Blue goo

Blue goo is a sticky, plasticky, blueish-grey, clay-textured soil derived from a highly weathered serpentinite mélange.[1][2] The name derives from the soil's color; a result of undergoing anaerobic conditions and becoming gleyed.[3] A greyer variation is called "grey goo".[2] Blue goo is primarily found along the Northern California coast.[2]

Parent material

The Franciscan Complex is the bedrock from which blue goo is derived.[1] It stretches along the coastline from Central California up to Southern Oregon and contains sheared materials from both the Pacific and North American Plates that have accumulated in the accretionary wedge.[1]

The rock types that produce blue goo include: greenstones, cherts, basalts, shales, sandstones, schists, and serpenitites.[1][2][4][5][6] These materials mixed together forming a "plum pudding" or a mélange.[1][2] This mélange decomposed through weathering to form blue goo.[7]

Common features

Clay soils like blue goo have the highest water-holding capacity when compared with other soils, giving them a low draining capacity.[3] This kind of habitat is unsuitable for most plants,[3] but the Northern California coastline maintains high levels of vegetation year round.

Due to blue goo's clayey texture, it slips when overly saturated.[6] This slippage is increased in heavy rainfall areas and in shallow soils; deep soils have more total pore space and are not as prone to slippage.[3] These features contribute to the landslide-ridden environments found along the Northern Californian coast.[5][6]

Locations

The Franciscan Complex, from which blue goo is derived, extends from Central California up the coast through parts of Southern Oregon.[1] But blue goo has only been found in two Northern Californian regions located in Humboldt County: the Trinidad region and the Orick region. Blue goo is thought to also be found in the Eel River region and along the Southern Oregon coastline.

gollark: Go(lang) = bad.
gollark: ``` [...] MIPS is short for Millions of Instructions Per Second. It is a measure for the computation speed of a processor. Like most such measures, it is more often abused than used properly (it is very difficult to justly compare MIPS for different kinds of computers). BogoMips are Linus's own invention. The linux kernel version 0.99.11 (dated 11 July 1993) needed a timing loop (the time is too short and/or needs to be too exact for a non-busy-loop method of waiting), which must be calibrated to the processor speed of the machine. Hence, the kernel measures at boot time how fast a certain kind of busy loop runs on a computer. "Bogo" comes from "bogus", i.e, something which is a fake. Hence, the BogoMips value gives some indication of the processor speed, but it is way too unscientific to be called anything but BogoMips. The reasons (there are two) it is printed during boot-up is that a) it is slightly useful for debugging and for checking that the computer[’]s caches and turbo button work, and b) Linus loves to chuckle when he sees confused people on the news. [...]```I was wondering what BogoMIPS was, and wikipedia had this.
gollark: ```Architecture: x86_64CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bitByte Order: Little EndianCPU(s): 8On-line CPU(s) list: 0-7Thread(s) per core: 2Core(s) per socket: 4Socket(s): 1NUMA node(s): 1Vendor ID: GenuineIntelCPU family: 6Model: 42Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E31240 @ 3.30GHzStepping: 7CPU MHz: 1610.407CPU max MHz: 3700.0000CPU min MHz: 1600.0000BogoMIPS: 6587.46Virtualization: VT-xL1d cache: 32KL1i cache: 32KL2 cache: 256KL3 cache: 8192KNUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-7Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx lahf_lm pti tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts```
gollark: I think it's a server thing.
gollark: My slightly newer SomethingOrOther 5000 does too.

References

  1. Aalto, Ken R. (1976). "Sedimentology of a Melange: Franciscan of Trinidad, California". Journal of Sedimentary Petrology. 46 (4): 913–929. doi:10.1306/212F7090-2B24-11D7-8648000102C1865D.
  2. Department of Geology. Humboldt State University. "Trinidad Lab Manual" (PDF).
  3. Brady, Nyle C.; Weil, Ray R. (2008). The Nature and Properties of Soils (14 ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall. p. 990.
  4. "Geology of Eel River Valley area, Humboldt County, California : Ogle, Burdette Adrian : Free Download & Streaming". Internet Archive. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
  5. Tula, Alex (1972). "Franciscan Geology at Patrick's Point, California". Senior Thesis. Department of Geology. Humboldt State University.
  6. Gustason, Edmund R. (1979). "Earthflow Movement Characteristics at Truttman Sink: A Franciscan Complex Mélange Coastal Headland". Senior Thesis. Department of Geology. Humboldt State University.
  7. Anderson, Leslie S. (2011). Unearthing Evidence of Creatures from Deep Time: A Beginner's Fossil Guide to the Northern California Coast (PDF). Humboldt State University. p. 6. Retrieved January 17, 2016.
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