‘lifelines, deathlines, over, under, burrowing, buried… swallowed-up threads of a story that has no ending.’
(wieland schmied – mark tobey – p.52 [intertwined 1959], thames and hudson, 1966)

project: cipher songs
status: in progress
title: tracing pieces #4 –  cipher songs
single cipher duration: 2 minutes
duration of track: 10 minutes
total duration of music: 50 mins
scale: pentatonic

sound pieces
improvisations derived from the subjective interpretation of flint pebble surfaces
cipher contours one – 1.1 – 1.5 
cipher contours two – 2.1 – 2.5
cipher contours three – 3.1 – 3.5
cipher contours four – 4.1 – 4.5
cipher contours five – 5.1 – 5.5  

collection
date: november/december 2015
location: sandgate, kent
criteria: flint pebbles revealing the worn morphologies and taphonomic markings of cretaceous echinoids
origin: the upper chalk of southern england

fragment 4.0 – decode

the object an image
a given poieses
a state of erosion
a reflective surface
arrested
a past horizon
opening

fragment 4.1 – elegy for remote surfaces

white-journey
bound to the earth mass
the ceaseless tug and release
of flint against wet flint
the slow rubbing and revealing
of long lost taphonomies
and unnamed surfaces

ancient animal
the geologic mind
now barely reads your shape
your marks and traces
an intriguing
but obtusely
eroded calligraphy

biotic/abiotic entanglements
banks of shingle are unified but ever changing bodies. structures constructed through climatic erosion. derived from various horizons in the white cliffs of the south coast of england, flint is constantly leaving its place of rest, its place of growth in the geological succession. journeying under sea or open air it masses at the interface of flux and stillness. hidden amongst the unremarkable pebble shapes are rarer forms that reveal the markings and ordered morphologies of pre-depositional existence. worn petrified images now barely recognisable as the remains of echinoids, of the cretaceous animals they once were.

tidal readings
the shingle beach, a flowing mass of cyclic energy at rest, the chaotic flux that created the arrangement no longer present. through current, atmospheric pressure, the passage of moon, twice a day the murmuration of pebbles develop and on this ever changing interface, become as fixed as a photograph. between land and sea, the image forms. rhythmically, the sifting and sorting, the vast banks of flint settling into rise and rill. at times the pulse of daily conditions is somewhat consistent and one begins to discern that a constancy of motion has created a new order, a temporary arrangement that at least for this moment gives rise to the fossil forms i seek. now through the motions of spent weather, gathered in loose proximity, they appear to have found each other’s orbit. as the moon’s influence recedes, the flattened urchin stones are stranded on the upper reaches. larger spherical forms pushed up the banks, subject to their lack of purchase, are drawn back in gravity’s grasp, no longer lost in a pointillist landscape but clearly discernible as one walks the stretches of finer shingle, their fossil forms sparsely distributed but visible. these are geo-biological objects risen above the general hum of bland shape, each zoic pebble a unique aesthetic form, transmitting its character. through millennia, the tumbling and smoothing, the slow wearing away of matter against like matter, distinguishing themselves from the irregular mass, holding the symmetry of previous life.

field note: 21st november 2015:
moon – 9.78 days, illumination 74%, waxing gibbous. tide – high 06:18 (6.30m), low 13:19 (1.80m).
the sea-states of the past few days have varied considerably. the pebbles scattered with no particular sense of sorting either in size, weight or shape. two larger sea-worn mesolithic hammer stones found on the lower beach.
field note: 23rd november 2015:
moon – 12.02 days, illumination 92%, waxing gibbous.  tide – high 08:16 (6.90m), low 15:32 (1.10m).
thick white mists today rolling in off the sea and after two days of a gentle lapping sea-state, the shelving banks of pebbles have been partially sorted into various sizes and shapes, conducive to finding globular or ovate forms at the top of the tidal reach.
field note: 24th november 2015:
moon – 13.15 days, illumination 97%, waxing gibbous. tide – high 9:05 (7:10m), low 16:36 (0.90m). folkestone station significant wave height – 2.2m at 10am).
a solid ground swell has flattened out the beach with waves breaking and rushing in 10cm washes for many meters, at high tide hitting the sea wall. the background shingle is fine with flat larger pieces pushed beyond the upper reaches of the tide. many of these are struck flint scrapers in various stages of wear that have skimmed cleanly over the rounded shingle.

1.1 – 1.5

2.1 – 2.5

3.1 – 3.5

4.1 – 4.5

5.1 – 5.5

flint
micro-crystalline mineral quartz
predominantly forming, nodular and tabular structures that mainly lay in defined horizons within the chalk sequence, flint is classified as a variety of chert formed specifically in chalk or marly limestones. The genesis of flint is not well understood. it is possibly the result of chemical changes in highly compressed sediments during the a diagenetic process and possibly formed by a gelatinous dissolved silica that precipitated into cavities such as crustacea burrows, the silica derived from organic sources such as sponge spicules and siliceous micro-organisms. such species such as echinoids, bivalves, sponges or corals are fairly common amongst the generic flint pebbles of the south coast beaches.

prehistoric struck flint tools derived from river terrace gravels are also washed up on the shore. some possibly from the mesolithic tribes that lived on the land between the uk and the continent, a land now deep below the english channel.

diagenesis
the succession of physical and chemical alterations that occurs post during death and during the process deposition culminating in differing qualities of fossilisation

taphonomy
the study of post death decay and fossilisation
ethological implications
expanded biostraticgraphies
environmental, oceanological, hydrological and climatic reconstructions
biostratinomy, events between death and burial
diagenisis, post burial processes

trace fossils
ichnofossils comprise of traces of life, forms of evidence left by various organisms in the geological record
burrows and borings
infills and impressions
mineral replacements
chemical markers
sedimentary structures

epoch: late cretaceous – 100 – 65 (ma)
lithostratigraphic unit: chalk group
subdivision: white chalk subgroup
stage: maastrichtian 70.6 – 65.5 (ma)
stage: campanian 83.5 – 70.6 (ma)
stage: santonian 85.8 – 83.5 (ma)
stage: coniacian 89.3 – 85.8 (ma)
stage: turonian  85.8 – 93.9 (ma)
stage: cenomanian 93.5 – 103.5 (ma) – no flint observed