The Unearthing Read Free Page B

workstation and shook Peter’s hand.
     
    “‘Sup, Pete?” he asked, “What we’ve got going is the end-stage analysis of the core samples. Printout?”
    James handed a sheaf of paper to Peter.
     
    “This is interesting,” Peter said, reading the report, “It says here there’s a high concentration of iridium in the soil around the structure.”
     
    “Only at a specific depth in the soil,” James answered, “It looks like a local meteoric impact.
     
    “Yeah, but the patterning suggests the KT boundary,” Peter said.
     
    “You noticed that too, huh?” James asked, “The Prof shit when he saw it. He wants me to drill new samples and re-run the geological survey.”
     
    “I can see why.”
     
    In geology, the KT boundary is a marker of a time at the end of the Cretaceous when the Earth was subject to massive meteoric bombardment, including the so-called “Death Star” impacts that most probably wiped out the dinosaurs. The hallmark of the KT boundary was an uncommonly high concentration of iridium in the soil of the era; iridium being an element common in space, but exceedingly rare on earth.
     
    “I don’t believe it’s the KT myself,” James said, “I think it’s just an anomalous iridium layer, probably from a local nearby meteoric impact.”
     
    “That would make more sense to me,” Peter replied, “It’s something to keep an eye on. We’ll look for other signs of a nearby impact when we do seismography.”
     
    “Yeah, the Prof wants to see you about that,” James told him, “He wants the cannons set up for as wide a scan as possible.”
     
    “Why?”
     
    “He wants to completely rule out the KT boundary’s significance to the dig, and see how big that thing is.”
    ♦♦♦
    Peter made his way across their narrow, dusty compound to Mark Echohawk’s trailer. He was a couple of years older than James and was tall, dark haired and athletic. Coming from a poor neighbourhood, he’d exploited an athletic scholarship to get himself into the UCLA Anthropology department. It didn’t take his teachers long to realize this jock in particular was more interested than working in the field than playing on one. It wasn’t long after that Mark Echohawk, dean emeritus of UCLA’s newly-expanded archaeology department, took an interest in the young Peter Paulson.
     
    Peter found Echohawk in the camper’s kitchenette brewing a pot of coffee. He favoured an old-fashioned percolator urn-style coffee maker over the more popular—and faster—drip-brew coffee makers. He was waiting patiently for the “Ready” light on the urn to turn red, a large glass mug in his hand.
     
    “Hi Mark,” Peter said. He was the only one of Echohawk’s students to call him, privately, by his first name.
     
    “Hello Peter,” He said, reaching for the tap on the coffee urn the instant the light flashed red. “Want a cup?”
     
    “Hell yeah,” Peter said, sliding into the horseshoe-shaped booth. If there was one thing the Prof did exceptionally well besides archaeology it was brew a pot of coffee. Echohawk put milk, brown sugar and a bottle of cinnamon on the table. Peter began fixing his coffee as Echohawk sat down. Peter, almost twenty-five, watched the sixty-odd year old Echohawk fix his own coffee. Peter had studied under Echohawk for years now and had been fortunate enough to go into the field with him twice. This was their third expedition together and Peter, close to graduating and beginning his own career as an anthropologist, considered Echohawk both a friend and mentor.
     
    “You read the geosurvey report?” Echohawk asked.
     
    “Yeah,”
     
    “What do you think?”
     
    “I think we have to run some scans and dig.”
    “Why?”
     
    “The iridium layer,” Peter replied, “It could be anomalous, but I’ve seen enough spectrographs of the KT to know when I’m looking at it. So either the structure was buried at the end of the Cretaceous or else it was built in a pit dug out that