Environmental Studies

Igneous zircons from granites of the British Tertiary Igneous Province (BTIP), in western Scotland, preserve magmatic oxygen isotope ratios in spite of hydrothermal alteration and thus provide new evidence for the genesis of granites. CO2 laser and mass spectrometer based bulk (1–3 mg) oxygen isotope analyses from individual plutons show remarkable homogeneity in zircon δ18O, regardless of zircon size and magnetism (average reproducibility of δ18O (Zrc) in a single pluton is ±0.2‰). In addition, ion microprobe analysis shows that individual zircons all have the same δ18O and thus, bulk samples are homogeneous. Fourteen granite bodies from the Isle of Skye show extreme variability in zircon δ18O values from pluton to pluton (δ18O (Zrc)=0.6–5.3‰ VSMOW). All the granites record zircon δ18O values less than would be in high temperature equilibrium with ‘normal’ mantle (δ18O (Zrc) ∼5‰) except for the Beinn an Dubhaich granite. Zircons from one intrusion in the mafic Cuillins center also have low δ18O (2.5‰). Similar variability is observed in δ18O amongst three intrusions on the Isle of Mull (δ18O (Zrc)=3.4–5.9‰). Both Mull and Skye are characterized by intense shallow paleohydrothermal systems, and the low and variable δ18O values of the magmas likely result from melting or interaction with hydrothermally altered country rock. Analysis of granites on the Isle of Arran, where the percentage of low δ18O country rocks is much less, yields higher δ18O (Zrc) of 6.8 and 5.4‰. Published trace element and radiogenic isotope data for BTIP mafic and felsic rocks have supported the hypothesis that the granites are formed primarily by differentiation from the mantle with magmas experiencing minimal crustal input [Dickin et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London A 310 (1984) 755–780]. However, conservative estimates based on oxygen isotope compositions suggest that some of the BTIP granites can only be formed from normal magmas (δ18O (WR) ∼6‰) if they assimilated significant amounts of hydrothermally altered crustal material. Some granites require up to 40% bulk crustal input and are better explained as the result of wall rock melting by an adjacent mafic pluton. Whereas Pb and Sr suggest a general trend towards increasing input of shallow crust for the younger granites [Dickin et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London A 310 (1984) 755–780], the correlation between age and δ18O is less apparent suggesting that Pb and Sr isotopic compositions are decoupled from oxygen isotopes. This would be expected of melted country rock that was hydrothermally altered in oxygen isotope ratios, but not in Pb and Sr isotope ratios.

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In this paper,  I argue that Indian independent filmmaker Pankaj Rishi Kumar's documentary In God’s Land (2012) blends animation and live-action to illuminate the destructive nuances of postcolonial literary scholar, Rob Nixon's notion of slow violence.  In turning to cinema, I also suggest that In God’s Land’s “aesthetic strategies” further eco-film scholarship’s recent interests in animation, which have tended to highlight the mode's "feel good affect."  I draw attention to In God's Land's hybrid of dark, discordant animation spectacle interspliced in the documentary live-action to articulate the potential of eco-animation outside of this affect.  Ultimately, the film not only draws attention to animation’s non-playful affect—its potentials and dilemmas, but I also suggest that reading such a film adds postcolonial understandings of cinema beyond the Western/Japanese center on with eco-animation scholars have so far focused.

This essay argues that Wakening is a film whose futuristic ecohorror is meant to be felt in the present moment of viewing.  Such horrific feelings are inevitably entangled with the past, inviting its audiences to experience the monstrous contexts of Indigenous lives across time.  To articulate this temporal dynamism, I overlay two key conceptual understandings—Walter Benjamin’s critiques of Western progress and historicism, and Indigenous notions of a Native slipstream. When brought together in Wakening, which is inspired by the movement Idle No More, these concepts not only help expose the horror of Indigenous eco-social crises wrought by colonial and neocolonial occupations, they also draw our attention to the timelessness of Indigenous resistance in the face of such ecohorror. 

Ultimately, there are two significant implications of understanding Wakening as ecohorror of dynamic temporality.  First, such a reading continues the important work of revisioning the theoretical and critical boundaries of Western cinema. Goulet’s play with audiences’ familiar expectations of horror’s invitations to the weird challenge us all to recalibrate our sense of generic cinematic representation and its purpose.  Relatedly, and second, such readings highlight film’s politics of emotion, its ability to generate an “affective alliance” that can potentially help us all also re-imagine our temporal and spatial engagements with the world at large.