Life in the Tar Seeps: A Spiraling Ecology from a Dying Sea

Scientists study fossils in the making at Great Salt Lake, home to tar seeps, pools of raw oil that act as a preservative, encasing organisms as they were in life. Gretchen Henderson's associations of life and death, degeneration and regeneration, and injury and healing coalesced in her work, and she questions how we can care for ecosystems that evolve over time. Through shifting lake levels, bird migrations, microbial studies, environmental arts, and cultural histories, Life in the Tar Seeps offers a meditation on environmental healing across the planet.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 228 pages
Publication date: 08 June 2023
Publisher: Trinity University Press,U.S.

At the Great Salt Lake, near the iconic earthwork Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson, a diverse team of scientists ventures onto the mudflats to explore fossils in the process of formation. This supposedly lifeless sea harbors tar seeps, pools of raw oil that act as a preservative, encapsulating organisms as they existed in life. In this desolate landscape, a intricate web of life unfolds. Halophiles, salt-hungry microorganisms, give the brackish water a rosy and orange hue; crystals of gypsum dot the ground, shimmering underfoot; and pelicans and other migratory birds pause for a vital rest. Barn owls and seagulls engage in playful pursuits with their prey amidst the seeping constellations, occasionally becoming victims to the oil itself. Gretchen Henderson arrived at the tar seeps, a natural asphalt, after recovering from being struck by a car while crossing a manmade asphalt. Similar to the spiraling artwork that has made the north shore of Great Salt Lake renowned, Henderson's connections between life and death, degeneration, and regeneration, as well as injury and healing, converged. As she reexamined pressing issues that this delicate area revealed about the climate crisis, her sense of ecology expanded into other ways of perceiving the lake's entangled lives. How can we transcend narrow notions of wounded and healed, the beautiful and the ugly, to care for ecosystems that evolve over time? How can we confront our vulnerability to recognize kindred dynamics in our living planet? Through shifting lake levels, bird migrations, microbial studies, environmental arts, and cultural histories shaped by indigenous knowledge and colonial legacies, Life in the Tar Seeps contemplates the ways that others have understood this body of water, enlivening more than just this region alone. As Henderson witnesses scientists, arts curators, land managers, and activists, she begins to question the boundaries between human and natural worlds, and the responsibilities we hold in preserving and nurturing the delicate balance of our planet.

Dimension: 203 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781595342737