Read Killer Dust Online

Authors: Sarah Andrews

Killer Dust (33 page)

Generally the atmosphere is hazy; and this is caused by the falling of impalpably fine dust … The morning before we anchored at Porto Praya [Canary Islands], I collected a little packet of this brown-colored dust, which appears to have been filtered from the wind by the gauze of the vane at the masthead … I have found no less than fifteen different accounts of dust having fallen on vessels when far out in the Atlantic. From the direction of the wind when- ever it has fallen, and from its always having fallen during those months when the harmattan is known to raise clouds of dust high into the atmosphere, we feel certain that it all comes from Africa. The dust falls in such quantities as to dirty everything on board, and to hurt people’s eyes; vessels even have run on shore owing to the obscurity of the atmosphere. It has often fallen on ships when several hundreds, and even more than a thousand miles from the coast of Africa … I was much surprised to find particles of stone above the thousandth of an inch, mixed with finer matter. After this fact one need not be surprised at the diffusion of the far lighter and smaller sporules of cryptogrammic plants.
—Charles Darwin, January 16, 1832,
The Voyage of the
Beagle
 
One popular estimate says the Sahara hurls about 600 million tons of dust into the sky every year. Another estimate puts the annual cloud at a
billion
tons. At the lower rate a boxcar of Sahara dust would leave Africa about every four seconds. Every minute, sixteen cars. Every hour, a thousand. Day after day, year after year.
—Hannah Holmes,
The Secret Life of Dust
 
Florida is an organism, and it is a poem. Both living organisms and poems are complexly evolved to fill a specific niche. They create a condensed system to efficiently transmit energy or a message. With time, they thoroughly organize themselves and slowly, they build a beautiful structure, like a crystal. Florida is a poem, from a scientific description, a technical haiku.
Sand, clay, carbonate
Transmit the liquid treasure
We all drink it in
—Ann Tihansky
A disclaimer: Those who know the folks at the United States Geological Survey at St. Petersburg, Florida, might have a field day trying to identify real people from the fictional ones here portrayed. However, while the scientific investigations described herein are based on factual efforts underway at that location, each character is entirely my own invention, as are their personalities, motivations, and quirks. If any similarities occur, it is merely because humans vary only so much, and scientists vary from each other even less than do the extremes of the population at large. I did allow myself a few inside jokes, but please don’t sue me.
Having said all that, I wish to acknowledge the groundbreaking work of Eugene A. Shinn, Dale Griffin, and Christina Kellogg, the nonfiction persons who discovered that microbes do in fact survive transoceanic trips inside clouds of dust. The author wishes therefore to thank and acknowledge the inspiration, assistance, badgering, and outright extortion wreaked upon her by that same Gene Shinn, geologist, U.S. Geological Survey Coastal Marine Branch, also coral-reef cognoscente, Key West conch, drummer, champion spear fisherman, and mixer of strong drink, whose singular and persistent idea it was that she drag her unwitting heroine out of her precious, arid Western landscape into the swamps of Florida in order to publicize and
thereby advance his scientific agenda regarding the impact of African dust on coral reefs and human health. In concert, I wish to thank the sainted Pat Shinn for her gracious hospitality on so many occasions while her husband worked his mischief. I am grateful also to the rest of the staff of U.S. Geological Survey Center for Marine and Coastal Geology, principally Lisa Robbins, chief scientist; Ginger Garrison, ecologist; Dale Griffin and Christina Kellogg, microbiologists; and Robert Halley, geologist, for sharing their expertise and astonishingly durable humor. Thanks also to Walt Swain and Ann Tihansky, hydrologists, USGS Water Resources Discipline. May Congress bless you all with abundant funding.
My deep and abiding thanks to Susan H. “She Who Understands Gardens” Oliver, ace cousin, and research pal, for assistance above and beyond the call and right out into the swamps in gathering materials and understandings for this book. Your instincts were, as always, impeccable.
My sincere thanks also to Florida Assistant State Geologist Thomas M. Scott, for his memorable three-day crash field course in Florida geology and hydrology, and to Shirley Scott for fueling, housing, and counseling the troops.
My geoscience thanks go also to Cinzia Cervato, Iowa State University, for her support in my understanding of the prehistory and geology of the Mediterranean region.
Lifelong thanks go to Walt Whippo, kenetic engineer, lyricist, solver of the O-ring problem, designer of the IBM Selectric typewriter, kite maker, and painter of flying fruit, for illuminating certain engineering feats, and the inner workings and motivations of NASA, and for showing me a view of the box outside of which we all need to think (and which, he suggests, is in fact shaped like a doughnut).
Munificent thanks go to Nancy Maynard of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for helping me attend plenary sessions on African dust and the launch of STS-100 (space-shuttle orbiter
Endeavor
), and to Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, former astronaut and currently CEO, COSI. I am awed.
My thanks on a great many levels go to John and Brad for helping me to understand the training, experiences, and philosophies of Special Operations personnel, in particular Navy SEALs. My thanks also that you and your brethren are out there doing what you do.
Gastronomic and linguistic thanks go to Eileen Rodriguez for bugging me about my rotten Spanish, vetting all such that appears herein, and taking me to some great Hispanic restaurants.
Thanks for the wild delights of souped-up, hard-bottom inflatables go to Lewis Tanenbaum.
Special thanks go to Gus Batista of the Billie Swamp Safari, the Seminole tribe, the National Audubon Society, and the U.S. National Park Service for their assistance in teaching me about the Everglades and its creatures.
In preparing this book, I drew heavily upon published sources. They include:
The Garden of Their Desires
:
Desertification and Culture in World History
by Brian Griffith;
The Voyage of the Beagle
by Charles Darwin;
Desert Dust: Origin, Characteristics, and Effect on Man, Geol. Soc. America Special Paper 186,
edited by Troy L. Peéweé;
Desertification: Its Causes and Consequences
, compiled and edited by the Secretariat of the United Nations Conference on Desertification, Nairobi;
Bank Margin Environment
by Robert B. Halley
in AAPG Memoir 33, Carbonate Depositional Environment; Dust in the Wind
by Dale W. Griffith, Christina Kellogg, and Eugene A. Shinn;
The Orchid Thief
by Susan Orlean;
Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War
by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad;
The Secret Life of Dust
by Hannah Holmes;
Hormone Deception
by D. Lindsey Berkson;
Geologic Map of the State of Florida
by Thomas M. Scott, Kenneth M. Campbell, Frank R. Rupert, Jonathan D. Arthur, Thomas M. Missimer, Jaqueline M. Lloyd, J. William Yon, and Joel G. Duncan;
Florida Atlas & Gazetteer
(DeLorme);
Florida’s Geological History and Geological Resources
, Florida Geological Survey Spec. Pub. No. 35,
edited by Ed Lane; and
Terraces and Shorelines of Florida
by Henry G. Healy.
The Golden Machete Critique Group (Mary Hallock, Thea Castleman, Ken Dalton, and Jon Howe) again did yeoman’s duty. Kelley Ragland was again a dream editor.
And, as always, my steadfastly patient husband, Damon Brown, and our bouyant and infinitely curious son, Duncan, came through with substantive comments, encouragement, and the love that makes it possible for me to create these books. Glad I could at least repay your kindnesses this time with warm surf and a space shuttle launch.
An Eye For Gold
Bone Hunter
Only Flesh and Bones
Mother Nature
Fault Line
 
AVAILABLE FROM
ST. MARTIN’S/MINOTAUR PAPERBACKS
“[Em Hansen is] a clear-thinking, straight-talking heroine whose unabashed naivete is endearing.”
—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Andrews … has become a leading light. The fifth entry in her series rivets both as a crime story and as a discussion of the relationship between science and religion … . Her novel is a suspenseful mystery spiked with dinosaurs, science, and religion: what more could readers ask for?”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
 
“The latest Em Hansen mystery is by far the best yet … . Andrews makes the most of her paleontological background. She clearly knows her subject and, unlike many crime writers, she does not use the surroundings merely as window dressing. The novel is, in addition to a fine mystery, a lively exploration of the high-stakes world of dinosaur research and perceptive rumination on the debate between science and creationism.”
—Booklist
 
“Geologist Em Hansen’s adventures become more and more intriguing with each new book … . A most fascinating tale.”
—Romantic Times
 
“Appealing characters and fluent prose.”
—Library Journal
FAULT LINE
“Em Hansen’s seventh well-paced outing … . Em Hansen is rapidly carving out a niche for herself as a forensic geologist … and may eventually make her field as popular as that of forensic anthropology or medicine.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“The resourceful and intelligent Hansen makes a terrific series heroine … what has made the series shine has been the amount of ‘hard science’ that Andrews, a professional geologist herself, was able to work into the stories.”
—Booklist
 
“An entertaining story … . [Andrews] has a winning detective in Em Hansen.”
—Dallas Morning News
 
“A fine series.”
—Library Journal
 
AN EYE FOR GOLD
“Em Hansen is plucky and smart … [and] the mystery is complicated and absorbing.”
—Booklist
 
“Suspense every step of the way … twists and turns that [will] keep you turning the pages.”
—The Press Democrat
 
“A fine series.”
—Library Journal
 
 
 
MORE …
I did not set out to write a book about terrorism. In fact, we have the mischievous genius of Gene Shinn to blame—or thank—for this book getting written.
I’ve noticed that geniuses have a few traits in common: First, their minds are agile enough to spot the simple pattern to puzzles that seem overwhelmingly complex to the rest of us. Second, they often take a complex course through life, for the simple reason that they find the pathways most of us follow too narrow, constraining, or just plain uninteresting. Third, they’re so far out ahead that we don’t even know that they’re leading us. Which, fourth, makes them impossible to manage. This is all true of Gene. He’s one of those wild children of the sciences who got so far out in front of us all with his research that the status quo finally got embarrassed and presented him with an honorary doctorate.
If required, I would deny that Miles Guffey was patterned after Gene, but I shall hereby state (with applause) that the hypothesis Miles expounds in this book is in fact Gene’s. Gene and microbiologists Dale Griffin and Chris Kellogg and marine ecologist Ginger Garrison, along with a host of colleagues, are the real people who are investigating the impact of African dust on coral reefs and human health. They are doing so on a pathetic shoestring budget for the U.S. Geological Survey in St. Petersburg, Florida.
In the 1950s, Gene was majoring in zoology while on a music scholarship at the University of Miami, and spearfishing on Caribbean reefs to feed his young family, when he began studying and photographing corals. By the mid-1960s, Gene was running a field station in Qatar, where he studied Persian Gulf coral reefs from a dhow. In the early 1970s, he opened a field station for the USGS in south Florida, where he observed the slow death of coral reefs. No one knew why the corals were dying. Gene put together his and various other peoples’ observations and conjured the idea that what was killing the reefs was disease-laden dust blowing off Africa. He said, “It’s so widespread it must be something in the air.”
What Gene had was an idea. It wasn’t even a hypothesis, let alone a theory. To move from an idea to a hypothesis, you need hard data, and to get data, you need funding. So Gene applied for funding. The USGS provided some funds to investigate the past record of dust in sediment and corals, but no funds to determine if the recent death of corals was caused by dust. He acknowledges that they pay his salary and only rein him in occasionally.
Gene widened his search to other government agencies. Each had a different reason for refusing him. As the list of refusals grew, so did Gene’s irritation. The ocean was not only a place of beauty and recreation for him, it was inspiration and dinner, and it did not seem reasonable that humanity should ignore its well-being.
Gene finally obtained enough funding from a new public health program in NASA to pay the salary of a new Ph.D., microbiologist Dale Griffin, who has to date identified over 130 live pathogens in samples of African dust. Gene’s idea was now a hypothesis. At the time of this writing, Gene is still struggling for sufficient funding to fully test this hypothesis.
Gene first described the project to me in 1999. He asserted that the dust represents a bioterrorist threat. He reported that tons of anthrax manufactured during the Cold War cannot be accounted for. He was convinced that no
security agency had considered the threat posed by the clandestine entrainment of such pathogens into intercontinental dust clouds.
I did not want to write about terrorism, but an important project having trouble getting funding did interest me. What worried (worries) me was (is) the growing trend of scientific research being increasingly predicated and directed by vested interests and the politicians who cater to them. When big money directs research, big money influences, and even dictates, findings. We live in the age of bean counters, people who confuse the bottom line with the moral line. Corporate culture is quickly becoming human culture, to our peril as a species.
I set out weaving a story about the funding of scientific research. Gene kept pushing the terrorist angle. I systematically resisted the idea until September 11, 2001. On that day, unthinkable terrorism came to America. In the weeks that followed the September 11 attacks, deadly weapons-grade anthrax began appearing in envelopes mailed to journalists and U.S. Senators. The first death occurred in Florida.
Confronting the shock of these attacks has been difficult for all of us. Living with the subject of terrorism to the depth it takes to write a book about it seemed beyond me. This is because I have been a victim of the “little” terrorism that is commonly called stalking.
Lucy’s experiences were based on mine, with an important difference: While Lucy kept her silence and was able to call in a white knight, I fought through police and judicial channels. While Lucy was able to realize her goals, I suffered the loss of my home, my community, and my livelihood. It seems that in our culture, it is easier to tell the target to duck and cover than to deal effectively with the attacker. And if that target is female, she is, in one way or another, blamed for being targeted.
During my efforts to hang on to what I could of my life, I discovered that three of the six women who worked in my office had suffered similar experiences, but none of
them had prevailed. One woman had married a policeman in hopes of gaining security against her former husband, but the harassment and fear for her safety continued. Another suffered stalking at the hands of the policeman who had been her husband. With the glassy eyes of the traumatized, she described the night he tied her to a chair and repeatedly placed a bullet in his service revolver, spun the chamber, put the muzzle to her head, and pulled the trigger. When she later tried to escape, he used the police network to track her down.
Stalking is too vague a term. The crime is the extortion of power, and the weapon is terror. Women suffer terrorization at the hands of men who feel a sick need to control them. Women are beaten, raped, and harassed until their lives are reduced to bare survival, and sometimes they are indeed killed. If they use lethal force in self-defense, they are held to the standard of whether a
man
would have found self-defense necessary, and so are routinely jailed.
Victims of stalking are not usually weak women; ironically, sick men typically select strong women as the targets of their manias, just as terrorists attack strong nations. What stalkers and terrorists have in common, aside from sick minds, is cowardice. They are opportunistic. They exploit the vulnerable. They attack strength, not power.
We don’t condone terrorism from outside our country. Why, then, are women vulnerable to torment when it comes from within? The answer to this question runs as deep as all the other notions and rationalizations that suggest women are somehow less valuable than men. Why does the public hear so little about this astonishingly common problem? Because the stigma that is pushed on women who have been abused is so debilitating that we learn to keep our mouths shut. We are blamed for being caught “in the open.” If raped, we are considered “damaged goods.” This tells us that we are commodities, not fully empowered citizens, thus demoralizing its victims by the twin burdens of vulnerability to terror and shame for being victimized. The discounting and blaming of women sends its tendrils outward,
eventually affecting every soul in human culture. We are one world.
As with all my sisters who’ve shared this experience, healing from this loss has become a central feature of my life. While I bear the cost of resurrecting myself, the man who stalked me persists in our society like an opportunistic virus, draining our cultural vitality one victim at a time, exploiting our ignorance and attitudes and the consequent inadequacies of our judicial and protective systems. I draw a crude parallel between those who stalk women in America and the terrorists who engineered the September 11 attacks. Both take advantage of our vulnerability as an open society. The engineers of the September 11 attacks thrive on their own systems of tribal obligation, international finance, and the unresolved rage that discounts our culture, just as stalkers within our culture exploit systems that discount the feminine
half
of its population. At the root of both situations—terrorism large and small—is the abuse and subjugation of women.
Marginalized women raise nasty sons, and thus the sickness is perpetuated.
So writing about the big terrorism—terrorism between whole peoples, ideologies, or nations—is a double-edged sword for me. It is horrifying in and of itself. It is also salt in an old wound, because when the “little” terrorism happened to me, no one sent troops to avenge me, and no one beefed up security measures around me. As an American in post-September 11 culture, I mourn the loss of our sense of safety even as I acknowledge that it never truly existed. Madness is as old as mankind. We must not only treat the disease, but also strengthen our societal organism so that it no longer gets sick.
The act of healing, while demanding everything of me, has given me in return a life more filled with meaning. And while I at first feared that experience had stolen my innocence (a confusion borne of that societal conditioning that teaches that the victim is damaged goods), I was to discover that what I had lost was, in fact, ignorance, and that deeper
knowledge helps me to release the pain and anger of trauma, and brings a deeper capacity to give and receive love.
There remains the question of vengeance.
Given who I am (a woman living in a culture still based on men’s rights and values) and what I believe (that we are an evolving species with much to learn about our capacity for violence and the causes of it), I am still glad that I took the measures I did to avoid a lethal confrontation. But had he succeeded in cornering me before I was able to escape, I would have willingly used lethal force to stop the attack. And had I the mandate to do it, I would have sought him out and brought him to justice for his atrocities. But justice should not be confused with vengeance. Justice is ending the cause of suffering. The desire for vengeance is an urge felt by those who must heal.
Healing occurs one heart at a time, but one heart can inspire a multitude.
What of the “big” terrorism? Through writing this book, I have learned that there is a connection between African dust and terrorism: That which blights a people brings out the beast of rage and the opportunism that dines on it. We must open our eyes to opportunism at every level. We must empower all. Education is the key.
We live in a time of tall challenges, in which we have increased our numbers beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. We live on the cusp of globalization of our economies, in which some profit beyond imagination while others sink into servitude. And we live in a time of great hope and discovery, in which humans enjoy unparalleled freedoms, up to and including escaping the planet that spawned us.
So much is up in the air, just like the dust that blows off Africa.
With great love and respect, I thank you for reading.
Sarah Andrews
September 11, 2002

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