Seeing the Universe From Here: Field Notes from My Smithsonian Travels

By G. Wayne Clough

As the Smithsonian Institution's twelfth Secretary, Dr. G. Wayne Clough traveled extensively to connect with researchers and gain a better understanding of the scope of the Institution's work. While the Smithsonian is comprised of nineteen museums and galleries, a National Zoological Park, and nine research facilities, it also has a research presence in more than one hundred countries.

During his six years as secretary, Dr. Clough kept a detailed journal of his experiences and discoveries while on his travels, ranging from anthropology in Antarctica to pre-Columbian history in Peru from astrophysics in the Andes and the mountains of Hawaii to coral reef ecosystems off the coast of Belize, and from climate change in Wyoming to preserving endangered species in Kenya and Panama. Seeing the Universe From Here offers a firsthand perspective of the Smithsonian's global relevance in these progressive fields.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781588345974

Book preview

Introduction

IT WAS SUMMER 2008, and I was climbing a steep learning curve as the new secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In the fall, I would be expected to represent this historic institution to its supporters, the public and Congress. With its 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park and nine research centers, including one of the world’s largest astrophysical observatories, the Smithsonian was a challenge to wrap your arms around. Then there was the sheer scope of the institution’s collections—138 million objects, works of art and specimens strong. I had wondered where they all came from and how I would explain why it was necessary to keep so many artifacts. So it was on a hot day in August that I set out across the National Mall for the National Museum of Natural History to visit what was said to be the largest natural history collection in the world.

I was far from alone as thousands of people were there to visit the museum. Its striking rotunda, designed more than a century ago by renowned architect Daniel Burnham, is the point of embarkation for visitors heading to galleries filled with the wonders of natural history. At its center, an African elephant named Henry, said to be one of the largest who ever lived, rises above the crowds, gazing regally over the hustle and bustle below. At Henry’s feet, a group of scientists was waiting to escort me behind the walls of the public galleries and into the collections. We entered through an unobtrusive side door and walked up a flight of stairs and into a dim cavernous room lined with row after row of collection cabinets. Back out in the rotunda the voices of visitors and the laughter of children echoed off the stone walls, but here the vast space swallowed up our conversations.

Silently, we passed cabinets filled with fossils of creatures long extinct, until we reached Scott Wing, who was standing by several open cabinets. A paleobotanist, Scott studies the fossils of plants and trees to understand Earth’s evolutionary, ecological and environmental changes. He and I had never met—he knew only that I was an engineer by education and not a museum expert. Scott carefully explained to us that his work related to a distant period in Earth’s history known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, which falls between the Paleocene and Eocene epochs when conditions on Earth were much warmer than they are today. He showed us shale rock specimens that had been cracked open on bedding planes (the surface separating two layers of compressed rock) to expose the delicate impressions left by leaves that had fallen into still water 55 million years ago.

Scott explained that these ancient fossil leaves, discovered in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming, were remarkably similar to those growing on trees in Florida or Mexico today. Some of the fossils were small leaves, while others were large, detailed palm fronds. He showed us that we could determine that they grew in a warm climate by examining not only the leaves themselves, but also the tiny holes found in them, which were made by insects such as those found in Mexico today. This evidence demonstrates that the climate of the area now known as Wyoming was much warmer in the PETM. I thought that this was interesting, but, after all, Earth’s climate has changed many times throughout the planet’s long history.

Scott went on to explain that his findings about the climate in Wyoming were linked to those made by marine geologists who had discovered that during the PETM crustaceans were unable to build shells because of the oceans’ high acidity levels, the result of carbonic acid forming as seawater came in contact with an atmosphere freighted with elevated carbon levels, estimated at 800 to 900 parts per million. That caught my attention. Carbon levels of 800 to 900 parts per million are more than twice the levels found in today’s atmosphere, and so life on our planet was drastically different 55 million years ago as a result: no shellfish, no Arctic ice, sea levels 250 feet higher than levels today, tropical weather in the regions of what are now Wyoming and Alaska, and deserts in places once home to lush forests. Of course, no humans were to be found either since they would not come along until 50 million years or so later. Mammals existed, but they were small, with bodies adapted to the very warm climate. Cold-blooded creatures, on the other hand, could be large, with snakes like the terrifying Titanaboa reaching lengths of 50 feet and weighing 2,500 pounds.

It is a dramatic picture, but for Scott the question was why such conditions existed in the first place. After working in the Bighorn Basin season after season for more than 20 years, he and a group of dedicated colleagues have shown through the growing fossil evidence how the planet warmed through a series of successive trigger events, each of which lasted 10,000 to 20,000 years. The precision and specificity of their findings are unique. Here was the smoking gun showing the impact of climate change without the suggestion of human influence to cloud its interpretation. This evidence represents an analog for understanding the patterns that are likely to develop in our own time, during which humans are rapidly adding carbon to the atmosphere because of dependence on carbon-based fuels.

Here was the smoking gun showing the impact of climate change without the suggestion of human influence to cloud its interpretation.

I was fascinated and asked Scott how he had become interested in paleobiology in the first place. He explained that in his youth he had visited the Bighorn Basin with his father. The basin’s deeply incised valleys exposed geological history going back millions of years, and this had left an indelible impression on him. When early in his scientific career he had learned that crustaceans could not make shells in the PETM, he immediately thought that the paleobiological evidence to explain that discovery just might exist in the hills that he had visited as a boy. It took him more than a decade just to figure out how to consistently uncover the fossil beds that would tell the story. I was impressed with that level of dedication: A decade of hot, hard fieldwork with not much to show for it but a determination to keep going until the puzzle was solved. Right then, I had a moment of insight about the Smithsonian and its own commitment to the long term, a hallmark of the institution and a quality rarely found today with our society’s expectation of immediate results.

Paleobotanist Scott Wing stands among the plant fossil collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. (Photo by John Gibbons)

As we moved on to the next stop on the tour, I knew I needed to know more about Scott’s work and the work of other dedicated Smithsonian scientists, historians and curators if I was to be secretary of the Smithsonian in more than name only. Not only did I need to learn about the collections themselves, I also needed to appreciate where they came from and the methods used to obtain them. Throughout the Smithsonian’s history, the importance of careful field research and patient observation has been a motif, not only in science, but also in art, history and culture. To speak with authority about the institution, it was clear that I needed to see firsthand how its work was being accomplished

As the weeks passed after that first meeting with Scott Wing, I began to understand how much of the Smithsonian’s work was actually performed well beyond the walls of the museums and research centers. For example, Scott explained that each year in the Bighorn Basin area, he was joined by a group of colleagues and students from a number of universities to investigate new fossil finds. Each of the participants brought a different expertise to the project and together made up a complementary team of geologists, biochemists, paleobotanists and paleontologists. They camped out for the two months that they were in the field to reduce costs and allow everyone to stay together, so that at the end of each day the teams could discuss what they had found and compare their data. The more Scott told me, the more my appetite was whetted to visit his site and learn about Smithsonian field research firsthand.

During my own career as an engineer, I had done my share of fieldwork. My specialty was geotechnical engineering, a field that satisfied my love of geology, my skills in mathematics and talent for design. Geotechnical engineering involves the practice of civil engineering as applied to such natural phenomena as landslides and earthquakes, and to the construction of underground works and the design of building foundations. I love this field because it relies on the rigor of mathematics and simulation, yet it also requires ample use of judgment since geology and subsurface conditions can never be fully defined. The judgment part of the equation can only be refined by spending time in the field to learn as much as possible about what nature has created.

Working on landslides and earthquakes also requires field study. I worked at several research universities as a faculty member, including at Stanford University in California, where I was often part of reconnaissance teams sent around the world to learn from recent earthquakes. This was fascinating yet heartrending work, as I witnessed the devastation and suffering that came from building collapses and landslides. Being on the scene allowed us to see how these tragic failures occurred and to translate observations into lessons for our students and fellow professionals.

Fieldwork came naturally to me since I had grown up in a small town in south Georgia at a time when there were few distractions like television or computers. Aside from reading, my entertainment came from countless hours spent roaming the nearby woods, rivers, swamps and farms. These experiences, and the ones that came later from exploring the Appalachian Mountains after my family moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, led to a love of nature and a desire to understand it. However, it was not until I went to the University of California, Berkeley to study for my doctorate in geotechnical engineering that I was formally introduced to the skills I needed to truly learn from working in the field. It was at first a humbling experience. My professors in geology required us to map formations found in places ranging from the Berkeley Hills to the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. However, to map you need to know what you are looking at since few formations in the field looked like the classic ones found in textbooks. More than once I found myself being reprimanded for lollygagging in conversation with a fellow student as we walked past a small but seminal clue that could unlock the story of an entire geological region. Fieldwork requires total concentration.

Over time my skills at mapping improved, but it was apparent that I would never be as good as the faculty with whom I was studying. This would surely prove to be the case with my experiences at the Smithsonian since the scholars and scientists who would be my guides were expert in fields I knew only a little about. But the opportunity to learn was a gift granted to me later in life and would become essential to understanding the fundamental nature of the great institution I was honored to represent.

For more than six years as secretary of the Smithsonian, I went out into the field with our scholars as often as my schedule allowed. The Smithsonian has a presence and conducts research in more than 100 countries. Regrettably however, the demands of my job allowed me to visit only a handful of sites. I often had to choose my trips based on the need to become informed about a decision that had to be made or to connect with governmental or university partners who were important to the Smithsonian.

The type of work that I observed ranged from anthropology in Alaska to pre-Columbian history in Peru, from astrophysics in the Andes and the mountains of Hawaii to coral reef ecosystems off the coast of Belize, and from climate change in Wyoming to preserving endangered species in Kenya and Panama. Two of my trips were to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, to inspect the work that the Smithsonian had undertaken to rescue the country’s artistic and cultural patrimony from the rubble of the fallen museums and government buildings.

For each trip, I kept a journal to document my experiences. This book is a compilation of those journals, edited for readability and enhanced with photographs provided by Smithsonian colleagues. Each journal includes a postscript on the status of Smithsonian planning, policy and projects based on what we learned on our trips. Although the journals were written as standalone accounts, presented together they provide a perspective of the Smithsonian that exists nowhere else. Collectively, they also mirror the aspirations of the four grand challenges identified in the strategic plan that we developed for the Smithsonian in 2009: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe; Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet; Valuing World Cultures; and Understanding the American Experience.

My journals also chronicle a voyage of personal enlightenment. On St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait, I met with elders of the Yup’ik clan who told me of the threats to their ancient culture due to climate change. In the high Andes of Peru, the People of the Llama, who are descendants of the Inka, allowed me to visit a holy site where distant ancestors had created pictographs on a rock cliff. We talked about their hopes for a better economic future by marketing their beautiful traditionally woven textiles. Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, I saw firsthand the devastation of country’s infrastructure and the suffering of the people—yet two years later celebrated the success of our initiative to save Haiti’s cultural heritage. In Belize, I saw magnificent coral reefs that are being threatened by development and learned about efforts to preserve as much as possible of this tropical paradise for future generations. Traveling to observatories on mountaintops in Hawaii, Chile and Arizona, I listened as astrophysicists revealed new discoveries about our universe and the spaces beyond that are changing our understanding of life itself. On a starkly beautiful day in the Antarctic in McMurdo Sound, I stood transfixed, listening, as beneath the ice whales communicated in a language only they understood. My experiences have filled me with a new appreciation of the beauty and complexity of our world and its fragility in the face of the stresses being placed on it.

In Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses, the protagonist, who has finally returned home to Ithaca from his long voyages, concludes, I am a part of all that I have met.

So it has been for me.

Chile, May 2009

MY INTRODUCTION TO the Smithsonian’s international—and intergalactic—scientific endeavors begins in Chile with a visit to the Las Campanas Observatory in the southern portion of the Atacama Desert.

It is reasonable to ask why my first international trip to observe Smithsonian work in the field would be to Chile. That turns out to be a $77 million question, as will become clearer later. Suffice it to say that the Smithsonian has long been a leading light in astronomy and astrophysics through its world-renowned Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), which is what brought me to Chile. The Andes Mountains in the northern part of the country, with their high elevation, thin atmosphere and desert-like lack of humidity, provide ideal conditions for observing the heavens. Only astronomers, and a few hardy miners, could love such a harsh part of the planet, but love it they do. Chile is said to be home to more than 40 percent of the world’s astronomical observatories, a number that will grow as new projects on the SAO’s drawing board reach completion. Throughout the Andes, observatories dot the mountaintops, looking to all the world like extraterrestrial habitations.

Of the millions of people who visit the Smithsonian’s museums each year, few are aware that SAO is our largest research center. It dates back to the late 1800s and to Samuel Pierpont Langley, the third secretary of the Smithsonian, who was interested in making observations of the sun. SAO left the National Mall in 1955 and moved lock, stock and telescopes to Cambridge, Massachusetts, through an agreement with Harvard University to combine forces as the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Today, SAO manages observatories and telescopes around the world and even reaches into outer space, operating telescopic satellites for NASA. Its considerable science faculty conducts cutting-edge research, and it is a premier instrument builder for the astronomical community worldwide. More than 900 people are employed at SAO, with operational responsibilities for observatories in Hawaii and Arizona and a scientific presence at the South Pole Observatory.

SAO astronomers also actively participate at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, which is operated by the Carnegie Institution for Science and is the destination of my journey. Already home to many large telescopes, including the twin Magellan telescopes, Las Campanas will also be the site of the future largest Earth-based telescope, the Giant Magellan Telescope, for which plans are already under way. As secretary of the Smithsonian, I must make a recommendation to our governing board of regents about the institution’s participation in the collaborative effort to build the telescope. The GMT will cost $770 million to construct, and the Smithsonian’s share would be 10 percent, or $77 million. A visit to Las Campanas seemed in order to understand the justification for an investment of this size and importance.

Chile, a narrow strip of a country bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, is 2,500 miles long over its north-south axis, but at some points it dwindles to only 40 miles wide. Its coast is washed by the Humboldt Current, a cold ocean current that flows northward from the Antarctic. In addition to supporting abundant marine life, the Humboldt Current cools the air, suppressing rainfall in the north of Chile to a few inches annually and contributing to making the great Atacama Desert the driest non-polar desert in the world.

The country is a land of contrasts, rising rapidly from the Pacific at sea level to peaks of higher than 22,000 feet in elevation at the snow-capped Andes, then plunging east to the tropical rain forests of the Amazon. On his maiden journey from his home in Argentina on a not-so-reliable motorcycle, Ernesto Guevara (better known later as the revolutionary Che, confidant of Fidel Castro) kept a diary describing the staggering beauty and rapid changes in climate he encountered in Chile. He wrote about the cities that reflected the influence of the Spanish conquistadors and the Catholic priests who followed, but he was more intrigued by the people of Inka descent and the culture that he encountered in the remote highlands. Chile’s rugged character and heritage have inspired generations of writers and poets, including Pablo Neruda, winner of the Nobel Prize. Of his home Neruda wrote, I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.

The Andes are visible evidence of the powerful tectonic forces of the Pacific Plate and Antarctic Plate forcing themselves under the South American Plate to create towering mountain ranges. These large, restless pieces of Earth’s crust are driven by the spreading Pacific Ocean floor, evidenced by the volcanic upwelling that formed the Hawaiian Islands. The plates on Chile’s Pacific boundary are part of an interconnected global complex known as the Ring of Fire, characterized by frequent large earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. As a result, Chile shares its geological legacy with places like Alaska, Indonesia and Italy. While at the University of California at Berkeley for my doctoral studies, I wrote about the historically damaging quakes. Fortunately, Chile’s engineering community has a sophisticated understanding of the issues and, by virtue of well-designed building codes, has been able to mitigate damage to buildings and infrastructure that otherwise would occur during earthquakes.

Chilean engineers also participated in the ambitious plan devised for the Pan-American Highway in the 1930s that was to run from the southernmost tip of Chile to Alaska. With its 30,000 miles of roadway, the Pan-American Highway traverses much of Chile, a portion of which we will travel along to reach the Las Campanas Observatory.

In Chile, my wife, Anne, and I will be joined by Andrea Dupree, one of SAO’s leading astrophysicists, whose work involves the telescopes at the Las Campanas Observatory. We will also meet with representatives from the Carnegie Institution for Science, who operate the existing telescopes, to discuss the Smithsonian’s participation in the new GMT project.

(Image by pavalena​/​Shutterstock.com)

MAY 24

SANTIAGO

Weather: Cool, foggy (it is winter in Chile)

We arrive in Santiago early Sunday morning. Founded in 1541 by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, Santiago would eventually grow to become the capital of Chile. De Valdivia was a lieutenant under Francisco Pizarro and had come to Chile looking for gold and silver. Instead he found a country rich in copper and agriculture. In the mid-20th century another wave of explorers would be attracted to Chile, but the treasure they sought would be found in the heavens. They were the astronomers who came to build telescopes, gaze at the stars and ask fundamental questions about how the universe was formed.

Our landing in Santiago follows an overnight flight from Miami. As we drowsily proceed through customs to the baggage claim, Murphy’s Law strikes and several members of our group, including Anne, do not find their bags waiting. After leaving information about the missing bags with the authorities a bus takes us into downtown Santiago to our hotel. Following a short and welcome nap, a small group of us meet for lunch. Lunch is no small matter in South America, and it is impolite to rush a meal. Why rush when the food is good and the company fun? (It helps us forget about the luggage, too.)

After lunch we take the metro (a very modern and efficient system) to the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. We arrive at the city square, which is ringed by buildings dating from the colonial period to today. People are everywhere, especially on the many benches beneath the royal palm trees. Their faces and stature speak to a story of mixed cultures and races. While Native people and those of Spanish descent comprise the largest populations in Chile, the country is also home to significant numbers of other Europeans, including the Irish, who immigrated to both here and the United States in the mid-19th century to escape the potato famine back home.

The Museo turns out to be a delightful surprise with its outstanding array of artifacts from the pre-Columbian period, which dates back to at least 15,000 years ago when peoples from North America migrated down the South American coastline. The exhibits cover all the identifiable cultures that developed between Mexico and Chile. In Chile, early peoples occupied different geographical niches, from the rugged coastline to the desert-like high country in the Andean plateaus. To the south, they settled in the more temperate and rainy lands.

In time the settlers developed sophisticated cultures and, about 6,000 years ago, tools and household utensils began exhibiting artistic design and decoration. Early stone paintings appeared, created by the coastal Chinchorro people to implore the gods to return the fish that periodically disappeared along the coast because of changing weather and current patterns caused