tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.comments2024-03-21T21:44:18.051-10:00Daniel's MusingsDaniel Berkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comBlogger615125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-31951697144927063862023-08-02T22:44:39.368-10:002023-08-02T22:44:39.368-10:00So, there are two reasons that'd be really ris...So, there are two reasons that'd be really risky. I need line-of-sight from the drone to the controller, so I'd have to be standing right up at the edge of the pit to be able to control it. That's not *impossible*, but the drone also holds it position with GPS, of which it'd see fewer and fewer satellites as it went down, meaning I'd have to constantly be maneuvering it to keep it from brushing the walls. If the pit were a few times wider I might be comfortable trying that – but then of course it wouldn't be so hard to see to the bottom. 😆<br /><br />I think the logical next step might be to come back with, like, a 360° camera or action camera on a long rope (which would let you measure the depth directly, too). The narrowness of the pit helps here, since you could pretty easily stick a 2×4 with a pulley mounted on it across the mouth. I'm rather curious myself, so maybe that'll be an expedition for the next Lāhainā noon! (Though I make no promises.)<br /><br />I heard from someone at work that back in the 90s some people from the SMA explored it in-person (and had to be rescued by the fire department[!]), but I don't think I'm personally qualified for that. 😄Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-66705260448063206762023-08-01T03:26:22.723-10:002023-08-01T03:26:22.723-10:00Can you fly your drone into the pit? I'd be in...Can you fly your drone into the pit? I'd be interested to see those greenish colors more closely!Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-87004740721053772672023-05-06T21:22:28.405-10:002023-05-06T21:22:28.405-10:00Yeah, I haven't gotten to it yet, but the dest...Yeah, I haven't gotten to it yet, but the destruction in the Middle Bronze age layer shows a very strong southwest-to-northeast directionality, with things scattered along that vector at points all over the city (both upper and lower talls). The idea is maybe if an airburst happened over the north end of the Dead Sea, it could've sent a tsunami of (possibly vaporized) salty water over the area. It's tricky, since the Dead Sea valley is already quite high in salts in a lot of places, and I'm not necessarily entirely convinced of it myself, but there does seem to be a measurable spike in salt in the sediments around the destruction layer. We'll get to it in the next post, hopefully.Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-15024970478584734452023-05-02T08:14:12.876-10:002023-05-02T08:14:12.876-10:00The idea of the cropland getting salted seems quit...The idea of the cropland getting salted seems quite plausible, at first blush, being so close to the Dead Sea. Perhaps an sizeable earthquake or cosmic impact flooded the area?Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-87214313849081419242023-04-10T20:19:00.276-10:002023-04-10T20:19:00.276-10:00Aw, that's a pity about the dam. Would've ...Aw, that's a pity about the dam. Would've been neat to get more data from it.Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-38597722308041452542023-04-07T14:50:56.118-10:002023-04-07T14:50:56.118-10:00Very interesting. Looks like it was excavated just...Very interesting. Looks like it was excavated just before the Syrian gov't flooded the area to build a dam. Seems there's a lot of back and forth about whether the site experienced a cosmic impact 12.8 thousand years ago, or whether it was depopulated because of a brief return to ice age conditions.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-51197091111530854632023-04-06T09:00:14.168-10:002023-04-06T09:00:14.168-10:00Yeah, if it's true it'd be the second-olde...Yeah, if it's true it'd be the second-oldest known destruction of a human settlement by cosmic impact, after Abu Hureyra in Syria (which I hadn't heard about before reading the paper). I don't remember the exact details offhand, but they did look at abundances of various elements around the destruction layer, including iridium. They also found shocked quartz in early 2020 (the discovery held up publication by over a year, according to one of the authors who was at the dig).Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-81278934683964798502023-04-05T14:43:34.308-10:002023-04-05T14:43:34.308-10:00That's pretty exciting! Would you expect to fi...That's pretty exciting! Would you expect to find enhanced abundances of stuff normally concentrated in meteors/comets? I'm reminded of the iridium spike at the K-T boundary...Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-28352251717142397662023-04-05T08:56:00.394-10:002023-04-05T08:56:00.394-10:00That'll probably be *another* post, going over...That'll probably be *another* post, going over a Nature paper which came out a few years ago (Bunch et al. 2021), but multiple lines of evidence point to a high-temperature, short-duration event with significant associated blast wave powerful enough to shear buildings off at the base and blow millions of mud bricks off the tall entirely. The explanation which fits the most evidence (discounting Bronze Age nuclear weapon use) is a cosmic impact or airburst of some sort (probably the latter, given the lack of any identifiable impact crater, though it's possible a small one located in the Jordan river flood plain could have been weathered away by now).Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-60831501531191881692023-04-04T09:15:02.008-10:002023-04-04T09:15:02.008-10:00Very cool. Any indications of what might have dest...Very cool. Any indications of what might have destroyed the city? I mean, physically.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-73491255781799143972023-04-03T08:50:09.968-10:002023-04-03T08:50:09.968-10:00The answer's long enough to be a subject for t...The answer's long enough to be a subject for the next post, but the short answer is that there's an increasingly large body of evidence that the occupation phase at this site (there were multiple) from the Chalcolithic to its abrupt end in the Middle Bronze was the city of Sodom mentioned in Genesis.Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-35472245303075255292023-04-01T16:13:39.326-10:002023-04-01T16:13:39.326-10:00So what's the motivation for digging at that s...So what's the motivation for digging at that spot?Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-86994821385565646972023-01-07T13:04:17.261-10:002023-01-07T13:04:17.261-10:00Thanks!Thanks!Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-28121099265384032352023-01-06T09:23:05.330-10:002023-01-06T09:23:05.330-10:00Congrats on the papers!Congrats on the papers!Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-28985619138095230972022-12-05T22:24:10.070-10:002022-12-05T22:24:10.070-10:00Thanks, I'm planning on it. :)Thanks, I'm planning on it. :)Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-67002254509347452412022-11-30T16:12:53.513-10:002022-11-30T16:12:53.513-10:00Stay safe!Stay safe!Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-40374366472440781412022-07-23T20:44:56.261-10:002022-07-23T20:44:56.261-10:00I'm not sure exactly, but the plan is put all ...I'm not sure exactly, but the plan is put all three out at the same time–hopefully before too much longer, like in the next month or two.Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-50020881595062530782022-07-23T11:41:04.954-10:002022-07-23T11:41:04.954-10:00So when's your paper going to hit arxiv?So when's your paper going to hit arxiv?Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-62532647481042235272022-03-26T20:34:31.974-10:002022-03-26T20:34:31.974-10:00Thanks Nathan!Thanks Nathan!Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-25321608398415480092022-03-23T09:21:41.528-10:002022-03-23T09:21:41.528-10:00Congratulations, Dr. Berke!Congratulations, Dr. Berke!Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-49082439622100756292021-12-25T21:36:03.562-10:002021-12-25T21:36:03.562-10:00Thanks!Thanks!Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-67396693752150757842021-12-23T08:32:27.676-10:002021-12-23T08:32:27.676-10:00Congratulations, Dr. Berke!Congratulations, Dr. Berke!Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15209069723056193502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-87642536211654349952021-01-27T22:14:18.243-10:002021-01-27T22:14:18.243-10:00I'm not sure how much it's related to one&...I'm not sure how much it's related to one's sense of smell, actually; it seems to have something to do with the physical number of taste buds, with supertasters simply having a greater number (perhaps in addition to genetic factors relating to taste). I don't think of my sense of smell being particularly acute either, but I do notice that that's often what I notice when I'm out on walks, is the various scents on the wind.Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-48788830958366481992021-01-25T18:52:10.706-10:002021-01-25T18:52:10.706-10:00Well, Daniel, as your mom, I can pretty much agree...Well, Daniel, as your mom, I can pretty much agree with all your comments on food dislikes above. Except cilantro, I don't really mind it so your dad and I must be heterogenous if that is a recessive gene. Your siblings don have it either. But I can't stand vinegar like you you do in pickles. I have a terrible sense of smell, so I don't think I'm a super taster. However, I agree, I like the smell of some things and don't like the taste. Very interesting!!Momhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02252158148389547576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3149474372777404842.post-45235730556657329972021-01-14T21:19:38.791-10:002021-01-14T21:19:38.791-10:00The deck is certainly stacked against non-speciali...The deck is certainly stacked against non-specialization in academia, that's for sure.Daniel Berkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771693084266810042noreply@blogger.com