Book Review: Death In Yellowstone

[Simon_Jester]

Although most of the environmental hazards that apply to homo sapiens were just as dangerous to homo habilis, so I suspect that the process of evolving instincts co-evolved along with our increasing intelligence, rather than having to wait until we got smarter.

[Broomstick]

Not much time to keep up with this as I have three 8 hour shifts to work in 48 hours, but I'm just going to say that falling while free-climbing cliffs and rock walls is neither the sort of "wrong place wrong time" lightning strikes and tree falls typically are, or disobeying warning signs. It's engaging in an inherently risky activity. What I find surprising is how infrequent that sort of fall is. Probably because most people engaging in the sport take the risks seriously, train hard, and work to minimize those risks.

[Sea Skimmer]

Although most of the environmental hazards that apply to homo sapiens were just as dangerous to homo habilis, so I suspect that the process of evolving instincts co-evolved along with our increasing intelligence, rather than having to wait until we got smarter.

That assumes that intelligence evolved in a linear process though. It probably didn't. It was probably pretty damn stagnant for long periods. But intelligence is an odd thing, it seems to have to reach certain threshold to matter in practical terms, and how you evolve to that, and then flip to everyone being at that level, not easily explained. In this we are very limited by our sample size of 1, as in only one species can we study well, other humans. And only in a narrow timescale of the past 150 years or so of useful study.

But actually a theory also exists (in part to explain why humans, and other animals, still vary so much in intelligence) that distinct subgroups of a species which become too smart might not be as successful as we expect in the prewriting, predrawing era. This is because many concepts too complex for instinct alone could only be learned by observation, and intelligence without experience breeds false confidence.

A single dumb individual being killed meanwhile might be enough to make a whole generation of other people in the troop more wary then they would otherwise, increasing the survival chances of everyone, and helping avoid bad situations in which perhaps many, even the whole group, would die. Obviously theories like this get pretty speculative, as they can only really be studied mathematically, but its an interesting way to look at the evolution of intelligence animals. And one certainly a concept supported by the way we make all our safety laws and engineering rules....

[Simon_Jester]

That assumes that intelligence evolved in a linear process though. It probably didn't. It was probably pretty damn stagnant for long periods. But intelligence is an odd thing, it seems to have to reach certain threshold to matter in practical terms, and how you evolve to that, and then flip to everyone being at that level, not easily explained...

Well, what I'm getting at is that it's entirely possible that homo habilis infants had an instinctive urge not to crawl off a cliff, which would express itself if you tried to get them to crawl onto a transparent floor.

I mean, lots of animals have survival instincts and natural wariness of things that might kill them. That's why I speculated as I did. Monkey and apes have survival instincts too, though presumably they're not as well developed and efficient as ours.

But actually a theory also exists (in part to explain why humans, and other animals, still vary so much in intelligence) that distinct subgroups of a species which become too smart might not be as successful as we expect in the prewriting, predrawing era. This is because many concepts too complex for instinct alone could only be learned by observation, and intelligence without experience breeds false confidence.

Since humans who possess full human-level intelligence "in the wild" (i.e. hunter-gatherers) still die on a regular basis to disease, accident, and so on...

I don't think there's much chance that any humans actually did evolve who were 'too smart' for this mechanism to be in play. We never evolved to be too smart for a predator to pick off one or two of us, or too smart to fall out of a tree and die, or anything of that nature. We never reached a point where we lost the benefit of an occasional salutary example keeping the rest of us on our toes.

...

Also, you then factor in the idea that one of the big drivers of human intelligence was probably an arms race between proto-humans.

Think about it. When you get a singular species of animal that massively surpasses other animals in a single specific feature, there's usually a reason that doesn't have to do with surviving in a dangerous environment. Evolution tends to stop pushing a species to develop a hypertrophied feature to cope with its environment as soon as the feature is "good enough" that the environmental hazard is survivable. Bears have heavy fur, but not much heavier than the minimum needed to ensure that they stay alive and warm in their natural habitat. Cheetahs are fast, but their sprinting speed isn't that much faster than the animals they evolved to catch- not three times as fast or anything. They're simply 'fast enough' that they can be reasonably assured of catching their prey often enough to stay well fed.

Whereas peacocks have insanely huge tails- because the tail is a sexual selection feature, the product of direct competition between peacocks over "who's got the biggest tail?" Giraffes have insanely long necks, not only because they compete with other animals to browse on tree leaves, but because they get into neck-fights for mates in breeding season.

Then we reflect that compared to literally any other animal on Earth, humans aren't just smarter, they are insanely smarter. Smarter by such a margin that even human children and mentally disabled humans are smarter than other animals, including animals we normally agree to be exceptionally intelligent (e.g. elephants, wolves, other apes).

This suggests that human intelligence wasn't just driven by being "smart enough" to survive in a dangerous environment. It was driven by the need to outwit other humans. Not so much in terms of armed conflict*, but in terms of social interaction and becoming a high-status individual who attracted a desirable mate (or mates, plural). Becoming the dominant individual in a group of humans or even proto-humans isn't just going to be about who's the biggest and strongest. There's elements of persuasion and trickiness, and all this would have gotten kicked into overdrive with the evolution of speech beyond the level practiced by apes.

Now, punctuated equilibrium is probably still the way to imagine all this working in practice, with bursts of markedly increasing intelligence spreading through a population instead of a very slow uniform increase. But there's a lot of reasons NOT to think that we suddenly got massively more intelligent right before the rise of sedentary agricultural Neolithic societies, just because that's when we started using technology.

_______________

*(though given that hunter-gatherers tend to kill each other off in skirmishes rather often, that was probably in play too)

[Sea Skimmer]

[Well, what I'm getting at is that it's entirely possible that homo habilis infants had an instinctive urge not to crawl off a cliff, which would express itself if you tried to get them to crawl onto a transparent floor.

I mean, lots of animals have survival instincts and natural wariness of things that might kill them. That's why I speculated as I did. Monkey and apes have survival instincts too, though presumably they're not as well developed and efficient as ours.

Of course they have survival instincts! But that's ass backwards from what I was trying to say. What my point was is too much instinct suppresses individual thought to the point of it no longer being relevant as the primary factor of the individuals actions. But too little instinct turns into baby joe falls out of the tree the mother slept in to avoid being eaten by lions.

Humans are interesting because we have incredible capacity for individual development, but still start with some key instincts, which these days we now believe really are a form of genetic memory, and one still evolving not just in long chunks of time, but directly from mother to child. At some fairly recent points in time that was not believed to be true. High intelligence requires that we not be too biased from the get go, the best model for intelligence now is how much the brain grows after birth, rather then outdated ideas of absolute size or ratio, but we can't come out of the womb too stupid either or we'd never make it.

Also, you then factor in the idea that one of the big drivers of human intelligence was probably an arms race between proto-humans.

That idea seems unlikely. Population densities were probably too low for it to be dominate at such a distant point in history, and one in which like, most of Europe still had LIONS ect... as did central Asia and much broader areas of Africa then is presently the case (all these areas being more green too). Chimps fight each other for conquest over territory and resources, and can and do make simple weapons, and yet have avoided evolving to be anywhere close to humans otherwise. Direct armed violence against like species is not not likely to be a a decisive driver of intelligence. The ability to survive a massive drought via brain smarts meanwhile, that's enormous.

[Simon_Jester]

It wouldn't have been just a physical arms race, or even primarily a physical one. To repeat myself:

Not so much in terms of armed conflict*, but in terms of social interaction and becoming a high-status individual who attracted a desirable mate (or mates, plural). Becoming the dominant individual in a group of humans or even proto-humans isn't just going to be about who's the biggest and strongest. There's elements of persuasion and trickiness, and all this would have gotten kicked into overdrive with the evolution of speech beyond the level practiced by apes.

Humans are social animals. Status is gained in large part by successfully forming alliances, and outmaneuvering rivals who seek to form competing alliances. Being able to understand other humans, having social intelligence, is an extremely useful asset for that kind of thing.

...

It's not about being the human who's good at bashing other humans with a rock. Being smarter doesn't really help with that, and it's not necessarily a good way to ensure you have surviving offspring anyway.

It's about being the human who can persuade other humans to have, or to help raise, their babies. The one who understands the power relationships within a group, can think of creative ways to get what they want in the context of those relationships.

The counterpoint to that is that other animals that live in packs or tribes obviously didn't become full-blown sapient and presumably never went through such an arms race. Which is a good point- and suggests that human sapience wasn't kickstarted by the need to outwit other humans. There must have been other evolutionary impetuses that began humans on the road from being as dumb as a chimp towards our present state. But once we started evolving higher levels of social intelligence, it is likely that internal competition for social status helped push us further along the road than we would otherwise have gotten. Just as peacock tails would never have gotten so ridiculously large and disproportionate, if not for the fact that peacocks with bigger tails have better mating prospects.

[Broomstick]

It should be noteworthy that the most intelligent bird species (corvids, parrots) are also the ones that live in cooperative social groups where the ability to communicate/interact with other members of the species is vital to survival. Closer to home, chimpanzees and gorillas, arguably the most intelligent primates other than humans, also devote a lot of energy to social interactions. Living in "packs" does not always result in high intelligence but there does seem to be some correlation. Presumably, proto-humans lived in such groups and the required social intelligence for doing that was the raw stuff out of which our current intelligence rose.

Undoubtedly there were several factors that lead us to where we are, but living in a cooperative social group surely ranked up there in importance with things like hands and fire.

[Broomstick]

Back to the book and Death by Falling, or Gravity Sucks and Rocks are Hard. I've touched a bit on this, but deaths from falls in Yellowstone tend to fall into discreet categories:

- inattention/distraction (backing a car over a cliff, angling for a camera shot, etc.)
- occupational hazard (mostly falling from scaffolding and/or rooftops)
- stupidity (ignoring warning signs, going over walls, etc.)
- murder/suicide (not covered that much in this chapter, some situations are ambiguous, and cross referenced to the death-by-human-agency part of the book)

But I'm going to add "sport risk" to the above because when you engage in mountain climbing and free-climbing rock faces there is an inherent risk of falling and, indeed, there have been fatalities from both of those.

However, if you PAY ATTENTION TO WARNING SIGNS and DON'T GO OVER FENCES you'll avoid the main tourist hazards when it comes to falling - unless you're there for mountain or rock climbing but I'll presume you have some notion of the risk if you're into those sports.

The chapter is actually called "Fatal Attraction" because many of the spots where people have fallen to their deaths in Yellowstone are, in fact, part of the reason they come to the park. Spectacular waterfalls, canyons, and so forth are one of the reasons this place has been preserved. Resist the urge for a "better" look and stay on the trails and behind the fences.

Death From Fire - no, we didn't cover this already, that was death by boiling, this is more roasting. Yellowstone has forest fires - probably most famously in 1988 but every year there are some fires. Remarkably, no one died in the park itself in 1988 despite extensive fires. (There was an area death outside the park)

Personal note: my college/post-college roommate was known for volunteering for the park services in summer, then spending time hiking (solo!) in various national parks. In 1988 she first went to Yosemite then to Yellowstone. And that's when the fires broke out and, as a park service volunteer, she wound up on the firelines. Now, this was before we all had cellphones and such, and I heard little from her over a summer, but in 1988 she was a week overdue coming home and I was getting a bit worried. So, finally there's a knock on the door, I open it, and she's standing there with literally half her shirt burned off and scorch/char marks on all her gear. I said something like "I was going to ask if you saw the fires at Yellowstone but I guess I don't have to..."

Second personal note: on the phone with my mom a couple months later and I knock over the camp stove. Mom wants to know what the noise is. I mention that the roommate's camp stove and propane tank were in the kitchen by the back door. Mom gets very agitated, warning it could explode and cause a fire - "Mom, it survived the Yellowstone forest fires, if that didn't make it explode I doubt very much it will spontaneously combust in my kitchen or explode because I knocked it over." And by "survived the Yellowstone fires" I should mention my roommate had to be evacuated off a fire line by clinging to the skid of a helicopter as the chopper was unable to actually land and and going through burning debris while doing so is what lead to the fire damage to her backpack. So, uh, yeah, kind of a close call there.

Actually, there have been no fire deaths in the park since 1988 either, which is both a remarkable thing and a good thing although there are problems with keeping tourists out of recently-burned areas where charred trees are prone to falling over without warning (thereby overlapping "tree hazards" with "fire hazards")

Worst day for fire fighters in the park was August 21, 1937 - 79 years ago today in fact. 15 firefighters lost there lives that day, with a few dozen more injured. So, while we've had a good run with no deaths that is still a very real hazard in the park. This type of death seems to mostly be occupational and limited to actual fire fighters. Presumably the tourists either leave on their own or heed evacuations. Oddly enough, a flaming forest and walls of fire surging towards a person does seem to penetrate both stupidity and fogs of drunkenness or drugs and lead to people getting the hell out of Dodge.

Whole Lot O' Shakin' Goin' On a.k.a. Earthquakes - short but sweet chapter. Yellowstone gets a lot of earthquakes. A LOT. Like, every day or nearly so, without exaggeration. Comes from being sited over a supervolcano caldera. How many people have died from earthquakes in Yellowstone?

None.

Zero.

Nada.

Really, remarkable in it's own way. Not that it couldn't happen - there have been earthquake deaths outside the park but in the same region (28 fatalities on August 17, 1959 in Madison Canyon, for example). But not in the park itself.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. Come to think of it, earthquakes are probably most likely to kill people inside a building, and while people do spend time in buildings in Yellowstone they spend less there than elsewhere.

The other big way an earthquake could kill is through avalanches; are earthquake-triggered avalanche deaths in Yellowstone counted as earthquake deaths, or avalanche deaths.

[Broomstick]

If I recall, buildings in Yellowstone are timberframe wood construction, which can better withstand earthquakes than, say, unreinforced masonry. Wouldn't protect against a really big quake, but the biggest recorded in the park ever was 7.something which, while certainly serious, isn't the end of the world. Most Yellowstone quakes are pretty minor.

Apparently no one has ever been killed in Yellowstone in a quake-triggered landslides. From what I've read, most of the landslide deaths were triggered by something like someone climbing upslope knocking some rocks loose which then turn into a slide that kills someone lower down the slope. If someone was killed in a quake triggered slide it would probably be counted in both categories.

[Broomstick]

Yes, I am still reading this book.

This post, we're going to talk about WATER. We sort of already did that up with the geothermal stuff, the hot springs, vents, mudpots, geysers, and other volcanically energized stuff but in THIS chapter we're talking about what people usually mean by water, NON-geothermal bodies of water. Cold water. In the case of Yellowstone, VERY cold water.

"Death in the water" actually holds the highest death count of all causes outside auto accidents and illnesses, neither of which are covered in the book.

Know what MOST people who die in the water at Yellowstone have in common?

They're found wearing life jackets.

They problem isn't so much drowning as cold - most deaths are not drownings, they're due to hypothermia. Often reported as drowning because for many people that's synonymous with "died in the water" but no, not the same thing. Basically, if you fall into the water in, say, Yellowstone Lake most people are going to last only about 15-20 minutes before expiring, and stop being able to move before that. There are even warning signs to that effect in various places in the park. A few, very few, very fit people have managed to last an hour in the water but only by extremely strenuous swimming. The author basically says that if you go into the water more than about two hundred meters off shore you aren't likely to survive. Most people just can't make it to shore from there. Staying with the boat is only helpful if you can get out of the water. Even if it's unlikely you'll make to shore you're actually better off making a swim for it (which will generate body heat and delay your death from hypothermia) than waiting in the water. Yellowstone lake is also prone to sudden storms and 2 meter high waves. The author recommends avoiding small boats or, if you are in a small boat, staying very close to shore.

With rivers you have the added joys of possible swift currents and waterfalls.

Swimming in lakes and rivers around Yellowstone is also problematic as the water is not much above freezing for most if not all of the year. Several instances of people going in for a swim and being swept away by a current or simply going in and not coming out again, even strong swimmers close to shore. There was one case where a young girl ducked her head under the water and was swept under an underwater ledge where she drowned. Other people apparently find the cold water either too much of a shock or chill down really fast and, if they're lucky, companions are able to drag them out of the water in time.

With all that it's probably little wonder that early settlers in the area used the hot springs for bathing rather than the lakes and rivers... although as we've seen that also has it's hazards. However, the proximity of both hot and cold natural water sources did mean that Yellowstone residents got hot and cold water taps before a lot of other people did, with bathing facilities drawing from both types of water sources allowing people to mix a bath of comfortable temperature whenever they wanted one.

[Elheru Aran]

...how is it that cold even in the summer? Glaciers? Latitude?

[Broomstick]

High altitude, deep water, and yes, some glacial type run-off (the lakes are largely supplied by snow melt).

Lake Michigan, which is a mere 100 meters above sea level, as opposed to Yellowstone Lake's 2300 meters, has a somewhat similar though much less severe problem with cold water, strong currents, and storms overwhelming boaters (Lake Michigan has had 3-4 meters high waves that I can recall, it's possible there have been stronger/higher ones). Granted Chicago and other cities around the Great Lakes have "polar bear swims" in mid-winter, but that's invariably just off shore and with emergency personnel and warming facilities nearby. People have still managed to expire from hypothermia in the middle of a modern, First World city.

Yellowstone Lake, though is in a wilderness area, AND higher elevation, and is typically frozen over (with meter thick ice) from December through May or June. Part of the problem is the cold, another part is that there aren't a huge number of people around to notice you're having a problem, and while the rescue people are dedicated and skilled there aren't as many of them as in a big, urban area.

Of course, with Yellowstone bodies of water you additionally have one or two or more hotsprings around which will lead to thin ice over those areas, which can result in people stomping around the thickly iced bodies of water suddenly getting a rude surprise when they hit an area of thin ice. With Yellowstone Lake proper, it's directly over the Yellowstone caldera. Despite the chill waters, deep underneath the bottom of the lake is inclined to hump up or shift or crack due to activity deep in the earth. Meaning the "hot spots" don't stay still, they close and open and move around the lake. So what was safe last year isn't safe this year and may or may not be OK next year.

[Broomstick]

After the death in the water chapter we get into the second part of the book, the human-caused deaths.

The first chapter of that part is "Clash of Cultures", more specifically Native vs. European encounters. Not a large number of deaths from that, at least on the European descent side, about the same as for lightning strikes or bear attacks. Partly, this is because not a lot of Natives lived in the Yellowstone area to begin with.

The largest number of deaths in such clashes seems to have been between Natives and fur trappers in 1839, which lasted two days and resulted in 5 dead trappers and an unknown number of dead Natives. As the Natives involved were not permanent residents of the park area this was almost certainly a dispute about who was allowed to hunt where.

While there weren't a lot of these clashes they did impact the names on the landscape, such as "Indian Pond" and "Nez Perce Ford". In the 1870's there were conflicts with the Nez Perce which included the Natives kidnapping tourists out of the park but most such hostages were released unharmed, if a bit rattled.

In addition to Native vs. Euro clashes, there are accounts and records of conflicts between Natives groups, including killing each other, in the park area, including a very old woman who asked to be left behind at Mud Volcano being found by two scouts from a different tribe who killed and scalped her.

Undoubtedly, there are many more such deaths than are actually documented, which just can't, well, document them. Between the Native groups warring with each other off and on for however long and those oddly colored newcomers no doubt a certain number of people who disappeared came to bad ends at the hands of other people.

[Broomstick]

It's a bit of a necro, but I'm sure this latest incident will appear in the next edition of the book referenced in this thread.

Back in June of this year Colin and Sable Scott (brother and sister) departed the boardwalk in the Norris Geyser Basin. Allegedly, their intention was to do a little "hot-potting", that is, bathing in one of Mother Nature's hot tubs. This, by the way, is illegal within the park boundaries, as is departing the boardwalk. Anyhow, apparently while trying to determine if the temperature of a hot pool was congenial or not Colin slipped and fell into the pool. Which apparently was NOT of a congenial temperature. Mr. Scott did not survive. In fact, the coroner seems to think he survived only seconds (probably based on the video evidence provided by his sister's smartphone). One would hope so - the pool he fell into was not only boiling, it was acidic. One shudders to think about someone screaming and flailing about in a vat of boiling acid. Ew.

Anyhow, his sister Sable ran for help. The ranger station sent people to see what was happening at the hot pool while also arranging for someone to stay with Sable and provide lodging for her overnight. Apparently her brother was already obviously deceased and with darkness and a storm coming on the decision was made to delay recovery and not endanger anyone else.

By the next morning there was nothing left of Colin to retrieve - the only items recovered were his wallet and his flip-flop shoes - the one that wound up in the water with him having melted. Among the other gruesome bits of evidence, Sable apparently used her phone to record her and her brother's off-boardwalk adventure and captured him approaching the pool and falling in.

And... once again we have people disregarding warning signs and getting into trouble. No punishment was meted out to Sable, as the feeling was apparently that watching her brother die horribly was bad enough. I'm pretty sure that, should she ever visit Yellowstone again she's going to stay on the marked pathways as that was a pretty harsh lesson as to why those warning signs are there.

Washington Post article

There's a bunch of stuff redacted, including portions of the attached photographs, but here is a PDF of the official report. Among the many details gleaned from the report was a pH of 5 (which isn't hugely acidic, but acid concentration matters as much if not more than pH alone) and the temperature of the pool was at least 100C - water boils at 93C in the park due to elevation. So yeah, basically superheated water. The gentleman became long pork soup broth. The water levels in the pool while the would-be rescue/recovery team was working fluctuated 20-25cm which I'm sure didn't help make their job any easier but just further illustrates this is not a human-friendly area. The photographs in the PDF clearly show, in addition to the park's warning signs we've already seen elsewhere in this thread, tell tale warning signs such as bare patches of ground and steam rising out of the surface.

Oddly enough, all of this sort of thing makes me more interested in visiting Yellowstone Park at some point. It truly is a fascinating and unusual place - but you can be damn sure I'll heed any and all warning signs!

[Simon_Jester]

Uh... acid concentration IS a measure of pH. If you take acid with a pH of, say, three, and concentrate it, it reaches a lower (more acidic) pH.

Some acids are 'stronger' than others, in that they will have a lower pH for the same concentration of the acidic chemical. But the single thing that does the most to determine how acidic a solution is, is how concentrated it is.

[Broomstick]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but although the pH of the acidic hot pool is known we don't actually know how concentrated the substances making up the acid might be. Quite a bit of the hot pool contents are just plain old neutral pH water. There is a substantial difference between, say, a liter of battery acid diluted by all the water in an Olympic size swimming pool and an Olympic size swimming pool full of undiluted battery acid. Same thing - we don't know how diluted the hot pool acid was. We don't know what acids were present, either.

For example, distilled white vinegar has a pH of around 2.5 which is pretty low, but at the normal 5% concentration found in distilled white vinegar for kitchen use you can drink the stuff without harm, or bathe in it. 100% acetic acid, though, is quite hazardous, can cause chemical burns, is dangerous to inhale as a vapor, can damage your internal organs if you ingest it or breathe it in, can cause blacking if in contact with skin, goes through latex gloves with no problems, and double-gloving with nitrile and breathing protection, along with covering your entire body and protecting your eyes from vapor, is recommended if you have to handle the stuff.

So, yeah - the pool was acidic, but without knowing the concentration of that acid as a % of the total volume of liquid it's kind of hard to say just how hazardous/damaging the acidity was in that location. it is possible it was not a significant factor in the dissolution of Mr. Scott's body as boiling hot water can have the same effect - as anyone who has made slow-cooker soup broth can probably attest. But since there was, apparently, a grey sludge present around and in the pool (probably responsible for the grey coloration and opacity) that is indicative of rock dissolved by acidic waters the acid present probably didn't help the situation at all.