crystals and art. juan maguel garcia ruiz

Crystals and ArtGeometry and beauty in the mineral world

Juan Manuel García-RuizCSIC, Granada, Spain

Juan Manuel García-Ruiz The Integral Club --Concert Hall Eureka- Novosibirsk, October 1, 2013


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Formation of Earth

Origin of Life asseen from microfossilsOldest sedimentary rocksOldest putative fossils and stromatolites

Cianobacteria and Stromatolites

Iron Banding Formations

Latest detrital Uraninite and Pyrite

Atsmosferic oxygenNucleated cells (Phytoplankton)

Complex (sexual) Phytoplankton

Seaweeds and protozoans

Animals without backbones

Historyof the

Primitive Earth

J. W. Schopf. Major events in the History of Life(Jones and Bartlett, Boston, 1992)

E.C. Nisbet, The young EarthAllen & Unwin, Boston 1987

Issua

WarrawoonaOnwerwacht

Fig TreeMoodies

Insuzi

Fortescue

HamersleyVentersdorp

GowgandaTransvaal

GunflintBelcher

Dismal Lakes

Belt

ChichkanEdiacara

Bitter SpringsChuar

Little Dal

Main Life EventsMain Microbiota

Change in the tectonicregime of the earth. Greenstones and komaititesbecomes later rare

Mostly based on data from

Oldest material Zircon ≈ 4.2 Gy

Oldest rock, gneiss ≈ 4.0 Gy

Oldest sedimentary rocks, Putative Isotopic marks Issua ≈ 3.8 Gy.

Oldest putative microfossils, Warrawoona 3.5 Gy

ü Isotopic signature of carbonaceous remnants

üMorphology of putative microfossils

üChemical composition of carbonaceous compounds

üStromatolitic-like structures

Primitive life detection



Some structures found in Precambrian rocks (cherts) which are interpreted as fossils remnants of primitive life and its laboratory made silica/carbonate counterparts


FESEM view of morphologies found in the Martian meteorite ALH84001 and proposed as evidence of

primitive life on Mars.

“Some of the features in ALH84001 (e.g. filaments) are common biogenic markers on Earth. We conclude that the evidence for fossilized microbes and their products …………cannot be readily explained by nonbiologic

processes ..”

LPI Workshop, “Martian meteorites: Where do we stand and where are we going?”

Microstructures found in Achaean rocks and interpreted as one of the oldest remnants of life on planet Earth.

Search for life elsewhere (actually, on Mars and meteorites)

Two different world?Two different geometry behavior?

Crystalline Shapes controlled by crystal structure

Aiγi = minimum

32 G30 ⊂ K

Faceted crystals, sharp angles, crystallographic dendrites, twining, fluid

inclusions, hopper crystals

Juan Manuel García-Ruiz Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo 2013 Santalo’s School on the Mathematics of the Planet Earth

∞ G30 ⊄ K

Aiγi > minimum

Crystalline Patterns not controlled by crystal structure


The symmetry of natural shapes(classical thought)

The realm of the crystal The realm of lifeOrganic symmetry

Sinuous shapesContinuous curvatureUnrestricted symmetry

Inorganic symmetry

Polyhedral, faceted shapesDeterministic angles

Forbidden symmetry operators

Aiγi = minimum

32 G30 ⊂ K ∞ G3

0 ⊄ K

Aiγi > minimum


CO2 HCO3 and CO3=

CO2

Silica gel

pH0 = 6.2

pH0 = 10.5

pH g

radi

ent

Room conditionsbut they also form at higher pressure

and temperature

Preparation of silica/carbonate biomorphs

BaCl2 + NaSi2O3

8.5 < pH < 11

BaCl2

In solution

In gelled solution

The inorganic precipitation of barium or strontium carbonate in alkaline silica rich solutions leads to the formation of self-assembled nanocrystalline aggregates displaying complex shapes with non-crystallographic symmetry


The morphogenesis of the leaf-like shape (L1D2 or D1L2 ; H1 = H2 ; Vφ1 Vφ2 Vρ) :

The morphogenesis of a helicoids of constant width (L1L2 or D1D2 ; H1 = H2 ; Vφ1 ≈ Vφ2 ≈ Vρ):

The morphogenesis of the braid (L1L2 or D1D2 ; H1≈ H2 ; Vφ1 ≈ Vφ2 > Vρ):

The morphogenesis of worm like structures (L1L2 or D1D2 or L1D2 ; H1 >> H2 ; Vφ1 ; Vφ2 ; Vρ):

The power of curling



Some structures found in Precambrian rocks (cherts) which are interpreted as fossils remnants of primitive life and its laboratory made silica/carbonate counterparts


Morphological convergence of silica biomorphs with primitive life formsSome structures found in Precambrian rocks (cherts) which are interpreted as fossils remnants of primitive life

and its laboratory made silica/carbonate counterparts


FeCO3 +H2O à Fe3O4 + CO2 +CO + H2 + PAH

Heating siderite at 300 ºC simple aromatic hydrocarbons form (McCollom & Seewald, Geochem & Cosmoch. Acta, 67 ( 2003) 216)

Mixtures of phenol-formaldehyde adsorb in silica biomorphs. After heating at 350 ºC kerogen is made. This kerogen has the same Raman spectra that the one obtained from structures considered the oldest microfossils found on Earth

40 microns

DG

Neither morphology nor chemical composition can be used as unambiguous tools for life detection

Highly disordered carbonaceous material

J.M. García-Ruiz. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 24 (1994) 451-467J.M. García-Ruiz, A. Carnerup, A. Christy, N. J. Welham, and S. Hyde, Astrobiology 2 (2002) 335

J.M. García-Ruiz, S.T. Hyde, A. Carnerup, A.G. Christy, M.J.Van Kranendonk, N.J. Welham. Science 302 (2003) 1194.


Morphology does not contain unequivocal genetic information

Primitive and extraterrestrial life detection cannot be only based on morphology

Morphology can be used only as a tool for life detection when it becomes a darwinian character. Before that critical and I guess late step, morphology of living organisms where controlled by the same physical parameters that control the shape of abiotic self-assembled structures, namely surface tension, membrane elasticity and porosity and osmotic forces.

There is not a fundamental difference between the symmetry of the world of crystals and the symmetry of the lifeworld

The existence of a sharp boundary dividing the realm of biology and sensuality and the realm of minerals and cold rationality has pervaded the landscape of arts and philosophy for centuries. Crystals and crystallographic theories have played an important role in the intellectual construction of that proposed boundary.


2001: A Space OdysseyArthur Clarke/Stanley Kubrick, 1968

The cold shapes of crystals, volumes delimited by sharp volumes of 6ixed

angles

The sensual shapes of life displaying

continuous curvature


Crystals have fascinated humans since ancient times. May be one of the stronger evidence of such a fascination is the quartz crystal found in a 6000 years-old dolmen in Alberite, Cadiz, South of Spain).


Dolmen of AlberiteInformation from José Ramos y Salvador Dominguez-Bella


Dolmen of Alberite

Smocky quartz crystal found in the funerary site of Alberite, built approximately 6000 years ago.

This pegmatitic quartz crystal does not exist near the area of the location of the Dolmen and therefore has been transported from an area located at least 400 kms away from Alberite.

Why mankind wonders about crystals ?


The planet on which we all live today was formed around four thousand five hundred million years ago. Way back then, the planet was not only the scene of volcanic activity: the hot earth also began to cool quickly, and condensed water soon began to gather on the surface. And so began the combined action of fire and water. These two forces, along with the wind, carved out the shapes of Earth’s inanimate materials, the mineral world. These shapes are the result of the repeated action of simple mechanism which work re len t les s ly, second by second, constructing an increasingly complex geometry in which curves, and branching are the dominant feature.

Shapes drawn by the earth

Water, wind and fire moulded the surface of the Earth over the course of one thousand million years.


The geological forces which first drew shapes in the Earth’s surface were later joined by living organisms, around three thousand million years ago. This new artist became a faithful apprentice in the mineral workshops, copying, retouching here and there, but without changing the style of its master. The geometry of life melted into the geometry of the Earth to form a single landscape of curves and branching: thenatural landscape.

Shapes drawn by life

L i f e s h a p e s t h e landscape by fixing and colouringthe forms drawn by the water, the wind and the fire


The geometry of Nature No straight lines or circles, no polyhedra.


When humans forked off and carved out a straight line in the earth to aerate it and to sow seeds, they began to paint the landscape with a new pattern which broke away from the style created by the Earth and life duting thousands of millions of years.

Man-made shapes

Less than a couple of millions years ago appeared on the E a r t h a n e w l y -evolved spec ies . Men drew its own tracks on the Earth’s surface


An aesthetic battle began when mankind started to plough the fields with perfectly-straight lines, like in the irrigated fields around Doñana in southwest Spain, where surface water could then flow easily from the well dug out in the sandy soil.

The landscape was retouched, but gently, and this is a minor injury, just like the artificial lagoon that fits delicately into the shallows of the salt marsh in San Fernando, near Cadiz in southern Spain


Man-made shapes


Man-made shapes

Juan Manuel García-Ruiz The Integral Club --Concert Hall Eureka- Novosibirsk, October 1, 2013Juan Manuel García-Ruiz Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo 2013 Santalo’s School on the Mathematics of the Planet Earth

Man-made shapes


The skyline of the large cities is the perfect example of the triumph of the straight l ine in the urban landscape.

Juan Manuel García-Ruiz Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo 2013 Santalo’s School on the Mathematics of the Planet Earth

Man-made shapes


The geometry of Nature No straight lines or circles, no polyhedra.


Dolmen of Alberite

Smocky quartz crystal found in the funerary site of Alberite, built approximately 6000 years ago.

This pegmatitic quartz crystal does not exist near the area of the location of the Dolmen and therefore has been transported from an area located at least 400 kms away from Alberite.

Why mankind wonders about crystals?

Because crystals are singular natural objects with morphology distinct from any other kind of natural objects


Why are they not spherical, like soap bubbles ?

Crystals are shapes of minimal energy

Because crystals have anisotropic 3D structures.

Melancholia from Durero


The minimum work required to build a unit interface at a constant volume and temperature in the system is called the specic free-surface energy and denoted gamma

It has units of energy per unit area and is conceptually similar to surface tension, but not identical in the case of solids.

The density and relative strength of bonds in crystals depend on the orientation of the surface. The polyhedral shapes of the crystals result from the anisotropy in specific free-surface energy.

Crystals: Internal order


Crystals: External order


1784Essai d’une théorie sur la

structure des crystaux

René Haüy Traité de Minérologie (1801)


Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Maria Shelley

Based on the work of Andrew Crosse, a fascinating character who explores electrocrystallization in 1817, including controversial experiments on life creation by electrocrystallization. The book of Mary Shelley was inspired by these experiments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein


Specifically, beginning in the nineteenth century with the works of Jules Verne (1828-1905) and in case of giant crystals in his famous Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) illustrated by French painter Édouard Rius.

Same year of 1864 George Sand published Voyage dans le cristal, another book using t h e n e w c o n c e p t o f c r y s t a l s a n d crystallization.


Wenzel Hablik

The Path of the Genius, 1918

Structure of a Colony Floating in the Air, 1908


Ville Savoyede

Le Courbusier


the Glass house of Mies van der Rohe


The manifesto “Towards the crystal” A. Ozenfant and Le Corbusier

L'ESPRIT NOUVEAU (1923)

You love a matter definite and exact,where the toadstool cannot pitch its camp.You love the architecture that builds on the absentand admit the flag simply as a joke.

The steel compass tells its short, elastic verse.Unknown clouds rise to deny the sphere exists.The straight line tells of its upward struggleand the learned crystals sing their geometries.

But also the rose of the garden where you live.Always the rose, always, our north and south!Calm and ingathered like an eyeless statue,not knowing the buried struggle it provokes.

Pure rose, clean of artifice and rough sketches,opening for us the slender wings of the smile.(Pinned butterfly that ponders its flight.)Rose of balance, with no self-inflicted pains. Always the rose!

A debate on aesthetic

From García Lorca Ode to Dali

Dali Naked In Ecstasy Before Five Regular Bodies

Federico Garcia LorcaPoet in Nueva York

A debate on aesthetic

Murdered by the sky,among the forms towards the snakeand the forms searching for crystalI will let my hair grow


The Pyramid of The Louvre

Juan Manuel García Ruiz El Escorial, 22 de Julio de 2013 Cursos de Verano de la Complutense55

Crystals and architecture


The Crystal Cathedralof Philips Johnson

Juan Manuel García Ruiz El Escorial, 22 de Julio de 2013 Cursos de Verano de la Complutense

GRID art installation

David DiMichele's "Construction" installation

I kept searching ... and I found ...

Quartz crystals:• Zhoukoudian, China, Upper 8 Quartz Horizon 2 (Locus G), ~770,000 BP: ~20 quartz crystals, 1 perfect fully faceted smoky quartz, some transparent or

semi-transparent with one or more of faces recognizable, probably transported from 7 km away (Pei 1931);

• Gudenus Cave, Austria, Acheulian level, fragment of large crystal with several facets (Bednarik 1988);

Singi Talav, India, lower Acheulian level, >390,000 BP: 6 complete quartz crystals from

different crystal flowers and probably transported to site (D’Errico et al 1989; Bednarik 1994)

Data provided by James Harrod,

Is our brain designed to prefer order, i.e., do we like crystals, because crystals were among the first items to be collected?

or

Do we collected crystals almost one million years ago because our brain was already designed to prefer order*?

Is the impact of crystals on culture due to the fact that they are firmly linked to the birth of art, symbolism and conscience?

* that would favour the understanding of nature and thus may be evolutively important


Thank you

crystals and art. juan maguel garcia ruiz

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