Oral histories in meteoritics and planetary science—XXIV: William K. Hartmann

In this interview, William Hartmann (Bill, Fig.  1 ) describes how he was inspired as a teenager by a map of the Moon in an encyclopedia and by the paintings by Chesley Bonestell. Through the amateur journal “Strolling Astronomer,” he shared his interests with other teenagers who became lifelong colleagues. At college, he participated in Project Moonwatch, observing early artificial satellites. In graduate school, under Gerard Kuiper, Bill discovered Mare Orientale and other large concentric lunar basin structures. In the 1960s and 1970s, he used crater densities to study surface ages and erosive/depositional effects, predicted the approximately 3.6 Gyr ages of the lunar maria before the Apollo samples, discovered the intense pre‐mare lunar bombardment, deduced the youthful Martian volcanism as part of the Mariner 9 team, and proposed (with Don Davis) the giant impact model for lunar origin. In 1972, he helped found (what is now) the Planetary Science Institute. From the late 1970s to early 1990s, Bill worked mostly with Dale Cruikshank and Dave Tholen at Mauna Kea Observatory, helping to break down the Victorian paradigm that separated comets and asteroids, and determining the approximately 4% albedo of comet nuclei. Most recently, Bill has worked with the imaging teams for several additional Mars missions. He has written three college textbooks and, since the 1970s, after painting illustrations for his textbooks, has devoted part of his time to painting, having had several exhibitions. He has also published two novels. Bill Hartmann won the 2010 Barringer Award for impact studies and the first Carl Sagan Award for outreach in 1997.

Figure 1 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint William K. Hartmann taken 2010 Aug 2 (Photo: Gayle Hartmann).

DS

Bill thank you very much for doing this. I would like to start with a very general question. What is the one incident in your life above all others that has determined the nature of your career?

WKH

I would say that what initially stirred my excitement for this topic were the books I stumbled across as a teenager. One event I recall was that my brother, who was 8 years older than I was, had a young person's encyclopedia called the Book of Knowledge. One day I was looking at that book and there was this map of the Moon. Craters, mountains, plains, all sorts of features. That blew me away. The concept that there was this other land, not just a shining thing in the sky, but a geological body, a new geographical place. There was also a book by Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell, Conquest of Space, which had all these marvelous paintings by Bonestell, visualizing what it was like on other planets. It came out in 1949. I am fond of my copy of that book because my father somehow managed to get Willy Ley, a German expatriate colleague of von Braun's, a writer and popularizer for space, to come to our town and give a talk and autograph my book. Many years later I met Chesley Bonestell and got him to autograph the book. There are not very many copies of that book with the signatures of both authors! The paintings gave me a real desire to want to know what it would be like on other worlds.

     

Rivers as municipal infrastructure: Demand for environmental services in informal settlements along an Indonesian river

In many developing world cities, where municipal infrastructure lags urban growth, lower-income communities may compensate by relying on local waterways to meet basic needs for water, sanitation, and recreational space. Access to these environmental services is possible because residents settle in floodplains, but thus entails elevated exposure to several water-related hazards, especially flooding. We examine this complex relationship in the neighborhoods of Bukit Duri and Kampung Melayu on the Ciliwung River in Jakarta, Indonesia. Based on a spatially referenced household survey, we analyze and map the patterns of use of six environmental services provided by the river: direct sanitary use, recreation, harvesting plants, groundwater use, solid waste disposal, and sewage disposal. Using spatial interpolation and regression methods, we identify the most probable areas where services are being used and analyze possible influences on this behavior. We find that proximity to the river significantly influences households’ behavior toward the river, as do infrastructure-related variables and neighborhing households’ behavior, while household demographic factors appear less significant. These results indicate that many households rely on multiple environmental services, and that residents most reliant on these services are also at greater risk of water-related hazards, service disruption (e.g., a decline in water quality), and potentially, eviction. This pattern of floodplain development is prevalent in many low-income countries, and a better understanding of how informal settlements rely on environmental services can be used to assess their vulnerabilities and inform more sustainable courses of development.     

A 10Be‐based reconstruction of the last deglaciation in southern Sweden

We present 23 cosmogenic surface exposure ages from 10 localities in southern Sweden. The new ¹⁰Be ages allow a direct correlation between the east and west coasts of southern Sweden, based on the same dating technique, and provide new information about the deglaciation of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet in the circum‐Baltic area. In western Skåne, southernmost Sweden, a single cosmogenic surface exposure sample gave an age of 16.8±1.0 ka, whereas two samples from the central part of Skåne gave ages of 17.0±0.9 and 14.1±0.8 ka. Further northeast, in southern Småland, two localities gave ages ranging from 15.2±0.8 to 16.9±0.9 ka (n=5) indicating a somewhat earlier deglaciation of the area than has previously been suggested. Our third locality, in S Småland, gave ages ranging from 10.2±0.5 to 18.4±1.6 ka (n=3), which are probably not representative of the timing of deglaciation. In central Småland one locality was dated to 14.5±0.8 ka (n=3), whereas our northernmost locality, situated in northern Småland, was dated to 13.8±0.8 ka (n=3). Samples from the island of Gotland suggest deglaciation before 13 ka ago. We combined the new ¹⁰Be ages with previously published deglaciation ages to constrain the deglaciation chronology of southern Sweden. The combined deglaciation chronology suggests a rather steady deglaciation in southern Sweden starting at c. 17.9 cal. ka BP in NW Skåne and reaching northern Småland, ～200 km further north, c. 13.8 ka ago. Overall the new deglaciation ages agree reasonably well with existing deglaciation chronologies, but suggest a somewhat earlier deglaciation in Småland.     

Analysis of size effects on the geomechanical parameters of intact granite samples under unconfined conditions

A total of 28 uniaxial compressive strength tests were performed on cylindrical Blanco Mera granite samples with diameters ranging between 14 and 100 mm, with results indicating that this granite undergoes a significant reverse size effect: the UCS increases as sample diameter increases up to 54 mm, but thereafter decreases. It was also found that the results tend to be more scattered for smaller sample diameters. We also found an apparent correlation between Young’s modulus and sample diameter. It was not possible to draw any clear conclusions regarding the variability in Poisson’s ratio with sample size. With respect to crack initiation and crack damage stresses, the behaviour of the tested samples also indicates a reverse effect. This research would suggest that the traditionally assumed decrease in strength as sample size increases does not hold for granite samples with diameters below 54 mm.     

西准噶尔包古图成矿斑岩年代学与地球化学:岩石成因与构造、铜金成矿意义

西准噶尔包古图地区的一些小型斑岩体或脉岩与铜金矿化的关系非常密切,引起了人们的广泛关注.报道了一些斑岩的LA-ICP-MS锆石U-Pb定年结果和岩石地球化学成分资料.Ⅱ、V岩体的石英闪长斑岩中岩浆结晶锆石的定年结果分别为314.9±1.7 Ma和309.9±1.9 Ma,Ⅲ岩体的闪长玢岩中岩浆结晶锆石的定年结果为313.9±2.6 Ma,表明包古图地区的岩体形成于晚石炭世.包古图地区小岩体的岩石富Na、高Sr,贫Y和Yb,无明显的Eu异常,具有埃达克岩特征,同时有些岩石富集MgO(3.93%～4.78%),具有高的Mg#(68～74),类似高镁安山岩.结合区域地质和岩浆岩的资料,认为:(1)包古图地区的小岩体形成于晚石炭世的岛弧环境,并可能与石炭纪的洋脊俯冲有关,其中埃达克质岩为俯冲洋脊两侧的板片熔融而形成,而高镁闪长岩类为俯冲板片熔体与地幔橄榄岩相互作用的产物;(2)包古图地区的铜金矿床也很可能与洋脊俯冲有关,高氧逸度的板片熔体上升并与地幔橄榄岩相互作用,这使得地幔中的金属硫化物不稳定,释放出金属成矿物质,从而使得Cu、Au等在熔体中不断富集而形成矿床.     

贵州荔波黑洞碎屑沉积物宇宙成因核素26Al/10Be埋藏年龄

河流下切在岩溶区形成的多级层状洞穴,记录了地体隆升和地貌演化历史,但由于测年手段的限制,国内在这方面的研究一直进展不大.近年来,运用宇宙成因核素得到洞穴碎屑沉积物埋藏年龄的方法,已成为反演山地区域构造-地貌演化的新途径.本文尝试运用宇宙成因核素26AL/10Be埋藏测年技术,对属于贵州荔波地区4层洞穴系统的黑洞(第二层)碎屑沉积物进行年龄测定,假设样品进洞前无埋藏史,测年结果显示黑洞年龄至少有1.06±0.23Ma,并且该地区三岔河流域的侵蚀速率为55.1±2.3m/Ma.这是对该地区洞穴测年的一次新探索,体现出洞穴沉积物宇宙成因核素埋藏测年技术在我国晚新生代地质地貌演化研究方面具有良好的应用前景.     

The glaciation of the outer hebrides

For the last 100 years there has been general acceptance for J. Geikie's hypothesis that during the last glacial maximum the Outer Hebrides was over-run by the Scottish ice-cap. An examination of the roches moutonnees on the east side of the islands from Stornoway to S. Uist shows that the ice flowed towards and not away from Scotland. During the last glacial maximum the Outer Hebrides were glaciated by their own ice-cap. There is evidence that the Scottish ice-cap overran the area during an earlier glaciation.