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The Geology of Whales · Street Smart Naturalist

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Greetings.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is David B.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Williams and the podcast of my newsletter,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: The Street Smart Naturalist,
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  SPEAKER_01: Explorations of the Urban Kind.
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  Every week I share my observations and adventures with the
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  human and natural world
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  SPEAKER_01: around Seattle,
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  SPEAKER_01: Puget Sound,
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  SPEAKER_01: and the Pacific Northwest.
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  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode highlights a phenomenon known as pareidolia.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: To learn more about my work, please go to my website, geologywriter.com.
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  You'll also find a link to my Substack newsletter and my
• 0:31
  previous five years of
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: newsletters,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: as well as images tied to this week's episode.
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  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for joining me on this adventure,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: and welcome to Podcast 69 of The Street Smart Naturalist,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: The Geology of Whales,
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  SPEAKER_01: April 2nd,
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  SPEAKER_01: 2026.
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  SPEAKER_01: Marjorie and I had the opportunity to seal a whale again the other day.
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  SPEAKER_01: We weren't on a boat.
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  SPEAKER_01: In fact, we weren't near any water.
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  SPEAKER_01: The closest salt water was the Sea of Cortez, 200 miles west.
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  SPEAKER_01: We were amidst the stark landforms and plants of the Sonoran Desert,
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  SPEAKER_01: and the closest fresh water was our water bottle,
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  SPEAKER_01: which relied on to combat the stifling heat.
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  SPEAKER_01: As they say in the desert, it's a dry heat.
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  SPEAKER_01: But 95 degrees is still way hot.
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  SPEAKER_01: It means you better have some water or you too will be dry very soon.
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  Our location was a few miles south of the area where bugs had
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  splattered our
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  SPEAKER_01: windshield a couple days earlier.
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  SPEAKER_01: But this time we were out of the car on a short hike.
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  SPEAKER_01: The trail wound through cacti and agave,
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  SPEAKER_01: passing sandy,
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  SPEAKER_01: sun-dried grass meadows under sycamores and over lovely granite knolls.
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  SPEAKER_01: At its end, we reached a rock formation known as whale rock.
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  SPEAKER_01: As you can see in my newsletter,
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  SPEAKER_01: it looks rather cetacean,
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  SPEAKER_01: with a broad-domed forehead,
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  SPEAKER_01: big mouth,
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  SPEAKER_01: and long body that tapers to a raised tail.
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  SPEAKER_01: Unlike the species we had encountered in the Sea of Cortez,
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  SPEAKER_01: which were baleen whales,
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  SPEAKER_01: this one had the shape of a tooth whale.
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  SPEAKER_01: In particular,
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  SPEAKER_01: a sperm whale,
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  the species best known for their propensity to stave in ships a
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  la the great and
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  SPEAKER_01: powerful Moby Dick.
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  Our whale in the desert is not the lone cetacean-esque rock to
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  have beached
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  SPEAKER_01: themselves across the planet.
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  There are many big,
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  rounded rocks or monoliths that give the impressions of a
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  whale.
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  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, Herman Melville addresses this issue of rocky leviathans.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the bony,
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  SPEAKER_00: ribby regions of the earth and in mountainous countries,
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  SPEAKER_00: here and there from some lucky point of view,
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  you will catch patsy glimpses of the profiles of whales defined
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  along undulating
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  SPEAKER_00: ridges.
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  SPEAKER_00: But if you wish to return to such a site again,
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  you must be sure and take the exact intersecting latitude and
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  longitude of your
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  SPEAKER_00: first standpoint,
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  else so chance-like are such observations of the hills that
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  your precise previous
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  SPEAKER_00: standpoint would require laborious rediscovery.
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  Unlike Melville's Petrobeast,
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  the desert-bound whale rock didn't require any challenges to
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  fly.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was a pretty obvious shape.
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  SPEAKER_01: Nor would several other whale rocks I have read about,
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  SPEAKER_01: such as one in Joshua Tree National Park,
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  which looks to be breaching another in Wilson's Promontory
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  National Park in
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  SPEAKER_01: Australia,
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  SPEAKER_01: appears to be launching out of the hillside with a broad smile of joy.
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  SPEAKER_01: What unites all three litho whales is granite.
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  SPEAKER_01: Each stony leviathan formed from magma is rich in the minerals quartz,
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  SPEAKER_01: feldspar,
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  SPEAKER_01: and mica,
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  SPEAKER_01: and is well-jointed.
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  Imagine a balloon covered in shaving cream which rifts into
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  channels as you blow up
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  SPEAKER_01: the balloon.
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  SPEAKER_01: What makes granite special?
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  Goethe referred to the dignity of the rock and the inspiration
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  generated by
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  SPEAKER_01: granite's immense masses as how the grainy rock,
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  SPEAKER_01: hence granite,
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  SPEAKER_01: tends to weather and erode into rounded shapes.
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  SPEAKER_01: As water seeps into the jointed and cracked granite,
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  SPEAKER_01: it works its magic,
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  SPEAKER_01: weakening the rock,
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  SPEAKER_01: often in a layered manner like an onion.
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  SPEAKER_01: The granite,
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  SPEAKER_01: in its diminished state of existence,
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  SPEAKER_01: tends to break down further and erodes along edges and corners,
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  SPEAKER_01: which produces curvaceous landforms.
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  SPEAKER_01: Depending upon the size,
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  SPEAKER_01: the rounded rock knobs can be called Bornharts,
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  SPEAKER_01: after the German geologist Wilhelm Bornhart,
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  SPEAKER_01: boulders,
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  SPEAKER_01: woolsacks,
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  SPEAKER_01: a lovely British term that references wool bales,
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  SPEAKER_01: or whalebacks,
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  SPEAKER_01: also known as elephant rocks and sheep rocks.
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  SPEAKER_01: Another term which Puget Sounders might know is drumlins,
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  SPEAKER_01: the teardrop-shaped hills of Seattle and its surroundings.
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  SPEAKER_01: though they are actually not made of granite but have the same shape,
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  which are formed by glaciers and which comprise much of the
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  Puget lowland.
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  Some geologists have suggested that whaleback is a more
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  appropriate term than
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  SPEAKER_01: drumlin,
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  SPEAKER_01: so perhaps we should think of those who live here as whale riders.
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  Sadly,
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  we haven't a clue about the person who coined the name for
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  Arizona's whale rock.
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  SPEAKER_01: What were they thinking?
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  SPEAKER_01: Was it on a blazingly hot day like the one we were experiencing,
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  SPEAKER_01: a day when you might wish that water was nearby?
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  SPEAKER_01: And when you saw this outcrop,
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  SPEAKER_01: your mind would create an image of an animal that exemplified water?
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  SPEAKER_01: And in doing so, might slake your thirst at least a tiny bit?
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  SPEAKER_01: Or perhaps like many of us have probably experienced,
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  SPEAKER_01: either in looking at rocks or clouds,
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  SPEAKER_01: the Namer simply saw a suggestive shape.
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  SPEAKER_01: In fact,
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  SPEAKER_01: there's a term for this,
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  SPEAKER_01: pareidolia,
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  SPEAKER_01: or the perception of recognizable patterns or images.
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  Scientists have written that pareidolia is a key perceptual
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  mechanism of idea
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  SPEAKER_01: generation,
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  SPEAKER_00: one of the central stages of the creative process.
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  To imagine familiar shapes seems one of the more splendid ways
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  to satisfy our
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  SPEAKER_01: creativity,
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  SPEAKER_01: as well as fun,
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  SPEAKER_01: occasionally amusing,
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  SPEAKER_01: and a great way to pass the time.
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  Finding shapes we know in our surroundings is also about making
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  connections.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think that most of us seek a way to understand what we see.
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  SPEAKER_01: Geology is darn complicated with its great depth of time and challenging
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  SPEAKER_01: terminology,
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  so converting what we see to something we know helps us process
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  the world around
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  SPEAKER_01: us.
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  SPEAKER_01: Looking back at the photos I took of whale rock,
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  SPEAKER_01: the granite appears less like a whale than I remember.
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  I think this illustrates a notable aspect of names and the game
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  of shapes.
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  SPEAKER_01: Once a name has been placed on a rock,
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  SPEAKER_01: a feature such as a rock,
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  it often predisposes the viewer to see that shape and make it
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  hard to unsee the
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  SPEAKER_01: feature.
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  SPEAKER_01: I know that when I got out to the whale rock in the desert,
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  SPEAKER_01: I immediately saw the lithic cetacean.
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  I'd been looking forward to doing so since I read about it at
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  the visitor center,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I certainly didn't want to be the doofus who couldn't see the whale.
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  SPEAKER_01: But sure enough,
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  SPEAKER_01: there it was,
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  SPEAKER_01: a felicitous synthesis of geology,
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  SPEAKER_01: naming,
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  SPEAKER_01: and my creative brains.
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  SPEAKER_01: Once again,
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  SPEAKER_01: this is David B.
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  SPEAKER_01: Williams,
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  SPEAKER_01: author and voice of The Street Smart Naturalist,
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  SPEAKER_01: Explorations of the Urban Kind,
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  a weekly newsletter and podcast focusing on the human and
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  natural world around
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  SPEAKER_01: Seattle,
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  SPEAKER_01: Puget Sound,
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  SPEAKER_01: and the Pacific Northwest.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you'd like more details about my books,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: walks,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: and talks,
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  SPEAKER_01: and a link to sign up for my newsletter and podcast,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: check out my website,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: geologywriter.com.
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  And don't forget to slow down,
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  pay attention,
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  and enjoy the world around you.