This is Part I, and was summarized in LO28063 --
Dear LO'ers
I want to write on creations and organistations. Special creations of
special organisations. Creations and organisations of nature, without
human interventions, even without interventions of any living organism.
Thus possibly less complex. We may learn something from them.
If you want joining me, I will take you to a world which is probably
unknown to you. It is a world that most people call a dead world but it is
a world with a rich history. I want to show you some strange
illustrations. Pictures that I had in mind when I started to think and
learn of At's ideas some years ago. These pictures are for me of key
value. And I am curious if they could be of value for you too. They could
be of value, because they tell a story of organisations and structures,
dealing and coping with a changing environment, of which they are an
integral part.
Let me show you the first picture (fig. 1):
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/LO28063_fig1.jpg
What do you think this is? A piece of art, a modern painting? Please let
your fantasy and imagination meander freely on this picture before you
read further.
This is a world that I studied thouroughly during my study. That study was
focussed on structures in rocks, on microscale, macroscale and on the
scale of a mountain chain.
The picture you see in fig. 1 is a microscopic photograph of a very thin
slice of rock mounted between two thin glass plates, a so-called thin
section. Later I will say some words on the special colours. The width of
the whole picture is about half centimetre. We see here in principle two
different kinds of minerals. The grey and black colours represent quartz,
the colourfull material is mica. Both, quartz and mica are crystals, but
their form is not as a freely grown crystal with nice planar faces.
In the next picture (fig. 2) is another thin section of a rock
with other minerals, which do show nice crystal faces. With a good look
you could observe a large yellowish polygon (nearly picture filling) which
is one crystal (the name is not important, but it is called staurolite).
It is full of black veins wich are cracks and fractures and it partly
includes another completely black crystal with a more regular hexagonal
shape - this is garnet. Then we see again some micas, now with
brownish-green colours; a few of these micas are also included by the pale
yellow crystal. The black at the left is the end of the thin section, no
minerals or rock.
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/LO28063_fig2.jpg
Now some words on the colours.
Both photographs are made through a microscope where the light comes from
underneath, thus shining through the thin section. It is ordinary "white"
light coming from an ordinary lamp. Between the lamp and the thin section
is a polarizing filter. So only light that vibrates in the one direction
of the polarisation filter is allowed to pass and enters the minerals. All
these minerals are on atomic scale a neat and regular construction of
atoms. A framework of high regularity, each atom at its particular place
in the lattice. You may compare such lattice with a man made wood where
the trees are planted in regular rows. In some directions one can look
easier through the wood than in other directions. It is the same with
light that travels through a crystal lattice. Light could travel in
certain directions much easier through the lattice than in other
directions. But the lattice has other characteristics. Beams of light will
also be deviated in other directions (the narrow spacing between the atoms
is of the order of the light wavelength, which causes this effect).
Moreover, the originally complex white light (encompassing all colours in
it) will split in different colours too. One colour (or frequency of
vibration) behaves different in the lattice, than the other. Or, certain
wavelengths (or frequencies) of light could pass easier through the
lattice than others.Thus after passing the minerals, the light is not
polarized anymore and also various colours will have other directions. The
originally complex white light is split in various ways in various
fractions. The story of the light ends not here. Because above the thin
section is again a polarising filter with its vibrating direction
perpendicular to the lowest filter. If we would look through the
microscope without a thin section between both filters, NO LIGHT could
pass through. So we will see absolute black. And we will also see darkness
of we put a non-crystalline material in between, such as glass. It is
because of the crystal lattices that the light becomes fractionised and
some fractions are allowed to pass the second filter (only light that
vibrates in the direction of the second filter could pass). And that light
has also a certain range of colour frequencies. Not every frequency has
the right direction. Some frequencies (which represent a monochromic
colour) have such vibration directions that they cannot pass this second
filter. Therefore, some colours are missing in the white light. And that
gives rise to 'rest colours', not white. And that is what we see in the
illustrations. Each mineral with its characteristic crystal lattice
fractionises the light in its own way. That is why one could determine the
different minerals in a rock under this type of microscope. The story is
even still more complex, because these minerals could have various
orientations in the rock. And thus the crystal lattices could have
different orientations too in respect to the polarising filters. That
means that light which passes through lattices with different orientations
will be fractionised differently. That is why different crystals of the
same mineral could show different colours under the microscope. So in
figure 1 we could see various quartz crystals with various orientations
which give rise to white, light grey, dark grey or nearly black colours.
Also in the colourfull micas we see a range of colours. Sometimes, if the
crystal has a special orientation, the fractionised light has been broken
in such directions that no light vibrates parallel to the second filter.
And thus no light could pass and the mineral will be dark. If we rotate
the thin section (changing the orientation of the crystal lattice),
colours will appear again. We see in the figure that some parts of the
micas have this special orientation (and also some of the quartz grains,
the dark ones).
Some minerals have a lattice with such a high symmetry (so-called cubic
crystallographic symmetry) that the passing light will be disturbed in all
directions in the same manner and thus becomes not fractionised. That is
the case with a mineral as garnet. The garnet (the more or less regular
hexagon) in figure 2 will therefore be black. It stays black even after
rotating the thin section.
Now we have some idea of what we see in these illustrations, let's look
somewhat closer, because this contribution was about organisations. For me
the crystal lattice is such organisation. Within a crystal a whole lot of
atoms are distributed regularly, holding eachother in position. Some
minerals have many different kinds of atoms, others do it with only one
sort (like diamond, which is composed of pure carbon atoms).
The world of rock forming minerals is as our human world of organisations.
They could be in (temporary) equilibrium with the surroundings, some could
grow at the cost of others; mergings and takeovers could take place;
partly or complete incorporations; increased pressure from outside could
change the organisation; there are preys and there are preditors. Thus
what we see in these pictures is nothing else then what we read in the
Financial Times or what we see on TV :-(
In figure 1 with these beautiful coloured micas we could see some of the
above mentioned examples. One of the larger micas is bended by externally
imposed deformation. The bending is nicely seen because parts of the same
crystal are deformed and rotated in an other orientation with respect to
the polarising filters, hence colours change. Parts of the crystal became
bended in such orientation that no light could pass, and thus became dark.
So a mica could have some flexibility, it could be bended, sometimes it
breaks. It means that the complete crystal lattice is distorted. One can
imagine that this is not a pleasant feeling for this mica. It is as if you
must stand for the rest of your life in a deep bow. Some parts become
stretched, others become wrinkled. As you, also the crystal does not like
this. It tries to cope with this stressy position. What are you going to
do if you are in a stressy position? Yes, you try to escape, or you try to
change your inner (mental) structure to cope with it. So do crystals. The
lattice could be so much distorted that the crystal starts to find a way
to cope with these changed circumstances. Tiny little new crystals start
to grow. Small babies free of strain and with an orientation that will be
in harmony with the external stress field.
Figure 2 shows something else. Here, there is a large yellowish crystal
which was able to grow in a way that its faces are according to the
geometric internal structures of the lattice - the faces are strait. And
since the colour of the whole crystal is uniform, we may conclude that its
lattice has not been deformed (the fractures are of minor importance, the
damage is not too large). The crystal has grown under ideal conditions
without externally imposed bending. An organisation that seems in perfect
harmony with its surroundings. This crystal has partly incorporated a
garnet (the black polygon). Each kept their own identity, but it seems
that they agreed on a close relationship or cooperation. The borders
between the two are sharp which indicate that they do not attack each
other, they behave independant. Like two companies which operate on the
same market, but each with their own products such as a motorcar company
and the gasoline/oil company, or a software company and a hardware company
(the software company with some scars and cracks :-).
Let's look now to figure 3:
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/LO28063_fig3.jpg
Here we see again colourful micas, now greenish. But I like to put your
attention to the other grains. Maybe you have recognised them already.
Most of them are grains of quartz. Several crystals are present, well
recognisable because of the different white to grey/black ranges. What we
see is that each quartz grain is of uniform colour and most have rather
straight boundaries. These grains form a sort of 'foam texture', similar
to what you could observe in the foam of beer. The uniform colour of each
grain means that the crystal lattice is undisturbed, and the straight
boundaries indicate harmoneous conditions, peace between the grains. It is
like a conglomerate of organisations living in harmony with each other.
Now what will happen if such harmoneous situation lives heavily under
stress. See figure 4.
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/LO28063_fig4.jpg
It is a mess. This rock is mainly composed of quartz; the light yellowish
grains are also quartz (this yellow hue is due to the fact that the thin
section is a little bit too thick). The total look of this specimen is
completely different from figure 3. What we see here is a movie, although
it looks like a picture. We see here a dynamic process in all stages. Some
of you may remember my contribution on the similar dynamic processes in a
glacier ("The icebreaker", http://www.learning-org.com/99.04/0179.html).
The rock of fig. 4 has suffered a shearing deformation. The deformation
was severe but happened under conditions where the rock behaved plastic.
It is like a layer of plastic clay which has been sheared between two
plates; the plates moved parallel to each other and parallel to the clay
layer. The crystal lattices of the quartz grains became also heavily
sheared and thus the internal distortions of crystal lattices became
enormous. Too much to keep the ideal crystal structure of quartz. The
quartz starts therefore to recrystallise in a crystallographic orientation
wich could cope with the stress and it tries to build a crystal with a
perfect strain free lattice. Crystallization starts at those places in the
quartz grain were the lattice is most damaged. Here small new grains start
to grow and these tiny crystals are not (yet) deformed, so they show a
uniform colour under the microscope. But the shearing deformation
continued and thus the growing baby becomes deformed. This could be seen
in the larger grains where the colour is not uniform; there are darker and
lighter areas within one grain. So we could observe here all stages of one
process, that is why this picture has the information of a whole movie.
Note that during the deformation no melting occurs, the rock is always a
crystalline rock. For me, figure 4 is as if I look to the world of
information technology and e-commerce. Always under continuous heavy
stress, some fast growers, but they are doomed to become so much deformed
that a whole bunch of new small companies emerge. The small ones, not yet
deformed have enough free energy to grow, so they do grow. But that
becomes their fate: they fall apart again, each baby starting again with
growing. The larger ones need so much of their energy to keep the
organisation more or less in tact, they loose their growing potential, and
finally they reach the edge of a bifurcation: new babies, consuming the
material of their parents.
We have seen now that during deformational processes minerals could
recrystallise. There are other ways of recrystallisation. In the
conditions deep down in the earth's crust, temperatures and pressures are
so high, that minerals of the original sediments are not stable anymore.
New crystals start to grow under the high Pressure/high Temperature
conditions. Quartz is the only mineral wich is stable under surface and
under these high PT conditions (although the crystallographic lattice
could be somewhat different). Clay minerals stable at the earth's surface,
recrystallise in depth to e.g. mica. Maybe if you have been in mountainous
areas you know these glossy, shiny rock surfaces. This shiny appearance is
due to the micas which lay as booklets on this surface. The micas which we
have seen in the above illustrations are cut right through the 'pages' of
the book, that is why you see the layers ofwhich the mica is composed. In
general if we see glittering patches in a rock, it is almost certain that
we see a face of a crystal. We all know the recrystallised limestones:
that is marble. And if you can hold of a piece of naturally broken marble,
you will see also lots of small shiny patches; the faces if crystals.
These recrystallised rocks are called metamorphic rocks.
Until now, my focus was the deformation of crystals. What will temperature
do? Figures 2 and 3 are examples. Figure 2 whith the near image-filling
yellowish crystal which encloses the hexagonal garnet. Also some mica is
present (a bit brownish). All these three minerals seem in harmony with
each other. These are typical metamorphic minerals. They do not occur in
sediments, they are new-born crystals due to the high temperatures and
pressures. For geologists this ensemble is an important observation,
because it tells something about the temperatures and pressures during
their formation and thus are an indication of the depth of this rock. But
high T and P are not the only necessities. Of course, there must be the
right material present to grow anyhow. So one has to know a bit of
chemistry, to know which chemical elements should be present to form the
lattice of the new minerals. Since rock is generally not a uniform
material, chemical elements are unevenly distributed. To form a crystal,
elements should be able to migrate. They should move to the growing
crystal to feed the growth. It is like a company which likes to grow. New
employees must be present. And of course, the new employees should fit in
the organisation. Sometimes new employees come from far away. And one sort
of employee is more mobile than others. This is also the case with
chemical elements. The reader could recognise that the 7E's show their
face again.
And thus, a new crystal is likely to grow at places with the right
chemical composition. Or at least where sufficient material is available.
Micas are chemically very rich, and micas often become the prey of new
minerals. This is nicely seen in figure 5. The orange-yellow
and elongated crystals are micas. They have been grown earlier as
metamorphic minerals, roughly perpendicular to the main pressure in the
rock (that is why most of them are more or less parallel). One part of the
picture has a more or less uniform grey colour. That is one big preditor,
'consuming' the mica's. This preditor is so much willing to grow, that it
doesn't care that its interior is not pure. The hunger is so great that it
takes for granted the inclusions of small patches of quartz, tiny black
ore and still some mica (which was apparently too much). The chemical
material of these inclusions is not used in the preditors lattice.Yes, if
the conditions are favourite, growth cannot be stopped. A detail of the
frontline of prey (colourful mica)-preditor (uniform pale yellow) is
illustrated in figure 6.
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/LO28063_fig5.jpg
http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/LO28063_fig6.jpg
The climate under which an organisation could grow may be ideal, but if
this organisation has to work under stress and if a lot of pushing on it
occurs, then the survival of this organisation will be questionable. We
have already seen what much deformation could do with an organisation.
In part II I will say once more some words on what could happen with
metamorphic rocks.
Leo Minnigh
--Minnigh <minnigh@dds.nl>
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