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The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta range in Colombia has traveled over 1,300 miles. Photo courtesy of Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center, and the Smithsonian.

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a UNESCO world heritage site just 26 miles off the Caribbean coast of Colombia, is the tallest coastal mountain in the world. It’s peak towers at 18,942 feet, and it hosts 36 different streams and rivers.

No human force—be it faith or muscle—could move such a mountain. Nevertheless, the mountain has moved.

A recent collaborative study from researchers in Colombia, Europe and at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) reveals that the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has traveled 1,367 miles from northern Peru to its current location over the past 170 million years.

One major indicator that the mountain had moved was discovered using a technique called paleo-magnetism, which analyzes the direction in which certain types of rock crystallized. (Crystals are influenced by the Earth’s magnetic field.) “The magnetic signature of these rocks says that they cannot be from where they are right now,” says Agustin Cardona, a postdoctoral research fellow with STRI and one of the authors of the study.

The study shows that the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta began its initial move from northern Peru due to pressure by the tectonic plates of the Pacific. Over millions of years, the mountain moved constantly, undergoing periods of more accelerated movement, and finally joining the Colombian Andes. Then, around 45 million years ago, the Pacific plates isolated the Santa Marta from the Andes, pushing it all the way out to the Caribbean coast.

By measuring the depths of specific minerals (silicon, for example) in the rock, researchers were also able to date some specific parts of the mountain. They discovered that its ancient foundation is over one billion years old, dating to the Pangean supercontinent. They also learned that the mountain contains many rock fragments that were uprooted in the course of its journey. This is likely responsible for the equally fragmented fossil record of the Santa Marta area.

“The next step is to test which fragments have moved, and which have stayed in place,” says Cardona. “Then we’ll have a truly robust paleo-geography for the region.”

With this complete geological history, Cardona says scientists will be better suited to understand the specific effects of global phenomena such as climate change on the highly biodiverse environment of the Santa Marta mountains. The mountain’s height, combined with its tropical location, has created numerous microclimates that provide habitat for many rare species, including 46 amphibian species and 628 different species of bird, not to mention unique mammals like the giant anteater and the white-lipped peccary. Some 26,500 indigenous people also live on the mountain, including the Kogi, Arhuaco and Wiwa tribes, among others. “This is a living, breathing, mountain,” says Cardona.

And the mountain is still on the move. Though the Pacific forces have stopped acting on it, the tectonic plates of the Caribbean are now pushing the mountain. The entire region is slowly shifting towards the Caribbean, and is not scheduled to stop anytime soon. Of course, we will barely notice the change during our lifetimes. But the odyssey of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta will continue nonetheless.

Fiona Tan's 2006 work, The Changeling, is comprised of hundreds of early 20th century portraits of Japanese school girls that the artist discovered at flea market, including the ones above. Images courtesy Version: Courtesy of the Artist and Frith Street Gallery, London

Contemporary artist Fiona Tan has garnered international fame for her video installations and photography, having had solo and group exhibitions staged at notable venues such as the Venice Biennale and Paris’s Centre Pompidou. But starting this past weekend, the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery formally introduced Tan to the United States with the opening of “Fiona Tan: Rise and Fall,” the first major U.S. exhibition of the artist’s work.

The organizing theme of the exhibition, which features six of Tan’s latest videos as well as a selection of photographs and drawings, is the individual’s place in an increasingly globalized world, with explorations into the role memory plays in the creation of an identity. The topic seems a fitting subject for the artist, who is a melting pot, of sorts, herself, having been born in Indonesia to a Chinese-Indonesian father and Australian-Scottish mother. Raised in Melbourne, Australia, she now lives in Amsterdam. According to Carol Huh, curator of contemporary art at the Freer and Sackler galleries, the exhibition is largely autobiographical.

Rise and Fall (2009), a video installation specially commissioned by the Vancouver Art Gallery, organizer of the traveling exhibition, involves two videos shown on adjacent 8-foot-by-4.5-foot screens. The videos show dream-like scenes of an older woman and a younger woman doing everyday things—reading, sleeping and dressing. Interspersed in the narrative are clips of moving water, suggesting to the viewer the passage of time and the possibility that the two women are the same person.

Another work on display, The Changeling, is a compilation of more than 200 archival photographs of Japanese schoolgirls, which Tan found at a flea market. In a single, spacious gallery, two small portraits face each other, juxtaposed on opposite walls. One portrait is actually an ingenious computer screen housed within a frame that continuously streams the images of the young girls in their school uniforms. The other frame portrays just one of the photographs. The slow change of the faces is narrated by a disembodied voice (Canadian actress Martha Burns), reading a script that Tan wrote, a poetic meditation on life’s little journeys. The portraits become the so-called changeling—a young girl, a mother and a grandmother—characters in a story, a young girl furtively hiding her diary beneath her pillow, a mother fretting over her daughter, and an older woman spending time in her garden.

“Respect and responsibility. Yes, your father and I could teach you that. But a sense of fun, joie de vivre?” the narrator, portraying the mother, says. “No. . .There seem to be qualities which cannot be instilled. I feel I have failed in my duties as a mother, I could not save you from pain.”

The artist, says curator Carol Huh, uses “the genre of portraiture and creates a fictive account. She knows nothing of these individuals.” And yet, the work forms a kind of “collective presentation of identity” in which the girl in the photograph becomes the mother of the girl in the photograph and then eventually evolves into the grandmother.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Freer and Sackler galleries are hosting a Fiona Tan-inspired series of lectures, films and musical performances.

This Week:

Fiona Tan and Venice: Thursday, Sept. 30, 7 p.m., Freer, Meyer Auditorium. Hear Saskia Bos, an expert in European contemporary art and curator of Tan’s three-part project in the Dutch Pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale, discuss Tan’s work.

Remember, Recollect, and Revive: Time and Fiona Tan: Sat., Oct. 2, 2 p.m., Sackler sublevel 1. Curator Carol Huh discusses how Fiona Tan uses images to construct memories and places the artist’s work in the context of contemporary Asian art and culture.

“Fiona Tan: Rise and Fall” is on display through January 16, 2011, with events scheduled throughout.

Badge, Pilot, National Airlines. Image courtesy of the Air and Space Museum.

Monday, September 27: Sadly, no special events are slated for today. However, visit this site for a full listing of regularly-scheduled goings-on around the Smithsonian and I am sure something is bound to strike your fancy.

Tuesday, September 28: All Hands on Design! Designers from Argentina

For those of you in the New York area, come on out to the Cooper-Hewitt for a celebration of Argentine design. Come enjoy workshops, hands-on activities for adults and children and displays of design work. The program is free, however regular Cooper-Hewitt admission rates apply: $15: General Admission; $10: Senior Citizens and Students with I.D.; free for children under age 12, Smithsonian Associates, and museum members. Cooper Hewitt, 5-8 PM

Wednesday, September 29: Ask an Expert: A Sampling of Aeronautical Uniform Insignia

For today’s lunchtime lecture, Alex Spencer of the museum’s Aeronautics Division will walk you through a selection of uniform insignia. Free. Air and Space Museum, 12:00 PM

Thursday, September 30: American Graffiti

This gem of a movie paints a brilliant picture of what it was like to be a teenager in Modesto, California in 1962. American Graffiti was written and directed by George Lucas. After recognizing the masterful storytelling techniques that the artist Normal Rockwell employed in his paintings, Lucas amassed a collection of the artist’s pieces. His collection is displayed alongside that of fellow film director Steven Spielberg in Telling Stories, which will be on view at the American Art Museum until January 2, 2011. Free. American Art Museum, 6:30 PM.

Friday, October 1: Portraits After 5

Come on out to the Kogod Courtyard, that fabulous open-air space smack in the middle of the American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, for an evening jam-packed with entertainment. While DJ Todd Threats will be spinning music, enjoy video installation art by Claire Scoville, a photo booth session with photographer Rob Northway and a chance to check out the recently-opened Americans Now exhibit. Free. Cash bar and food are available for purchase. American Art Museum, 5:00-8:00 PM.

For updates on all exhibitions and events, visit our companion site goSmithsonian.com

Learn the basics of crochet work this weekend at the Anacostia. Who knows, you might be inspired to step up your game and create works of art like the one above. "Spirit of the Renwick" (1982) by Andrea Uravitch.

Friday, September 24: Performance: The Mexican Revolution

2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution and to mark the occasion, performance artist, activist and writer Guillermo Gómez Peña will perform a work inspired by the revolution that addresses the intersections of Mexican and U.S. culture. Free. American History Museum, 6:30 PM.

Saturday, September 25: Hispanic Heritage Month Family Day Celebration: Passport to Argentina

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with a day-long Smithsonian celebration of Argentine culture that will convene in the Kogod Courtyard. With storytelling, crafts,  live music and dance performances. Free. American Art Museum/Portrait Gallery, 11:30 AM-3:00 PM.

Sunday, September 26: Crocheting Bright Geechie Colors

Crochet is a craft that gained considerable popularity during the 1800s and developed a cross-cultural appeal. In today’s workshop, learn how South Carolina’s Gullah people plied the craft—and about the brilliant palette of colors they use in their work. Mary Gaskins, who has been crocheting for over 50 years, will show you a few basic stitches so you can create your own multicolored headband. Free. Anacostia Museum, 1:00-3:00 PM.

For updates on all exhibitions and events, visit our companion site goSmithsonian.com

Zoo staff has attempted to artificially inseminate their 34-year-old elephant Shanthi. Photo by Mehgan Murphy, National Zoo.

With only three Asian elephants at the National Zoo—one of whom will be turning a whopping 63 years old this year—the Zoo has embarked on an effort to breed baby elephants to join their crew.

Zoo staff has attempted to artificially inseminate their 34-year-old female elephant Shanthi, using sperm from elephants at the Fort Worth and Tulsa zoos.

Given the sheer size of these animals (up to 11,000 pounds), the task is a big one, to say the least. But it’s also highly complex and exacting. We’ll spare you the details.

Asian elephants have a three-week cycle of two hormonal surges. They can only become pregnant during the second surge, which is when ovulation occurs. By performing blood tests on Shanthi, Zoo scientists determined the date of her first hormonal surge, and then attempted insemination for a period of four days (September 19-22) about three weeks later in hopes of catching the peak of the second surge.

When it comes to artificial insemination, Shanthi is a trailblazer. In 2001, she gave birth to Kandula, who was only the fifth elephant in the world conceived by artificial insemination.

Scientists will continue to monitor Shanthi’s levels of the hormone progesterone throughout the next few weeks. If, ten weeks after insemination, progesterone levels are still up, this will be a solid indicator that the Zoo’s efforts have paid off. They will then perform an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy. Elephant gestation ranges from 20 to 22 months, so it will still be a while yet before Shanthi would give birth to a new calf.

The Zoo reports that the new Asian elephant habitat, Elephant Trails, has room enough for ten adult elephants and their young. For now, you can see Shanthi, her son Kandula and Ambika, the Zoo’s wise older elephant, exploring their new digs, which just opened earlier this month.