The upbeat mood in the small mining town of Beaconsfield, Tasmania, took a dive after a double whammy.First up was the news that the rescue of two miners, trapped nearly a kilometer underground, was being slowed down by a wall of nearly impenetrable rock.
As the latest rescue difficulties were being absorbed, news of the death of Australia’s much loved TV journalist, Richard Carleton had died at the scene, from an apparent heart attack.
On the rescue effort:
LIVE WEB CAM of the rescue site.
Retired Launceston geologist, Douglas Ewington, explains the nature of the rock which is presenting such a formidable barrier to rescuers. Ewington identified the rock as Quartzite (see picture).
"Quartzite is an extremely hard rock which started as sandstone about 500 million years ago."The dark grey sandstone has metamorphisised, or cooked, to gain its current hardness.
"It has been compressed and chromatic oxide has cemented the original grains together.
"The depth of the rock led to it being unweathered, or softened, by the elements, he explained.
"The geology of the area is extremely complicated, I'm not surprised there have been problems down there.
"Ewington said that it was in such rock that gold was commonly found as it welled up from deeper within the Earth's surface.
Richard Carleton
For those wanting to know more about the life of a truly effective TV news and current affairs broadcaster, try his home NETWORK. Richard Carleton’s death has been a shock to all across Australia, but his memory will be treasured.
He was one of a team who kept real news in the forefront on commercial television in Australia.
Thank you Richard, for setting such a great example.
4 comments:
I read this story on Reuters eralier. I was truly saddened to hear about Richard Carleton's death.
Given my distain for pop news media it sounds hypocritical, but Carleton really did stand out.
He and a group of others trained with Australia's national broadcaster (ABC) years back and managed to fuse commercial news entertainment with real news content.
That team have been a strong influence on style ever since.
Besides that he was an all round good bloke! Thanks for your comment, I guess we do tend to take his passing fairly personally and apprciate the thoughts
This won't make much sense to you probably since I'm not sure how many people overseas knew of him, but I felt the same way when I heard Johnny Carson has passed away. Carson had a huge impact on American culture (both good and bad) and had ruled late night TV for 30 years. I remember him from the time I was a little boy. I remember sleeping over my friend's house and getting to stay up until 11:30 PM to watch him. I remember watching him all through college. And when he died, I remember thinking a little bit of my childhood and youth died with him.
Your comment makes good sense. There was an awareness of the response when Carson died.
It remains to be seen how much the networks will fill the vaccuum left by strong communicators in their quest for the advertising dollar.
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