Quartz And Limestone: Recording Minerals?

SPQR

Darwin's Dachshund
SPQR
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I watched the 90-minute Ghost Hunters season finale, or as The Soup would say "finally," just for a laugh last Wensday(5-31-06) and they managed to invade the hotel which inspired Steven King the write The Shining.

It was pretty much your basic Ghost Hunters pseudo-science until one of the investigators, I think it was Brian, offered his thoughts on how a such a place might be haunted. He said that a hypothesis being thrown around the ghost-hunting community was that structures built on either limestone or quartz deposits were prone to "hauntings" because those two minerals are known to "record memories." :confused: His fellow investigator looked back at him very knowingly as if it was a proven fact. The minute this was said my mom and I both looked at each other and said, "What?!"

Has anyone else heard of this "hypothesis" and if so would you care to shed some light on it?
 
SPQR said:
I watched the 90-minute Ghost Hunters season finale, or as The Soup would say "finally," just for a laugh last Wensday(5-31-06) and they managed to invade the hotel which inspired Steven King the write The Shining.

It was pretty much your basic Ghost Hunters pseudo-science until one of the investigators, I think it was Brian, offered his thoughts on how a such a place might be haunted. He said that a hypothesis being thrown around the ghost-hunting community was that structures built on either limestone or quartz deposits were prone to "hauntings" because those two minerals are known to "record memories." :confused: His fellow investigator looked back at him very knowingly as if it was a proven fact. The minute this was said my mom and I both looked at each other and said, "What?!"

Has anyone else heard of this "hypothesis" and if so would you care to shed some light on it?
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you'd be hard pressed to find any place that wasn't built on some form of quartz or limestone deposits. Quartz is by far the most abundant mineral on earth, present in almost all sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks. The two biggest exceptions are shale (which is often too prone to fracture to build on) and, you guessed it, limestone.

Now in the great plains of the US, the regolith (unconsolidated or fragmented rock particles) is many hundreds of feet thick. Of course it contains lots of quartz, but it is not a stone at all. One would then think that Kansas had few if any haunted houses, but it does, or so they would have you think. Haunted houses are good for tourism.
 
Huntsman said:
It makes perfect sense.

Cause, you know, quartz and limestone have, like, silicon in them and stuff. And silicon makes computer memory, right? That flash stuff? So, people get flashed into the silicon!

Perfectly logical :czwacky:
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Well, technically pure limestone is calcium carbonate, but there are few examples of pure limestone. Almost all sedimentary rocks consist of various beds of different lithologies. A house that is built on limestone is almost certainly built on sandstone and shale too, but at a deeper layer. (Sedimentology is my specialty.)

Of course, cement is made with calcium carbonate too, so pretty much all houses have "recorders" somewhere below them.
 
Concept is stolen from a science fiction story, by Stanislaw Lem I believe, and I don't remember the title exactly...something like "These Stones Will Remember" or maybe that was the last line in the story.
 
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how they propose that these memories are projected from the bedrock to replay themselves? I could use a laugh.
 
ExitDose said:
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how they propose that these memories are projected from the bedrock to replay themselves? I could use a laugh.
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I am unable to get at my books at the moment but...

I'm sure Albert Budden has come up with some explanation of how this can happen, but if I recall that was with something called organic magnetite. This was in his 'Electric UFOs' book.
Colin Wilson in some book (Encyclopedia of the Mysteries and Paranormal or something) mentioned recordings in his 'Grey Man of Ben McDhui' section. People had been reporting hearing some very high pitched screaming sound, just on the upper limit of hearing, just before the events took place, and he was comparing these to those experienced by 'sensitives'. It is mentioned that this sound has been heard in rooms where exams have recently taken place, so implying that extremes of emotion or strength of though can almost force them into being recorded.
I suppose if you take it as face value it makes sense, as there's almost always some tragedy associated with a haunting. It's only when one starts looking into the mechanics that it falls apart :D
 
Total BS, period. Every step of the path.

1) What is recorded? No known kind of radiation comes from people, showing in any way their emotions. And, if we're talking unknown forms of radiation, then obviously we have no idea of what might record it.

2) How is anything recorded in chaotic rock formations? If anythnig IS recorded, how is it just recent thoughts? What about the thoughts of dinosaurs?

3) If anything is recorded, how is it retransmitted? Where does the power come from? How does the rock decide what to transmit or when?

4) If anything IS transmitted, how is it received? There is no known radiation that can transmit thoughts into human brains.

There is simply not one bit of this that makes even a little bit of sense.

Hans
 
i think it stands to reason (if using reason on this topic isnt a blasphemy) from post #2 from Tricky that this is a simple case of poor reasoning. people look at where the hauntings are, they notice they they are commonly on limestone or quartz sediment (which is probably going to be the case) and they say "well the hauntings have this in common, so there must be something about quarts and limestone." and as for the "memory" observation, ghosthunters are always trying to force the concept of a spirit lingering "on this plane" so they just slam the word memory as a propery of the common element. they say the exact same thing about violent acts- the violent act caused an imprint or a memory or something, when, in reality, the violent act was interesting and just caused people to remember the event and speculate. and of course, humans tend to want to feel that the person wronged and killed could have some recourse, so hanging out and haunting is the closest they can get.
 
The interesting thing about this, though, is that I had never heard this recording minerals "theory" mentioned on any other episode of Ghost Hunters. I guess they decided to only drag it out for special occasions such as a season finale.

And yes, I do watch Ghost Hunters on a somewhat regular basis. Its one of my favorite sit-coms. :rolleyes:
 
I was half way through typing that I liked this theory, purely because it would rid us of mediums. Would they sit and chat to a rock? But then I realised that they would just put a divide between recordings and spirits. I was thinking that belief in this theory might rid us of what I consider to be the most wooish aspect of ghost hunters. How wrong, woos just adapt to the times, ignoring past 'misunderstandings'.
It's my pet peeve, mediums claiming to be ghost hunters. Why do they bother, if they know they are already there? Can't they just stay at home and chat? They positively hinder any process that attempts to find out what is happening at alleged haunt sites.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Total BS, period. Every step of the path.

1) What is recorded? No known kind of radiation comes from people, showing in any way their emotions. And, if we're talking unknown forms of radiation, then obviously we have no idea of what might record it.

2) How is anything recorded in chaotic rock formations? If anythnig IS recorded, how is it just recent thoughts? What about the thoughts of dinosaurs?

3) If anything is recorded, how is it retransmitted? Where does the power come from? How does the rock decide what to transmit or when?

4) If anything IS transmitted, how is it received? There is no known radiation that can transmit thoughts into human brains.

There is simply not one bit of this that makes even a little bit of sense.

Hans
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Yeah, but who wants to hear a bunch of dead dinosaurs whine about the residual checks Spielberg never sent? "RAWR! Get me in touch with the William Morris agency, Ms. Margolis. RAWR!" :D
 
gfunkusarelius said:
i think it stands to reason (if using reason on this topic isnt a blasphemy) from post #2 from Tricky that this is a simple case of poor reasoning. people look at where the hauntings are, they notice they they are commonly on limestone or quartz sediment (which is probably going to be the case) and they say "well the hauntings have this in common, so there must be something about quarts and limestone." and as for the "memory" observation, ghosthunters are always trying to force the concept of a spirit lingering "on this plane" so they just slam the word memory as a propery of the common element. they say the exact same thing about violent acts- the violent act caused an imprint or a memory or something, when, in reality, the violent act was interesting and just caused people to remember the event and speculate. and of course, humans tend to want to feel that the person wronged and killed could have some recourse, so hanging out and haunting is the closest they can get.
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If mental trauma could cause one's spirit to stay on Earth, then it's hard to imagine many ways of dying that wouldn't keep you here.
 
Several years ago, in Asimov's science fiction magazine, there was a nice story about "slow glass". This was a substance which slowed light to a crawl, and you could set up a thick piece in a given location for a few years and then watch as the captured light "played back" whatever it had recorded.
It had become a hot item for decorative use, but the story was quite poignant, having to do with images of the character's family.

Science-fiction, of course.
 
I believe Pratchett also touched on this in one of his "Discworld" novels (Thud, maybe?). The dwarfs used to mine for special stones that recorded voices in the past. Each could be activated by its own special word or noise. I know Pratchett uses a lot of material from myth and folklore, so it probably goes back a lot farther than that.
 
Bikewer said:
Several years ago, in Asimov's science fiction magazine, there was a nice story about "slow glass". This was a substance which slowed light to a crawl, and you could set up a thick piece in a given location for a few years and then watch as the captured light "played back" whatever it had recorded.
It had become a hot item for decorative use, but the story was quite poignant, having to do with images of the character's family.

Science-fiction, of course.
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I reember that story - it was indeed poignant.
The "stone recording" premise has been used in a least a couple of stories in the past - a 1972 British TV play called "The Stone Tapes" and a US SF short story that I can't remember the author or publication date of. (But I can remember it featured "stone cleaners" who went around cleaning all the old sounds out of city stonework.)
 
Bikewer said:
Several years ago, in Asimov's science fiction magazine, there was a nice story about "slow glass". This was a substance which slowed light to a crawl, and you could set up a thick piece in a given location for a few years and then watch as the captured light "played back" whatever it had recorded.
It had become a hot item for decorative use, but the story was quite poignant, having to do with images of the character's family.

Science-fiction, of course.
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I'm likely to be wrong, but I think you're referring to stories by the Belfast journalist and novelist Bob Shaw. They're good stuff.
 
malbui said:
I'm likely to be wrong, but I think you're referring to stories by the Belfast journalist and novelist Bob Shaw.
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Yes, it was Bob Shaw's "Light of Other Days." It got him nominated for a Nebula in 1966.
 
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