Drunk on Paleontology - Finca El Origen Reserva Malbec

The next Drunk on Paleontology is for Finca El Origen Reserva Malbec from Finca El Origin  out of Mendoza, Argentina.

Clearly this is a wonderful example of Drunk on Paleontology, with the large ammonite fossil spread across the bottle. But before we even get into the fossil, lets take a look at the geology itself. The back of the bottle has a geological description of the wine local:

Text from the bottle:

First is was an ocean. Then mountains and later a mountain range. Now it is home to the high-altitude vineyards that produce wines with a mountain-inspired personality and a complexity and character only this terroir can bestow.

Their website has a little more information on the source of their logo, or at least the inspiration for their logo:

Not only is our vineyard ideal for precision viticulture, but it also the witness of history: A Nautilus fossil was found while preparing the land for winegrowing. These sea snails from the Jurassic period are silent bystanders of the formation of the Andes, which were once an ocean.

Location map from Finca El Origen's website

The winery is located in Los Chacayes, which is in the Valle de Uco, Mendoza, Argentina. It sits right at the eastern base of the Andes Mountains, just over the border from Santiago, Chile. The Andes Mountains, though, are a jumbled up mess of geology, and I can't find very many definitive sources for geological units. I have found two websites that seem to offer some information. 

Geological map of the Mendoza region around Los Chacayes from the Geological Map of South America. Los Chacayes is highlighted with the star. 

The above map is from the "Geological Map of South America", and while a useful source for a general map of the entire continent, it doesn't have very many details for the specific unit we are looking at. Unit "203" on the map, the unit that encompasses the entirety of Los Chacayes, is identified on the map as being from Permian to Triassic in age and comprised of rhyolitic volcanic rocks. And that's about it. Even going to the original document doesn't provide much more information. 

The other map I tried was the "Mapa Geológico Bicontinental de la República Argentina"

Geological map of the Mendoza region around Los Chacayes from the Mapa Geológico Bicontinental de la República Argentina. Los Chacayes is highlighted with the star.

This second map also has the same shape of the unit that we are interested in, identified as PTSs. But they have a little more information on the unit. Here it is identified as "Siliciclastic and volcanic rocks, Permian to Triassic in age". And that's about it. Obviously this location would once have been an ocean basin, due to the ammonite fossil found within, but other than that it looks like we are limited at the moment. Looking at the fossil itself: 

The ammonite fossil on the bottle is clearly an artistic rendering of a the ammonite fossil, and I think it is not actually the fossil that was found on the vineyard locality. This is because it seems to match a drawing of an ammonite fossil done over 100 years ago. 

Plate 44 Ammonites in Haekel's 1899 Kunstformen der Natur.

The illustration on the wine bottle seems to match ammonite on the center right in the image above, if we flip the image and adjust for the curvature of the bottle. The lines on the ridges match location placement and numbers, as well as the knobs on the inner part of the swirl.

Comparison of the Finca El Origen ammonite and Haekel's 1899 illustration

The degree of similarity is too much to ignore. Haekel's ammonite illustration is of the ammonite Douvilleiceras mammillatum. While Douvilleiceras mammillatum can be found in many places across the globe, there have been no instances of discovery within Argentina. The closest location to this, is one instance within Brazil, and regardless, Douvilleiceras mammillatum is a lower to middle Cretaceous age fossil (Aptian - Albian), meaning that the rocks within the vineyard are much too old to house this fossil (they are Permian to Triassic in age, at least 80 million years older than Douvilleiceras mammillatum). Therefore the fossil on the bottle is clearly not the one that was found. 

Well then, what was the fossil found?

Picture of the other ammonite from the Finca El Origen website.

On the winery's website, they have two pictures of real fossil ammonites among the description of why there's an ammonite on the bottle. The first ammonite pictured is a clear image of a split and polished ammonite (pictured above). Despite being a paleontologist myself, I am far from an expert on ammonites. From my knowledge of ammonites it is exceedingly difficult to identify them with any accuracy based on the internal structure. However, comparing this to other ammonites, this example appears to be an ammonite from much later in the time period, like the illustration on the bottle. From what I can tell, this looks like a cut and polished ammonite from the Albian (middle Cretaceous) of Madagascar. It seems to resemble a Cleoniceras ammonite, like the one pictured below. But in general, this ammonite pictured is again, impossible to have occurred within the time period and region of the rocks within the winery. I have reached out to an ammonite specialist and if I hear anything back I will update. 

Cleoniceras besairei from fossilmall.com

The final ammonite pictured on the winery's website, is shown below. While this is clearly a staged photo, we will assume that this is a real fossil and that it has the potential to have been found within the region. 

Picture of an ammonite from the Finca El Origen website.

Searching for ammonites within Argentina, had found several examples of Jurassic or Cretaceous ammonites that occurred within the Mendoza region, however I did find a few examples of Triassic age ammonites.  

Ammonite pieces from Riccardi et al., 2004.

The above images are of fragments of the ammonite Choristoceras found within the Mendoza region of Argentina in Riccardi et al., 2004. Within the article they state that "Ammonoids in the Triassic part of the section are quite rare and so far only part of a whorl and several external moulds have been found." But with the skewed winery ammonite photograph as our example, this appears to be a match, or at least as close of a match as I can be sure of. Choristoceras is also a Triassic age ammonite that went extinct at the end of the Triassic, making it seem like a likely contender. 

Choristoceras illustration from Steinmann, 1890. 

And some images of complete Choristoceras fossils (pictured above) do tend to resemble the image used on the bottle (although the image used is clearly a recreation of Haekel's image). 

Stylized ammonite fossil on the top of the bottle. 

But regardless, the design on the top of the wine bottle of a stylized ammonite fossil is pretty freaking cool.

References

https://fincaelorigen.com/en/home-2/
https://fincaelorigen.com/en/history/
https://fincaelorigen.com/en/reserva-malbec-2/
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=7ecc9e7e0c1f46c8ad44f5e5b476150d
https://www2.sgc.gov.co/MGC/Paginas/gmsa5M2019.aspx
https://sigam.segemar.gov.ar/mapstore/#/viewer/302
https://archive.org/details/KunstformenderN00Haec/page/n230/mode/1up
Haeckel, Ernst. "Kunstformen der Natur [1899]." Die einhundert Farbtafeln im Faksimile mit beschreibendem Text, allgemeiner Erläuterung und systematischer Übersicht: 35
https://paleobiodb.org/classic/checkTaxonInfo?taxon_no=314519&is_real_user=1
http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/ammonites/ammo63/ammonite63.htm
https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/bitstream/handle/11336/81386/CONICET_Digital_Nro.3f88447b-29b1-455f-882f-23ee5e4272c7_X.pdf
Steinmann, Gustav. Elemente der Paläontologie. Vol. 2. W. Engelmann, 1890.

Drunk on Astronomy - Eclipse Red Wine

The next Drunk on Astronomy post is for Eclipse Red Wine from the Heron Hill Winery in Hammondsport, NY. 

This is probably the most straightforward Drunk on Geology post I have done to date. But per Webster's Dictionary, an eclipse is an:

obscuration of the light of the sun by intervention of the moon (solar eclipse), or of the moon by intervention of the earth (lunar eclipse).

Eclipse diagrams (Image courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica)

Looking at the solar eclipse first, I have been lucky enough to have seen a mostly complete solar eclipse. When I lived in Utah, there was a solar eclipse that reached near totality where I lived on August 21st, 2017. You can read my full account of the process of getting these photos on my post HERE. 

My photo of the 2017 Solar Eclipse from Utah (partial solar eclipse from my vantage

The complete progression of my solar eclipse photos

As mentioned in the definition, a solar eclipse is when the moon blocks the sun. Now obviously the moon is much, much smaller than the sun. The moon is also much, much closer to the Earth than the sun, so the size differences almost make the moon and sun appear to be the same size per our vantage point on the Earth. Think of it as looking at your thumb right next to your eye versus at arm's length. At arms length your thumb appears smaller than when it is next to your eye but the size of your thumb did not change. 

The almost near identical appearance of sizes of the moon and the sun means that when we do get a solar eclipse it will only appear as a total solar eclipse for a narrow band of people on Earth. And since the Earth rotates, that narrow band with move in a predictable line across the Earth during the daily rotation. The map above shows the map of the Solar Eclipse I photographed in August of 2017. 

August 21, 2017 Solar Eclipse path map. Image courtesy of the American Astronomical Society. 

Percentages of coverage during an eclipse are known as the magnitude.  The magnitude is the fraction of the eclipsed body covered by the eclipsing body. During a solar eclipse, the magnitude refers to the fraction of the sun covered by the moon. A total solar eclipse would be equal to 1.0 (which equals "totality") and anything off of that totality line would be less than one. For my images of the solar eclipse above, I took them at the ~0.9 magnitude line.

There is an interesting note, that even though the moon and sun appear approximately the same size in the sky, they are not exactly the same size. The moon is a hair smaller in appearance. This means that if you were to be in the exact center line of totality, a fringe of the sun would appear as a halo around the eclipsing moon causing an effect known as the "ring of fire". 

Notably this wine is produced and bottled with solar energy.

When we look at the position of the moon in relation to the sun and Earth, over the course of a month, the moon completes an orbit around the Earth (hence the term month essentially means 1 moon orbit). During the moon's orbit, the moon goes from a new moon, where it is not visible at night, to a full moon, where it is completely visible, and back again. The diagram below illustrates the position of the moon in relation to the Earth and sun during all phases of the moon. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon is in New Moon phase because that is the only time the moon is directly between the Earth and sun. 

Phases of the moon via Space.com.

The lunar eclipse rearranges the order of the moon, earth, sun. Instead of the moon being between the Earth and the Sun, now the Earth is between the sun and moon, during the Full Moon phase of the moon. Therefore, a lunar eclipse is when the moon is covered by the shadow of the Earth. And since the Earth is much, much larger than the moon, the shadow is able to cover way more space than just the moon. Allowing for more frequent lunar eclipse viewings over larger areas of the Earth's surface. In actuality, during a lunar eclipse anyone on the dark half (AKA nightside) of the Earth have the potential to witness it. 

Timelapse of a lunar eclipse via Space.com

The Earth experiences a lunar eclipse about 2 to 4 times per year. One would expect it to occur more often, since the alignment of the Sun-Earth-Moon does occur about 12-13 times a year, however the moon's orbital plane is off of this alignment and only lines up perfectly those 2 to 3 times per year. And, unlike a solar eclipse, where the moon completely obscures the sun, the shadow of the Earth can't completely obscure the moon. The result is the moon gets covered in a deep red shadow. So even though the moon is "eclipsed" it is still completely visible. 

Interestingly enough, when we look at the Eclipse bottle we notice two design choices on the bottle. 

1. There are stars across the bottle. During a total solar eclipse, it is possible to see stars out, since the vast majority of the sun's light is blocked. This only occurs during totality though, and only the brightest of stars are visible. Therefore the partial eclipse seen on the bottle would not result in stars being visible. 
2. The design choice for the crescent shaped object makes it look like the moon. I assume this was just a design choice for the crescent sun during an eclipse and not a "waning gibbous" moon (as illustrated in the diagram above). Since the moon moves through phases continuously over the course of the month, a waning gibbous moon would represent when the moon was not directly in line with the Earth and sun, and therefore would not be an eclipse. This also can't be a lunar eclipse since, as we noted above, the moon is still completely visible during a lunar eclipse, it is only tinged a deep red color. So, since the wine is named "Eclipse", we would have to assume it is indeed the sun and not the moon illustrated and meant to be a partial solar eclipse. 

References

https://eclipse.aas.org/eclipse-america/when-where

https://space.rice.edu/eclipse/lunar_eclipse_faq.html

https://www.space.com/33786-lunar-eclipse-guide.html

https://www.space.com/62-earths-moon-phases-monthly-lunar-cycles-infographic.html