Patrick O’Farrell: An Expanded Memory

This paper provides an analysis of the contribution to the Catholic history of Australia by Patrick O’Farrell. Eschewing footnotes, like O’Farrell himself, Campion considers the changes of tone, emphasis, and content which enrich the new editions of the history, from its first appearance in 1968 through subsequent rewriting in 1977, 1985, and 1992. It is argued that O’Farrell responded to the transformation of the Catholic world in the intervening decades but also to new research in Australian Catholic historiography, much of which he was responsible for fostering.     

Goldsmithing traditions and innovations in colonial Colombia: an analytical study of crucibles from Santa Cruz de Mompox

SUMMARY: The 16th-century Spanish conquest of Colombia brought new technologies that altered and interacted with native metalworking traditions. In the colonial village of Santa Cruz de Mompox, renowned because of its goldsmithing tradition, indigenous groups and Spaniards experienced momentous encounters of individuals, metallurgical technologies and knowledge. However, little is known concerning colonial metallurgy, its continuities and changes with regards to the pre-Columbian period. Here we present the analytical characterization of five crucibles recovered in Mompox, together with discussion of relevant archival evidence. We find evidence for the local manufacture of crucibles as well as for the melting of unrefined gold dust, tumbaga (gold-copper-silver alloys) and silver. These metallurgical practices illustrate some likely illegal activities, continuities with pre-Columbian traditions in the use of tumbagas, and the Spanish-led introduction of silver in northern Colombia. It is argued that metallurgical remains can be informative of wider social and economic negotiations that engaged indigenous peoples, mestizos and Spaniards, which are critical to understand the configuration of the colonial reality.     

Fluidized sandstone intrusions as an indicator of Paleostress orientation, Santa Cruz, California

The late Miocene sandstone intrusions of northern Santa Cruz County, California, are the largest subaerial exposures of clastic intrusions on earth. The intrusions are sourced from a sandstone, underlying mudstone, accumulated in an outer shelf to upper slope environment. Dikes are the most frequent intrusion type, reach the greatest thickness and tend to strike north‐east and dip steeply. One giant dike is more than 150 m wide. Sills are least frequent, locally > 8 m thick and have no clear preferred geographical distribution. Clustered intrusions are commonly < 10 cm thick and mostly composed of dikes of various attitudes. The majority of the intrusions probably were injected shallowly as some extrude onto the seafloor. The local seafloor extrusion also indicates injection during the deposition of the Santa Cruz Mudstone (7–9 Ma). The intrusions are concentrated at the basin margin. Fluid pressure at the centre of the basin and perhaps hydrocarbons were communicated to the basin margin through the then sand, causing fluid overpressures that contributed to the fluidization and intrusion into the overlying mudstone. Primarily north‐east‐striking, steeply dipping dikes and secondarily, shallowly dipping sills are most significant in terms of regional connectivity of intrusions and physical dilation of the formation. The orientation of the dikes and sills indicates a regional stress field with a horizontal NE–SW maximum and a NW–SE minimum compressive direction. The simultaneous development of dikes and sills suggests similar magnitudes of the minimum and intermediate principal stresses. Preferential weakness along bedding contributed to the development of sills. Palaeomagnetic data indicate no significant block rotation around a vertical axis. The maximum principal stress direction indicated by the intrusions is about 55° to the San Gregorio Fault and about 70° to the San Andreas Fault during the late Miocene. This stress field is similar to the modern stress field and suggests moderate fault weakness.