mudstones
along sea cliffs and in areas of recent slumping. So
the fire baking of the rocks and the earth lead
to these weird patterns of coloration that can easily be
seen with the naked eye, and that we heard described
in the literary sources we just mentioned. So these color
(25:24):
changes include bleaching and reddening of the mud stone, which
is otherwise dark in color, and these colors can remain
even after one of the bocans has stopped burning. And
in places where these rocks are still burning and baking,
you get smoke pouring out, you get sulfurous fumes as
well as high ground temperatures. So the the earth you
(25:45):
walk on gets hot. So what's the cause. Well, the
authors of this paper, they performed a number of different analyzes,
including petrographic, mineralogical, chemical, and calorific analyzes, and they determined
that quote, the boca on are fumed by oxidation of
pyrite and or organic matter. With heating of the strata
(26:07):
by oxidation, combustible gases are driven off that may burn
in restricted areas, resulting in localized melting of the strata. So,
in reading this and a few other sources and putting
things together, I think I understand this now and trying
to put my understanding into other words, A lot of
the rock in this area is mudstone or or type
(26:30):
of shale rock. Mudstone is a sedimentary rock that can
contain hydrocarbon or organic contents, So some amount of fossil
fuel is naturally present in this rock, even if in
low concentrations, and in this case, one of the main
carbon constituents seems to be a form of lignite, which
is a soft brown type of cold that is generally
(26:52):
formed by the underground compression of pete. But this rock
also contains a significant amount of iron pyrite, a mineral
form of of iron sulfide which UM is also known
as fool's gold. Yeah, and you know it's I think
it's always a shame we call fool's golded because it
implies it. It's into a certain extent, it's ugly and
(27:13):
it's without value. But UH, pyrite can can look quite impressive,
you know, if I've seen examples of it in UM, UH,
in mineral museums before UH and UH. And of course
in the fact that it can be used to ignite something.
I believe it was used in UH in firearms in
the past. UM. I did not know that, but that
(27:36):
would make sense now reading about this, because so so
what's going on here is that UM. When the cliff
faces erode here at the smoking Hills and new faces
of the mudstone strata are exposed to oxygen in the atmosphere,
the carbon based fuel and the natural iron pyrite together
(27:56):
undergo oxidation, a chemical reaction which leads to heating. The
oxidation of the iron pye rite here is an exothermic reaction.
It heats up the surrounding rock and this oxidation based
heating leads to the release of flammable gases that are
embedded in the rock. And so the authors think when
these gases are released, they become a form of fuel
(28:20):
evaporating in an environment of extreme heat with exposured oxygen.
So here you have the three magic ingredients, right, you
have fuel escaping, you have it's very hot, and you
have oxygen nearby. So they burn, and these fires further
heat and melt the strata of the rock. And I
believe the implication is that this melting, uh this melting
(28:41):
and baking helps continue to reveal new faces of strata
to the atmosphere so that more oxidation can happen in
the process can just continue it's auto ignition. It ignites
automatically by being exposed to the oxygen, and the process
is self sustaining. The author's right that you tend to
find these bocan only in places where the strata of
(29:03):
sedimentary rock has been suddenly exposed to the atmosphere, maybe
by a landslide or some of the form of erosion
or erosion UH that's left behind after the retreat of glaciers. Now,
coming back to these historical counts, while the stories from
Richardson and the McClure expedition are the earliest written accounts
(29:24):
of the Smoking Hills, UH a new value at oral
traditions about the mountains have been in circulation for much longer.
As I mentioned the the traditional name for this place
is in near you Wat, which means big fire. And
this article by Charles Arnold, then after it recounts the
literary section, it goes into a section on the oral tradition,
(29:45):
including one excellent story that was told to the Danish
anthropologist Canude Rasmussen in nineteen twenty four by a person
living in the Cape Bathurst area named Alan all right Sake.
So this is the story told by on our rightside,
recounted to Rasmussen and and quoted in Arnold here. In
(30:06):
the early infancy of man, people were never alone, whether
they lived in a settlement or were traveling on long journeys,
they were surrounded by a spirit people who lived as
human beings, and were in fact human beings, except that
they were invisible. Their bodies were not for our eyes
or their voices for our ears. And when people traveled
(30:28):
and pitched camp and began to build their snow huts,
one might see round about the snow drifts that the
snow blocks began to move, being lifted out of the
drifts and piled together into a snow house, which seemed
to grow of itself. Occasionally one might see the glitter
of a copper knife, and that was all. They did
not mind people coming into their houses, which were arranged
(30:50):
just like those of human beings. All their belongings were visible,
and people could trade with them very profitably. If one
wished to buy something, all that was necessary was to
point to it and at the same time show what
one was prepared to give for it. If the spirit
people agreed, the object required lifted itself up and moved
(31:10):
towards the man who wanted it. But if they declined
the bargain, the object remained where it was. So people
were never alone. They always had small, silent and invisible
spirits around them. But one day it happened that during
a halt, A man seized his knife and cried, what
do we want with these people who were always right
on our heels. Saying this, he flourished his knife in
(31:34):
the air and thrust it in the direction of the
snow huts that had made themselves. Not a sound was heard,
but the knife was covered in blood. From that moment,
the spirits went away. Never again did anyone see the
wondrous sight of snow drifts forming themselves into snow huts
when one made camp, And forever the people lost their silent,
(31:54):
invisible guardian spirits. It was said that they had gone
to live inside the mouths in order to hide from
man who had mocked and wounded their feelings. That is
why to this day one can see the mountains smoking
from the enormous cooking fires flaming inside them. Oh wow,
that's wonderful. Yeah, I thought this was beautiful, and it
(32:16):
also made me so sad that like the humans betrayed
their their invisible companions. Yeah yeah, and that it also
of course reminds me of of various other accounts that
you see, particularly like Irish traditions, where you have these
traditions of the former people or other other intelligent beings,
(32:36):
be they some sort of spirit fulk or or or
what have you, or something very humanoid in form, and
they've been driven into the earth by the newer people.
And we see a similar trend here. Yeah. Yeah. Arnold's
site stories remembered by other inuvaluate people of the present
describing their their memories of the stories about these people,
(32:56):
describing the smoke from the hills as the cooking fires
of the little people bowl who live inside the mountains.
And there was one story he recorded that really struck me.
This was wonderful. This was quoting a source named Fred
Wolki who said, quote, they're as big as a fork
that you eat with. They use a caribous ear for
(33:16):
a parka. They turn it inside out and they just
have to put it on, just take the inside off
skin it already made park a. One thing that strikes
me as interesting is how there's a convergence on everyone
identifying in some way the smoking hills or in near
you at as as artificial in nature. So in in
(33:39):
these oral traditions, the smoke coming off of the hills
or the cooking fires of the little people or the
invisible people living inside the mountain, but also some of
the earliest written records like uhr Ching's compared the area
to a huge chemical factory. Richard compared it to a
brick field. Both of these are products of human into story.
(34:00):
It's interesting that that everybody seems to look at these
things and think artificial made by people. Yeah, I mean
we just as as Earth is the fire planet, like
we are the people of fire, we are the only
organism that that has come to master it and and
created works with it. So yeah, it makes sense that
(34:22):
that the various cultures would look to this and their
mind would at least temporarily go in the same direction.
In any case, coming back to the question about some
of the longest burning fires, um, I guess part of
this would be dependent on what you're what you're counting
as a fire. When you look at something so like
I think the smoking hills, you will often not some
(34:43):
maybe sometimes you will, but you will often not be
seeing big gouts of flames like you would see at
a camp fire. You'll just see this continuous smoking and
baking of the rock, and so the burning there I
think would be more akin to what you'd see probably
with like a burning coal. You know a piece of
coal that has been ignited. But considering that, we we
(35:06):
can know for pretty sure that the Smoking Hills have
probably been burning for hundreds or thousands of years. And
there are multiple ways you can know this. I think
there's some geological methods, but actually came across one study
offering one interesting piece of evidence for how long these
hills have been burning that I wouldn't have thought of,
which is archaeology. So there was a paper by Raymond J.
(35:28):
LeBlanc in American Antiquity in nineteen ninety one called Prehistoric
Clinker Use on the Cape Bathurst Peninsula, Northwest Territories, Canada,
the Dynamics of formation and procurement and talking about the
background going into this study, LeBlanc says, quote field work
conducted on the Cape Bathurst Peninsula and that's where the
(35:49):
Smoking Hills are um has resulted in the discovery of
seventy five sites representing occupation spanning more than three thousand years.
Nearly all of these sites are characterized by the predominant
use of a distinctive rock called a clinker, resembling a
basalt to obsidian like material. It is formed by the
(36:09):
spontaneous combustion of local organic rich shales. So some of
the weird baked rocks left over at these auto ignition
sites liking near you at uh these rocks have been
used to make tools by the people living in the area,
spanning back thousands of years. And I found that so
interesting too, that you would take these these strange clinker
(36:32):
rocks and turn them into technology. Yeah, yeah, from this
from from this site that we interpret through the lens
of biotechnology. Interesting. Now, one more paper I wanted to
mention before I'm done with the Smoking Hills is by
Magna Havas and Thomas C. Hutchinson, published in Nature in
nine three called the Smoking Hills Naturaliscidification of an Aquatic Ecosystem.
(36:57):
So you remember how those early reports of of the
area report they said that the water of nearby ponds
was foul and sour. Well, we know why that happens. Now.
This is due to the acidification of the water by
the sulfur dioxide produced by these mineral burning sites. So
the water is very acidic, and this has actually changed
(37:19):
the composition of the local microbial life and and insect
life and stuff that the life that inhabits the area.
So the authors here right quote. In an area of
typically alkaline ponds with pH above eight point oh, ponds
within the fumigation zone have been acidified below a pH
of two point oh. Elevated concentrations of metals including aluminum, iron, zinc, nickel, manganese,
(37:44):
and cadmium occur in these acidic ponds. Soils and sediments
have also been chemically altered. The biota and these acidic
ponds are characteristic of acidic environments worldwide in contrast to
the typically arctic biota in adjacent alkali ponds. So the
burning of the earth alters the chemical characteristics of the landscape,
(38:06):
which in turn changed the bioecology. The chain reaction started
thousands of years ago when these cliff faces and rocks
were eroded and exposed the minerals to oxygen. The oxidation
of the pyrite and the organic contents of the mudstone
and the burning began. And this led to, over the
thousands of years, a complete transformation of the surrounding ecosystem
(38:29):
into one of these strange extremophile, acid rich biosystems. Wow,
that's impressive, um, you know, and and thinking about this
and thinking about extreme environments and uh and uh and
so forth, and and also kind of going back to
the idea of these uh, these these these ships being
sort of like spaceships, uh, sailing upon these uh the strange,
(38:53):
alien seeming environment. I I ran across a two paper
in Chemical Geology the Journal Chemical Geology by Graspy at
All that looked at the Smoking Hills as a possible
analog for some geological conditions that have been observed on Mars. Um.
(39:13):
Just to read a quick quote, um oxidative weathering of
this unit creates extensive gerocide rich deposits and bandage gerocide
and philo silicate rich mudstones similar to those observed on Mars.
So I read through this paper here and it's it's
it's pretty pretty deeply. It's the Chemical Geology general, so
(39:37):
it's it's a bit dense of for my taste anyway.
But the author is, if I'm understanding that correctly, they're
suggesting that such signs on Mars some some similar looking
details that we've observed on Mars via the probes we've
sent there, if we interpret them through the lens of
the Smoking Hills, it could possibly suggest a more habitable
(39:59):
period Mars ancient past so that's fascinated to think about
that as well. Absolutely so. I think maybe this is
where we need to cap it for part one here,
but there's so much more to talk about because the
world is full of surprising and fascinating naturally fueled flames,
and I think it will make for a carnival of
(40:21):
geological wonders to to explore in the next part of
this series. That's right, so tune in on Thursday as
we continue with more fire from the Rocks. In the meantime,
if you like to check out other episodes of Stuff
to Blow Your Mind, you can find them on Tuesdays
and Thursdays and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. UM.
I think most of the invention episodes that we recorded,
(40:43):
several of which are dealt with fire technology and fire
related technology. I think most of those have been republished,
if not all of them have been republished in this feed,
but if not, you can also find the the podcast
feed for Invention out there. UM. That was a fun
though short lived show that we did on the side
dealing with inventions UM in the Stuff to Blow Your
(41:03):
Mind podcast feed. Though we also do listener mail on Monday's,
we do in a short form artifact or monster fact.
On Wednesdays and on Friday we do something called Weird
House Cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious
concerns and just talk about a strange film, huge things.
As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
If you would like to get in touch with us
(41:23):
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
(41:44):
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're
listening to your favorite shows. B twenty fo pographic posts
Far Back bo
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. When
we think about fire, and we do think about fire
a lot on this show, let's come out the time
and time again. What are you are you confessing something
(00:25):
that we that we love fire, that we worship fire,
that we delight in its um, its growth, and its consumption. Um. No,
but it is it must be fed. But it is
an important aspect of Earth. You know, as we discussed
on past episodes. You know, Earth is the only planet
known to have fire, and there was a time when
(00:45):
there was no fire on Earth because it wasn't possible yet. Um.
You know fire. When we think about fire, we think
about its fleeting nature, but also it's potential, it's tremendous
power provided conditions are just right. Um. It's uh. It's
always interesting to think about how fire is in many
ways more un event than a thing, and for it
(01:05):
to happen you need heat, fuel and oxygen, and the
fuel and the oxygen we're not always present on our planet.
Fire is more or less an aspect of the New
Earth and The earliest evidence of charred vegetation dates back
a mere four hundred and forty million years. Right, So
today natural forest fires are just part of the cycle
of life on the surface of Earth. But there was
(01:27):
a time when Earth had its first forest fire. Can
you imagine that, like the first time that ever happened. Yeah, yeah,
it's crazy to imagine. And so this is this has
been an aspect of life under their earth ever since. Um.
And yeah, with with fire, it's it's interesting too because
there's this trifecta. Obviously this necessary for it to exist. Um,
(01:49):
but it is a delicate tripod. Remove one of the
legs of the fire tripod and the fire will perish.
Uh So. Yeah, our relationship with fire is sometimes like
whoe is out of control? And other times it is
you know, I can't get this thing to light at all? Um.
You know. So I think we're all familiar with that,
with the dual nature of fire. Uh So. For today's episode,
(02:12):
and this will spill it into the next episode as well,
I thought we might start with just what I thought
was just really tantalizing question because I'd never really thought
about it before, not not until you brought up this topic.
And that is what is the longest that a single
fire has raged? Uh? And I guess they're all sorts
of sort of artificial parameters we might throw in. You know,
(02:34):
what constitutes a single fire versus multiple fire spread out
over time? Uh? I guess we kind of have to
take the human scenario of like a hearth or a
camp fire and imagine that is sort of our basic principle,
like a single a single flame that keeps eating things,
keeps consuming, maybe it moves. But what is the longest
(02:55):
that such a fire has raged without snuffing out completely
and having to be reset one way or another? Great question? Yeah,
so of course you know the answer, and I that
I know the answer to now. But but putting ourselves
in the mindset of someone who doesn't know the answer,
you might likely turn to a few different categories to
start off. And the first would be what we just
(03:16):
talked about, forest fires. Um. So you know, as long
as we've had forests and fire, uh, this has been
a possibility here on earth. Uh. Many of the worst
forest fires in history, though, are measured in terms of acres, destruction,
and fatality rather than in time. But if you dig,
dig down, you you can start seeing some some time
(03:38):
stamps on things. Many of the worst are dated to
just a single day in human history um. Others last
longer though some of the consist of multiple blazes, So
it becomes perhaps a little more of a challenge to
think of a continuous fire in these cases. Uh, though
in many of the cases I think it does fit.
Some wildfire seasons, of course, span many months, and then
(03:59):
you have you have particular fires that have raged for
a period of time. There's the Coyote Fire of nineteen
siour in Santa Barbara, California, which lasted from September one
to October one. So it seems we might if we're
thinking about about modern forest fires, we're gonna probably look
at something lasting days months, um uh, somewhere in that range. Now,
(04:23):
as for wildfires of yesteryear, as well as blazes caused
by prehistoric extinction events, I I couldn't find any stats
on this, but I suppose it's worth thinking about. But
it's also worth thinking about the fact that when you
have a particularly large energetic fire, it can ultimately become
something entirely different. You've become this this fire storm which
(04:43):
creates and sustains its own wind system. So I mean,
I guess that's one of the reasons when we start
looking at some of these big blazes, they do tremendous damage,
they can cover a pretty large area, but they're still
not lasting long and time because they're just eating through
all of that fuel in a relatively short period of time.
(05:05):
And of course, with when we're talking about wildfires, we
also have to think about the fact that, uh, you know,
the human civilization has a has an impact as well
on just how wildfires will play out through a given
forest scenario. Uh, you know, and to a certain extent,
you know, we've we've been able to to jump in
with um with orchestrated burns, control burns to try and
(05:29):
uh simulate sort of the natural cycle of fires that
would normally occur um. But another area where you have
to factor in human civilization is of course when you're
dealing with urban fires, where the trees and various other
aspects of the natural world have been remade into an
artificial environment a city, and then what happens when that
(05:50):
catches fire. Well, I think a lot of the same
practicalities are involved here as well. Some of the great
fires to ravage cities are often measured to a single
date in time UM, though there are some exceptions. There's
the uh There's the one b C burning of Carthage,
which reportedly took seventeen days. But this was also said
(06:14):
to be a systematic burning of the city by the Romans,
So I'm not sure if that would count UH so
much because it was it was one of these situations obviously,
where the Romans are like, let's burn the city down,
let's make sure everything burns through. There are some other
fires that are that are worth mentioning. There's the Great
Fire of Utricht in the Netherlands that lasted nine days
(06:35):
reportedly in twelve fifty three. There's the eighty nine first
Great Fire of Lynn, Massachusetts, reportedly last two weeks, destroying
roughly a hundred buildings. So it looks like, if we
were going to say it looked to the world of
like urban fires, for some sort of a candidate for
longest fire, you're gonna be looking at something in the
realm of days two weeks, But figures beyond that seemed
(06:57):
kind of doubtful. All right. The next area to think about, though,
would be, of course, human sustained fires. What about situations
in which a human cultivated flame, a flame that's kept
and fed more or less like a pet either for
technological purposes, say like a forge or a pilot light,
or something that's more religious or secular, or a secular
(07:20):
symbol in nature, you know, something like a holy fire
that's kept going, or some sort of a monument that
has an eternal flame hooked up to it. I was
shocked to discover how many monuments there are that have
so called eternal flames on them because I don't know,
maybe it's just uh, my morbid brain, but it seems
like calling a flame eternal is just tempting the faces.
(07:43):
Like you you know, this is not this flame will
not burn forever. It's like settled down. You can't call
it eternal. I was trying to think what you should
call it instead. I can't come up with anything. I
don't know, maybe the long burning flame or something, or
the attempted eternal flame. It's just eternal is not gonna happen, right, Yeah,
I mean I guess, and to a certain extent, I
guess this is obvious. Like they're getting into the idea
(08:04):
of like the fire is something that is that it
can go out and it has to be cultivated. And
you know, a lot of these are tied to two
causes and memories with the with the idea of saying like, hey,
let's let's let's make a point of remembering this individual
or remembering this cause. Um, and and we'll use the
fire as a symbol. Uh. But that that yeah, And
(08:27):
there have been a number of these that that have
sprung up just at the end of the twentieth century
and and even you know, in the twenty one century.
And uh and and it's also and it's certainly with
the older ones that it gets more difficult to really
figure out. Okay, has this been truly a perpetual eternal
fire or has it gone out at least once, if
not multiple times over the span of time that is
(08:49):
attributed to it. I'm sorry that Roger Corman is invading
my brain right now, but I'm thinking of a line
and attack at the Crab Monsters where the giant psychic
crab they're assaulting it with with different types of weapons.
The humans are trying to defeat it, and at some
point they use a fire based weapon and the crab
counters by telling them he says something like that was
(09:09):
quick thinking Dale, but the pity is that all fires
must one day burn out. True, it's true. Um. But
by the way, more fairly recently, someone was asking, I
think in the discord for Stuff to blow your mind,
what are all the episodes in which Joe has mentioned
attack of the crab monsters. No one had a clear answer,
(09:30):
but a few a few episodes were brought up in
which people remembered you you mentioning it. We'll add this
to the list. Okay. Uh So, out of the various
examples that come up, but one that I thought was
pretty interesting is that of the the dast show in
Temple Complex in Japan that has a flame that is
said to have been burning for about twelve hundred years. Obviously,
(09:51):
it's impossible to say with something like this, uh. And
ultimately I guess the it's the idea of the continuous
flame that is most portant here. Uh. But but still
this is an example of one that has supposedly been
burning for over a thousand years. Now. This is not
quite a flame. But I ran across this as well,
(10:12):
and I thought I mentioned just because it's amusing and
and maybe we have some listeners who can who can
report on this firsthand. But there is something known as
the Centennial light bulb in Livermore, California, specifically in the
firehouse there. It's been burning there, uh, the bulb since
nine one, though this has not been continuous. There have
(10:33):
been power outages and electrical issues, etcetera. So I'm not
sure exactly like what the ratio is between the time
during that century plus that the light has been out
versus on. But it's certainly a very old light bulb
that still lights up. And there is a webcam you
can like check in on its status at centennial bulb
(10:55):
dot org. So this is same filament, no, no replaced parts,
it's the same bulb old and it still works, still works,
yeah uh, And and you can go visit it like
on the website. It has information about how you can
see this bulb for yourself. That is very impressive because
obviously this is not an LED bulb or something. This
is Lord knows how they're making light bulbs in nineteen
(11:17):
o one, but this was in some form an incandescent
filament based light bulb. Yes. Now, now getting back to
the idea of fire and technology, I will say that
I don't have an answer regarding things like pilot lights
or you know, forge fires, industrial flames. Um, So there
might be a really good example out there that I
just couldn't find of a of a verified long burning
(11:40):
pilot light or long burning forge fire, that sort of thing.
But if listeners out there have have have something to
submit on that count, let us have it. So, based
on everything I've mentioned here and then, this very much
reflects my mindset going into this. I was thinking, Uh,
(12:02):
you know, before we did any research, before we brought
up the idea of the episode, I would have guessed, well,
the longest raging fire, you know, maybe maybe it's it's gone,
you know, a few weeks, a few months, uh, and
you know the conditions are just right. But beyond that,
I mean, how how long can a fire rage? Uh? Joe,
would you like to get into uh one of the
(12:22):
answers that that we're going to discuss in these episodes. Well,
for the rest of the series, we wanted to talk
about naturally fueled flames. Flames that can burn for a
long long time because humans weren't even necessary to create them, uh,
that they're in they can arise in various ways. We're
going to talk about some major categories I think more
(12:43):
in the next part of this series. But there are
various kinds of of of burning and ignition processes that
it turns out have been going on on the surface
of the Earth for hundreds or even thousands of years,
which of course absolutely just dwarfs everything that that I
(13:03):
that I've mentioned so far. It really puts things on
an entirely different time scale, right, So I wanted to
talk in uh in this episode about one example that
really struck me when I was reading up for this
that's sort of an odd man out, it's not exactly
fitting into the other categories that we're gonna be talking
about in part two, so I figured to be good
to start with this one. So in the Northwest Territories
(13:27):
of Canada, there is a stretch of seaside cliff faces
and hills along the eastern coast of a place called
Cape Bathurst where the earth and the rocks themselves seem
to be perpetually burning, and they have been that way
probably for thousands of years. In English, this place is
(13:51):
known as the Smoking Hills or sometimes the Smoky Mountains,
not to be confused with the ones in along the
Tennessee North Carolina border. Different and smoky mountains literally smoking
in this case, but in the language of the anuvialu It,
and these are the people native to the western Canadian
Arctic region. It is known as nar you At, which
(14:13):
means big fire. And I was poking around for good
historical resources on this place. A lot of the articles
I dug up actually seemed rather confused, offering contradictory details
about early observation. So the best thing I found was
a piece in a magazine called Twosaiosat, which is a
publication devoted to the language, culture and history of the Innuvvaluate.
(14:37):
This article is by Charles Arnold and it's called ing
Near you at the Smoking Hills of Franklin Bay. So
Arnold identifies the earliest written account of the Smoking Hills
as one tracing back to a Scottish naturalist, explorer and
naval surgeon named Sir John Richardson, who wrote about the
(14:57):
hills in the eighteen twenties while documenting an expedition that
he made to chart the coastlines of northern Canada. And
as a side note, this mission was actually organized in
cooperation with another Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, who many
years later in eighteen forty five, would head up the
infamous Lost Franklin Expedition, the goal of which was to
(15:21):
fully chart a northwest sea passage through Canada. They were
hoping to find a way to get around the northern
part of the continent by water. Obviously, this is even
though you know, if you look at a map you'll
see a lot of gaps between the islands of northern Canada.
This is more difficult than it might sound because often
these waterways are are choked with ice. So when Franklin
(15:42):
got lost in the eighteen forties, he was trying to
find this northwest passage. And if you want to know more,
you can look up what's known and unknown about the
voyage of the HMS Terror and the HMS arab Us.
If you want some good hair raising mystery with hints
of cannibalism. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a faculous score. Um.
You know what we've been able to piece together over
(16:03):
the years through you know, the original history and then
the finding of the wreckage and so forth. Um. Dan
Simons wrote a fictional take on the Terror and the
Arabis titled The Terror, which was a brick of a
book that was then made in to an excellent AMC
mini series a few years back. Uh. In this Franklin
(16:23):
is played by the actor Kieren Hines. But I highly
recommend this series. It's a wonderful mix of detailed historic
depiction as well as fantasy and horror. Jared Harris and
Tobias Menzies also star in that. It's really good. Rob
can you do a short version of what we actually
do know about the Lost Franklin expedition? Well, uh, there's
(16:45):
a killer monster that shows up. No, No, that's the
that's the that's the mini series I'm thinking of. Um,
I mean, it's really really story. We could get into
the full episodes really, but but basically, you have these
two vessels that were that we're seeking the North Passage
and they went missing, and and you get into like
what happened to the crew, Like how long were they
(17:06):
marooned out there in the ice and their ships locked
in frozen in Where did where did they get to?
Did anybody actually, you know, make it out. It's presumed,
I think still that they all died. But you know,
there's a lot of there's been a lot of analysis
over the years about uh, you know what happened to them,
and then and then later on we we actually found
(17:27):
the wreckages. There's a famous painting I think that has
to do with this, uh, with this lost voyage called
It's got a really metal album name. It's called something
like Man Proposes, God disposes or something um and it's
the painting is just a polar bearers fighting over scraps
of the wreckage. Yeah, for the for the longest the
(17:49):
wreckage was was just lost entirely, but it was in
September and expedition by Parks Canada discovered first the Arabis
and then two years later they found a terror as
well well. Anyway, coming back to the story, Sorry, so
Dr John Richardson, the author of the account I'm about
to site, was not involved in the lost expedition. He
(18:11):
just was an early collaborator with Franklin. So turning back
to his survey several decades earlier, in traveling along the
shore of the place that would come to be known
as Franklin Bay, Richardson made some observations of something marvelous
cliffs that themselves appeared to be quote on fire giving
(18:32):
out smoke, and where the ground appeared to consist of
quote burnt clay's variously colored yellow, white, and deep red.
I found another source quoting one of Richardson's accounts, where
he says, quote at Cape Bathurst, the northern end of
Franklin Bay, bituminous shale is exposed in many places, and
(18:54):
in my visit there in eighteen six was in a
state of ignition, and the clays which had been thus
at supposed to the heat were baked and vitrified, so
that the spot resembled an old brick field. And I
will say I understand what Richard is is getting at here.
Of course, brick fields are places where bricks are manufactured.
You can look these up on the Internet and you
(19:15):
can see the resemblance with the unnatural look of the
baked earth. But when I look at pictures of the
smoking hills, my computer ruined brain sees these landscapes, and
unfortunately the first place it goes is that it looks
like a level in doom. Yeah, it does. Um it. Also,
I have to say it looks kind of delicious, like
(19:37):
I'm also reminded of I don't like red velvet cake.
It's like red velvet cake emerging from the earth. Yeah, yeah,
And it's very interesting the way they produce these protruding
rock formations. They're very jagged, uh, and they seem to
be rather resistant to weathering compared to the unbaked rock
all around them, which is more smoothed over. Yeah, very jagged, dairy,
(20:00):
and very bloody looking in some cases. Say it looks
like some sort of rock formation that is just gouged
into the flash of a titan. Totally. So that's what
Richardson saw in the eighteen twenties. He says, Hey, you know,
we went past these cliffs. They appeared to be on fire.
They're giving off smoke. We see a lot of burnt clay.
It's yellow white and deep red. Very weird. Looks like
an old brick field. But then the written history of
(20:22):
the Smoking Hills continues after the disappearance of the Franklin
expedition in the eighteen forties. So Franklin, the two ships Franklin,
and the crews go missing, and in the year eighteen fifty,
a ship called the HMS Investigator, under the command of
Captain Robert McClure was searching for survivors of the Franklin
party in the area around Franklin Bay. Once again, when
(20:45):
the crew of this ship came across the same weird
site cliffs by the sea that were strangely covered, and
we're giving off plumes of smoke. And at first they
thought that these might be campfires or signals from the
Franklin survivors, so they sent out a small boat to
check it out, see what's going on. But no, it
(21:06):
was not survivors of the Franklin mission. Arnold in his
article identify as testimony left by a Moravian missionary named
Johann mr Sing who was a member of the shore party.
And this is one where I really wanted to find
the original text, but I don't. I can't if this
has been digitized anywhere, I could not find it. It
(21:26):
appears to be from what's called the Arctic Diary of
Johann mr Ching eighteen fifty eighteen fifty four. That was
that was published in print form in Toronto in nineteen
sixty seven. But but I couldn't find the digital version.
So I'm relying on arnold summaries of of what mr
Ching says. But he says that when they got to
(21:47):
the source of the smoke, they found no human life
alive or dead. Only quote a thick smoke emerging from
various events in the ground, and a smell of sulfur
so strong that we could not approach the smoke pillar
year than ten or fifteen feet flame there was none,
but the ground was so hot that it scorched the
soles of our feet. Arnold says that Mr. Ching compared
(22:09):
the landscape to a huge chemical factory. He says that
water from nearby ponds had been fouled by something from
the earth, and that it that the water tasted sour,
and they brought back samples of rocks from the smoking hills,
brought him back to the ship where he Merching apparently
claims that they ended up burning a hole in the
(22:29):
mahogany table where Captain McClure kept them. So they took
some rocks back to the captain and they're burning up
his furniture. You know this This reminds me again of
the mini series of The Terror because one of the
things that they stressed in that show and Uh, and
they have some of the people involved in the production
that didn't mention this as well. They mentioned that when
(22:49):
then they were researching the ships to portray them on
the show. Uh, there was this this realization that you know,
these were some of them most advanced vessels of any
kind of that time period, and if we were to
compare them to to our modern world, we might well
compare them to spaceships. We might well think of them
(23:12):
in terms of of of something that is meant to
venture beyond our atmosphere. Um. And and here we have
one of the and and Uh. Specifically, this was referring
to the Terror and the Arabis. I'm not quite sure
about the investigator, but I'm assuming that it may have
been a similar in a similar fashion, may have been
a very advanced ship. Um. But but here they are
(23:34):
with the ship essentially arriving at an alien landscape. You know,
it must have just been such a strange sight to behold.
Here you are, um this, you know, this far flung
and ultimately very very hostile, very dangerous environment. And here
here are shores where things are are bloody and burning
and it's like a chemical that, uh, you bring a
(23:55):
piece of it inside the ship and it begins to
burn a hole through the table in front of you.
It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, So here I guess we come
to the question of what is actually causing these hills
to smoke. You might assume, based on background knowledge that, okay,
(24:17):
if there's heat and sulfurous gas coming out of the
ground the sources volcanic, right, that that would be the
obvious assumption. Yeah, that's that's where your mind instantly goes.
But in this case, no, I found one source on
this that that was pretty helpful. It was a paper
called why do the Smoking Hills smoke? Why? Um? It
(24:40):
was published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences in
four by W. H. Matthews and R. M. Bustin. And
this paper invokes a term that I've never heard before.
It refers to areas of fire baked rock as um.
I think this word is French, so I think it
would be pronounced bocan, but it's bo c A N
(25:01):
N E s. And the author is right that you
find these these fire baked rocks in quote cretaceous mudstones
along sea cliffs and in areas of recent slumping. So
the fire baking of the rocks and the earth lead
to these weird patterns of coloration that can easily be
seen with the naked eye, and that we heard described
in the literary sources we just mentioned. So these color
(25:24):
changes include bleaching and reddening of the mud stone, which
is otherwise dark in color, and these colors can remain
even after one of the bocans has stopped burning. And
in places where these rocks are still burning and baking,
you get smoke pouring out, you get sulfurous fumes as
well as high ground temperatures. So the the earth you
(25:45):
walk on gets hot. So what's the cause. Well, the
authors of this paper, they performed a number of different analyzes,
including petrographic, mineralogical, chemical, and calorific analyzes, and they determined
that quote, the boca on are fumed by oxidation of
pyrite and or organic matter. With heating of the strata
(26:07):
by oxidation, combustible gases are driven off that may burn
in restricted areas, resulting in localized melting of the strata. So,
in reading this and a few other sources and putting
things together, I think I understand this now and trying
to put my understanding into other words, A lot of
the rock in this area is mudstone or or type
(26:30):
of shale rock. Mudstone is a sedimentary rock that can
contain hydrocarbon or organic contents, So some amount of fossil
fuel is naturally present in this rock, even if in
low concentrations, and in this case, one of the main
carbon constituents seems to be a form of lignite, which
is a soft brown type of cold that is generally
(26:52):
formed by the underground compression of pete. But this rock
also contains a significant amount of iron pyrite, a mineral
form of of iron sulfide which UM is also known
as fool's gold. Yeah, and you know it's I think
it's always a shame we call fool's golded because it
implies it. It's into a certain extent, it's ugly and
(27:13):
it's without value. But UH, pyrite can can look quite impressive,
you know, if I've seen examples of it in UM, UH,
in mineral museums before UH and UH. And of course
in the fact that it can be used to ignite something.
I believe it was used in UH in firearms in
the past. UM. I did not know that, but that
(27:36):
would make sense now reading about this, because so so
what's going on here is that UM. When the cliff
faces erode here at the smoking Hills and new faces
of the mudstone strata are exposed to oxygen in the atmosphere,
the carbon based fuel and the natural iron pyrite together
(27:56):
undergo oxidation, a chemical reaction which leads to heating. The
oxidation of the iron pye rite here is an exothermic reaction.
It heats up the surrounding rock and this oxidation based
heating leads to the release of flammable gases that are
embedded in the rock. And so the authors think when
these gases are released, they become a form of fuel
(28:20):
evaporating in an environment of extreme heat with exposured oxygen.
So here you have the three magic ingredients, right, you
have fuel escaping, you have it's very hot, and you
have oxygen nearby. So they burn, and these fires further
heat and melt the strata of the rock. And I
believe the implication is that this melting, uh this melting
(28:41):
and baking helps continue to reveal new faces of strata
to the atmosphere so that more oxidation can happen in
the process can just continue it's auto ignition. It ignites
automatically by being exposed to the oxygen, and the process
is self sustaining. The author's right that you tend to
find these bocan only in places where the strata of
(29:03):
sedimentary rock has been suddenly exposed to the atmosphere, maybe
by a landslide or some of the form of erosion
or erosion UH that's left behind after the retreat of glaciers. Now,
coming back to these historical counts, while the stories from
Richardson and the McClure expedition are the earliest written accounts
(29:24):
of the Smoking Hills, UH a new value at oral
traditions about the mountains have been in circulation for much longer.
As I mentioned the the traditional name for this place
is in near you Wat, which means big fire. And
this article by Charles Arnold, then after it recounts the
literary section, it goes into a section on the oral tradition,
(29:45):
including one excellent story that was told to the Danish
anthropologist Canude Rasmussen in nineteen twenty four by a person
living in the Cape Bathurst area named Alan all right Sake.
So this is the story told by on our rightside,
recounted to Rasmussen and and quoted in Arnold here. In
(30:06):
the early infancy of man, people were never alone, whether
they lived in a settlement or were traveling on long journeys,
they were surrounded by a spirit people who lived as
human beings, and were in fact human beings, except that
they were invisible. Their bodies were not for our eyes
or their voices for our ears. And when people traveled
(30:28):
and pitched camp and began to build their snow huts,
one might see round about the snow drifts that the
snow blocks began to move, being lifted out of the
drifts and piled together into a snow house, which seemed
to grow of itself. Occasionally one might see the glitter
of a copper knife, and that was all. They did
not mind people coming into their houses, which were arranged
(30:50):
just like those of human beings. All their belongings were visible,
and people could trade with them very profitably. If one
wished to buy something, all that was necessary was to
point to it and at the same time show what
one was prepared to give for it. If the spirit
people agreed, the object required lifted itself up and moved
(31:10):
towards the man who wanted it. But if they declined
the bargain, the object remained where it was. So people
were never alone. They always had small, silent and invisible
spirits around them. But one day it happened that during
a halt, A man seized his knife and cried, what
do we want with these people who were always right
on our heels. Saying this, he flourished his knife in
(31:34):
the air and thrust it in the direction of the
snow huts that had made themselves. Not a sound was heard,
but the knife was covered in blood. From that moment,
the spirits went away. Never again did anyone see the
wondrous sight of snow drifts forming themselves into snow huts
when one made camp, And forever the people lost their silent,
(31:54):
invisible guardian spirits. It was said that they had gone
to live inside the mouths in order to hide from
man who had mocked and wounded their feelings. That is
why to this day one can see the mountains smoking
from the enormous cooking fires flaming inside them. Oh wow,
that's wonderful. Yeah, I thought this was beautiful, and it
(32:16):
also made me so sad that like the humans betrayed
their their invisible companions. Yeah yeah, and that it also
of course reminds me of of various other accounts that
you see, particularly like Irish traditions, where you have these
traditions of the former people or other other intelligent beings,
(32:36):
be they some sort of spirit fulk or or or
what have you, or something very humanoid in form, and
they've been driven into the earth by the newer people.
And we see a similar trend here. Yeah. Yeah. Arnold's
site stories remembered by other inuvaluate people of the present
describing their their memories of the stories about these people,
(32:56):
describing the smoke from the hills as the cooking fires
of the little people bowl who live inside the mountains.
And there was one story he recorded that really struck me.
This was wonderful. This was quoting a source named Fred
Wolki who said, quote, they're as big as a fork
that you eat with. They use a caribous ear for
(33:16):
a parka. They turn it inside out and they just
have to put it on, just take the inside off
skin it already made park a. One thing that strikes
me as interesting is how there's a convergence on everyone
identifying in some way the smoking hills or in near
you at as as artificial in nature. So in in
(33:39):
these oral traditions, the smoke coming off of the hills
or the cooking fires of the little people or the
invisible people living inside the mountain, but also some of
the earliest written records like uhr Ching's compared the area
to a huge chemical factory. Richard compared it to a
brick field. Both of these are products of human into story.
(34:00):
It's interesting that that everybody seems to look at these
things and think artificial made by people. Yeah, I mean
we just as as Earth is the fire planet, like
we are the people of fire, we are the only
organism that that has come to master it and and
created works with it. So yeah, it makes sense that
(34:22):
that the various cultures would look to this and their
mind would at least temporarily go in the same direction.
In any case, coming back to the question about some
of the longest burning fires, um, I guess part of
this would be dependent on what you're what you're counting
as a fire. When you look at something so like
I think the smoking hills, you will often not some
(34:43):
maybe sometimes you will, but you will often not be
seeing big gouts of flames like you would see at
a camp fire. You'll just see this continuous smoking and
baking of the rock, and so the burning there I
think would be more akin to what you'd see probably
with like a burning coal. You know a piece of
coal that has been ignited. But considering that, we we
(35:06):
can know for pretty sure that the Smoking Hills have
probably been burning for hundreds or thousands of years. And
there are multiple ways you can know this. I think
there's some geological methods, but actually came across one study
offering one interesting piece of evidence for how long these
hills have been burning that I wouldn't have thought of,
which is archaeology. So there was a paper by Raymond J.
(35:28):
LeBlanc in American Antiquity in nineteen ninety one called Prehistoric
Clinker Use on the Cape Bathurst Peninsula, Northwest Territories, Canada,
the Dynamics of formation and procurement and talking about the
background going into this study, LeBlanc says, quote field work
conducted on the Cape Bathurst Peninsula and that's where the
(35:49):
Smoking Hills are um has resulted in the discovery of
seventy five sites representing occupation spanning more than three thousand years.
Nearly all of these sites are characterized by the predominant
use of a distinctive rock called a clinker, resembling a
basalt to obsidian like material. It is formed by the
(36:09):
spontaneous combustion of local organic rich shales. So some of
the weird baked rocks left over at these auto ignition
sites liking near you at uh these rocks have been
used to make tools by the people living in the area,
spanning back thousands of years. And I found that so
interesting too, that you would take these these strange clinker
(36:32):
rocks and turn them into technology. Yeah, yeah, from this
from from this site that we interpret through the lens
of biotechnology. Interesting. Now, one more paper I wanted to
mention before I'm done with the Smoking Hills is by
Magna Havas and Thomas C. Hutchinson, published in Nature in
nine three called the Smoking Hills Naturaliscidification of an Aquatic Ecosystem.
(36:57):
So you remember how those early reports of of the
area report they said that the water of nearby ponds
was foul and sour. Well, we know why that happens. Now.
This is due to the acidification of the water by
the sulfur dioxide produced by these mineral burning sites. So
the water is very acidic, and this has actually changed
(37:19):
the composition of the local microbial life and and insect
life and stuff that the life that inhabits the area.
So the authors here right quote. In an area of
typically alkaline ponds with pH above eight point oh, ponds
within the fumigation zone have been acidified below a pH
of two point oh. Elevated concentrations of metals including aluminum, iron, zinc, nickel, manganese,
(37:44):
and cadmium occur in these acidic ponds. Soils and sediments
have also been chemically altered. The biota and these acidic
ponds are characteristic of acidic environments worldwide in contrast to
the typically arctic biota in adjacent alkali ponds. So the
burning of the earth alters the chemical characteristics of the landscape,
(38:06):
which in turn changed the bioecology. The chain reaction started
thousands of years ago when these cliff faces and rocks
were eroded and exposed the minerals to oxygen. The oxidation
of the pyrite and the organic contents of the mudstone
and the burning began. And this led to, over the
thousands of years, a complete transformation of the surrounding ecosystem
(38:29):
into one of these strange extremophile, acid rich biosystems. Wow,
that's impressive, um, you know, and and thinking about this
and thinking about extreme environments and uh and uh and
so forth, and and also kind of going back to
the idea of these uh, these these these ships being
sort of like spaceships, uh, sailing upon these uh the strange,
(38:53):
alien seeming environment. I I ran across a two paper
in Chemical Geology the Journal Chemical Geology by Graspy at
All that looked at the Smoking Hills as a possible
analog for some geological conditions that have been observed on Mars. Um.
(39:13):
Just to read a quick quote, um oxidative weathering of
this unit creates extensive gerocide rich deposits and bandage gerocide
and philo silicate rich mudstones similar to those observed on Mars.
So I read through this paper here and it's it's
it's pretty pretty deeply. It's the Chemical Geology general, so
(39:37):
it's it's a bit dense of for my taste anyway.
But the author is, if I'm understanding that correctly, they're
suggesting that such signs on Mars some some similar looking
details that we've observed on Mars via the probes we've
sent there, if we interpret them through the lens of
the Smoking Hills, it could possibly suggest a more habitable
(39:59):
period Mars ancient past so that's fascinated to think about
that as well. Absolutely so. I think maybe this is
where we need to cap it for part one here,
but there's so much more to talk about because the
world is full of surprising and fascinating naturally fueled flames,
and I think it will make for a carnival of
(40:21):
geological wonders to to explore in the next part of
this series. That's right, so tune in on Thursday as
we continue with more fire from the Rocks. In the meantime,
if you like to check out other episodes of Stuff
to Blow Your Mind, you can find them on Tuesdays
and Thursdays and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. UM.
I think most of the invention episodes that we recorded,
(40:43):
several of which are dealt with fire technology and fire
related technology. I think most of those have been republished,
if not all of them have been republished in this feed,
but if not, you can also find the the podcast
feed for Invention out there. UM. That was a fun
though short lived show that we did on the side
dealing with inventions UM in the Stuff to Blow Your
(41:03):
Mind podcast feed. Though we also do listener mail on Monday's,
we do in a short form artifact or monster fact.
On Wednesdays and on Friday we do something called Weird
House Cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious
concerns and just talk about a strange film, huge things.
As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
If you would like to get in touch with us
(41:23):
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
(41:44):
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're
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