Out of need or curiosity
man has learned much about the Earth on
which he is both guest and prisoner
Often baffled in his brief journey
through time
he has found reassurance in the
order revealed in nature
the recurring sequence of the seasons
the symmetry in storm
Yet nothing has lessened his terror
when nature seems to turn against him
when the Earth shudders and
explodes in fire
making rubble of all he has built
"Twenty thousand people dead;
anywhere from fifty thousand
to one hundred
and fifty thousand injured..."
"If that's it,
there's a CCP there
The communication may go bad
but that's the angle they ought to go."
"There's two more in there."
Against the sudden blows of
an adversary
that often strikes without warning
some have tried to create defenses
Powerless to prevent eruption
or earthquake
they seek to diminish its toll
Others light candles of faith
seek safety in prayer
Today new candles light the dark
instruments whose beams are reflected
from distant objects
or catch signals from outer space
to measure the smallest movements
of the Earth's surface
Now man has devised new concepts
of the forces altering
our planet
forces that move the continents
twist the globe's thin crust
build vast mountain ranges
even beneath the sea
Like all living things
Earth is in ceaseless change
Born of fire, it too is being
transformed day by day
Once this was blank ocean the cold
storm-swept Atlantic off the
southern coast of Iceland
Then, in fiery eruption during
the winter of 1963
the island of Surtsey began to
emerge from the sea
Today its single square mile of ash
and lava forms one of
the newer additions
to the land surface of the globe
Yet this virgin terrain is
no longer wasteland
Already life has found it
Already seeds borne by wind
and wave have taken root in the ash
and birds have begun to
nest along the cliffs
A closed preserve to casual visitors
the island has become a
living laboratory
Here scientists from distant
countries can study the ways
by which life tests
and gradually seizes a new domain
Among them is Dr. Robert Ballard, geologist
from the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution on Cape Cod
"The story I often tell to try
to get across the point
that the Earth really is alive
if you were to interview a
butterfly
standing on a branch of a sequoia tree
Now, a butterfly lives for
only a few days
and a sequoia tree can live
for over a thousand years
And if you were to ask that butterfly
Do you perceive the object on
which you are standing
as being alive?
And the butterfly would say,
of course not
I've been here all my life five days
and the tree hasn't done a thing
Same problem with the human being
If you were to ask a human being
perhaps one that's lived
a hundred years
if they perceive the Earth
which is over four
and a half billion years in age
as being alive
they'd probably say
Of course not. I've been here
all my life
and it hasn't done a thing.'
But the Earth really is a
very dynamic object
In fact, I think of it as
a living organism."
Like Surtsey, Earth too is an island
not in the North Atlantic
but in the vaster sea of space
In time beyond the measure of
man's brief experience
it too is in slow and ceaseless change
Some two hundred million years ago
its landmasses formed a single
continent scientists call Pangea
Then slowly, Pangea's fracturing
plates began to move apart
like pieces of a vast jigsaw puzzle
gradually assuming the shapes
and arrangement we recognize
on maps today
Riding upon a semiplastic layer
of Earth's fiery interior
the ocean floors and continents
that form its crust
or lithosphere are in continuing motion
Through the continents seem
stationary to living populations
they move an inch or more each year
The friction occurring along the
plate margins
is often marked by earthquakes
and volcanic eruption
Sometimes, as in California's San
Andreas Fault
the opposing plates grind against
each other in a sideways
or lateral motion called translation
It is when a section of the fault
locks, builds up tension
then abruptly releases
that major earthquakes occur
In other areas such as Japan
in a movement known as subduction
the edge of one crustal plate slowly
slides beneath another
causing volcanic activity and tremors
Along the 46,000 mile Mid
Ocean Ridge
in an action called spreading
molten rock
or magma, emerges through fissures
in the ocean floor
soon congealing in new submerged crust
Sometimes, as in Iceland
and its offshore islands of Surtsey
and Heimaey
the action has created
new land above the sea
Barely two hundred miles south
of the Arctic Circle
on the fiery seam still building
Iceland itself
Heimaey is accustomed to change
Port or the fleet that fishes
the abundant waters nearby
its only town of Vestmannaeyjar
has seen many a storm
take its toll of men and ships
Hardy descendants of the Vikings
who colonized the island more
than a thousand years ago
its people long have learned to
live with uncertainty
to meet risk and hazard
with a cheerful face
Each summer
by long-standing tradition
the entire population moves
out of town
on a three-day community holiday
It is a gathering that harks
back to Viking times
when villagers assembled to
review the spoken laws
by which they lived
On the grassy floor of an
ancient volcanic crater
they build a tent city where the
people of the town rediscover
each other in a quite different setting
Side by side, they celebrate
many things
home rule
won from Denmark more than a century ago
the inheritance of their Viking past
their survival of dangers
that sometimes rise from
the Earth itself
At midnight
young men set fire to a great wooden
structure built on the hillside
As the flames flare against the dark
they summon varied emotions
among the watchers
To their Nordic forefathers fire
brought warmth in the numbing cold
It was a symbol of life, of rebirth
But the people of Heimaey
have long known
that it also can bring destruction
and death
In the winter darkness of
January 1973 it brought disaster
Just beyond the town's edge a fissure
cracked the earth
abruptly spewing molten lava and
ash hundreds of feet into the air
Roused from their beds
by the sudden threat
most of the population was evacuated
to the nearby mainland
but volunteers would fight a five-month
battle with the new volcano
now called Eldfell, "Fire Mountain."
Within a week Eldfell
had raised a black
smoldering cone six hundred
feet high
and covered the town in ash
More than a hundred buildings
had been burned
or crushed under the advancing wall
of lava
In early February the lava threatened
to block the entrance to the harbor
Desperately, emergency teams fought
to dam the flow
by hardening the lava
with great streams of cold seawater
At last, by heroic effort
the harbor was saved
But as the eruption continued
through ensuing months
the lava would add almost one
square mile to the island
while much of the town lay buried
under cinders and ash
It would take years to dig out
But at last the precincts of the
dead are tidy again
Elsewhere in Iceland life goes on
Under the shadows of the volcanoes
that remain a perpetual enigma
farmers gather crops, prepare
for the winter to come
They are doing more
Boldly, Icelanders are making use of
the very forces that threaten them
In the north of the mainland
near the Krafla volcano
they are attempting to harness the
heat of a great geothermal field
to power homes and
industrial installations
Recent eruptions have reminded
Icelanders of the unpredictability
of the powers they are trying
to employ
With Dr. Haraldur Sigurdsson
vulcanologist from the University
of Rhode Island
Dr. Ballard visits a site where
recent lava flow
has threatened a newly-built
electric power plant
"There's the power plant below
us here
and if you look over this way..."
"Yeah. You can see the recent flows."
"The entire caldera, recent lavas..."
"Now the flows that were what
earlier this year, are down there?"
"Yes. And you can see the steam
defining the fissure
that's been erupting during the
last five years
and the black lava flows that have
been coming out."
"So if, let's say, there were another
eruption right along the caldera
where we see the fissure opening up
the lava could just come down
this valley
and go right around the corner
to the power plant."
Icelanders invested in the
costly geothermal power plant
because the field had lain dormant
for over two hundred years
Begun in 1975 as an alternative
to a hydroelectric dam
the plant was almost immediately
threatened
by a series of violent eruptions
that brought the lava flow within
a mile and a half
Trying to discern a possible
pattern in the Krafla volcanic activity
scientists keep watch on the plant
and the surrounding area
for ominous signs
Here one of the monitoring
team checks
for any ground tilt
which could unbalance
and destroy the turbines
In a field near the plant
he checks daily
for signs of subterranean activity
measures any possible change
in the gap
between two pipes planted on opposite
sides of a fissure
Like a serpent's back rising
above the sea
the steaming crest of the Mid-Ocean
Ridge stretches across Iceland
Here Ballard and Sigurdsson visit
the site of the recent lava
flow that is still cooling
"We're in the fissure that erupted
six months ago."
"So everything we are walking on
is less than six months in age?"
"That's right. And it's still
cooling off here
That's why it's still like a sauna bath."
"It's about as fresh as you can get
short of having it red."
"Yes. Let's take a look around here."
"Now, if you can sit without
cutting your pants
It's even warm
Now, I understand that when the
eruption began to take place
a tourist from Denmark
was standing right
where the fissure opened up and was..."
"Quite close to the area
where the crust split
and rifted apart and the
lava started to squirt up."
"So he just took off."
"Actually, I understand the lava
was moving quite rapidly here."
"How fast?"
"Up to ten meters per second."
"So you'd have to be a... Let's see
the world's record for
the 100-yard dash is..."
"9.8."
"So it's running about as fast as
the world's record
Hope the Dane was a fast runner."
"He was. He got away. So far there
have been no casualties."
"Before this took place
this area had been quiet for a long
long time
This is why they thought it was safe
to build the power plant."
"This area has been without volcanic
activity for about 250 years
And therefore, there was
the general feeling
that there wasn't an imminent danger
and it was a worthwhile risk to
take to start constructs
of a geothermal power station
in this central volcano."
"And they've invested what?"
"Oh, probably about 60 million dollars"
"So 60 million dollars is
really in peril then
if another major eruption occurs here
and this time it does go over
that pass and down into the basin?"
"Well, that's always a possibility
But in Iceland there is...
Iceland is a country
where you have to live with
the elements."
In patient calm, Icelanders
accept the gamble nature
has imposed upon them
the frigid climate
the sweeping storms, the hidden
threat beneath their feet
Even as they keep a wary eye
on the dangerous giant
who has built the very island on
which they live
they use his heat to warm their
cities and homes
even their indoor gardens a kind
of compensation
for the risks they philosophically endure
In winter darkness they take
light from the subterranean depths
Warmed by the hidden furnace of
the Earth itself
vegetables ripen in the arctic cold
In the volcano's fiery breath
flowers bloom
Yet the risk remains
Hardly a year after eruptions
threatened the power installation
Sigurdsson returned to Krafla
as the restless giant stirred
and became active
Once more the lava flow approached
within one-and-a-half miles of
the electric turbines
Though the fiery fountains
gradually subsided
the eruption raised the ground
level to provide a slope
for future lava flows to travel
toward the power plant
For the present the Krafla
installation is secure
But Icelanders know that eventually
they many have to pay the price
of living on the edge of creation
Sometimes the action of the
Mid-Ocean Ridge
brings surprisingly opposite effects
In Iceland its slow spreading
process over millions of years
has created the great island on
which the people live
Far southeastward
along the nearly 3,000-mile furrow
of Africa's Great Rift Valley
the spreading action is slowly
but inexorably opening the heart
of a continent
In measurable time to come
eastern Africa will be detached
from its mother continent
and this dusty desert landscape
will be an ocean floor
Already, in the Afar Triangle
at the Horn of Africa the process
has begun the sea is invading
the land
At Djibouti's Ghoubet-Al-Kharab
an inland extension of the Gulf
of Aden
the sea is temporarily delayed
by a narrow barrier of small volcanic
hills sealing off Lake Assal
But as magma seeps through
fissures in the Earth's crust
and the seven-mile rift widens
and sinks
the sea inevitably will pour
into the lowlands beyond
Already seawater from
Ghoubet-Al-Kharab
has begun to work its way downward
through cracks and
subterranean channels
undergoing substantial
chemical change
as it penetrates the heated
rock layers below
With Dr. Jean-Louis Cheminee
of the French National Center
for Scientific Research
Ballard descend into a recently
active fissure through
which a small flow of seawater
reaches the distant lake
"So this is the sea coming in, right?"
"Yes, by a system of fissures."
"This is where the water
that we see on the other side
of the rift
going into Lake Assal originates from?"
"Yes."
"So it comes in from the sea..."
"...from the sea and crosses the rift
by the fissures inside the mountain..."
"...and out the other side."
"Yes."
"Now, was this fissure
in existence in 1978?"
"Yes, yes."
"It just widened?"
"Just widened."
"Because a lot of these rocks
are just perched
as if they're ready to come down."
"And the car here - just here..."
"Yeah, well, we should move the car."
"So we go like this."
"So we'll go across the..."
"Not across exactly like this. No."
"We go across this area, right?
Now how long will it take us to
get to Assal?
If we went from here all
the way across
went across that flat
desert-like area
how long would it take to get there?"
"Maybe six hours."
"Six hours."
"Yeah, six hours
Terrible road. Six, six and a half."
In torrid heat that reaches more
than 130 degrees Fahrenheit
the water here and in the Rift Valley
is often reduced to a caustic brine
"I'm standing 500 feet below
sea level
near the shore of Lake Assal."
"The ocean is only six miles away
If it weren't for these young lava
flows filling the valley floor
I'd be under water right now
In fact, the ocean is
trying to do that
As rifting develops in the valley
these deep fissures start to form
This lets water travel beneath
the valley
through the fissures
and it can enter Lake Assal
along this outlet
In fact, there are several of
them in the valley."
"At the present moment it's so
hot that most of the seawater
that comes in evaporates
leaving the salt behind
But as rifting continues
more and more water will pour
through these fissure systems
until the sea claims
this entire area
as the ocean penetrates deeper
and deeper into the
continent of Africa."
Here, as in Iceland, the spreading
action creates new crust
Elsewhere, in compensation
the distant edges of an expanding
plate must be destroyed
Outpost of Asia
Japan's island chain bears the shock
of the Philippine
and Pacific Plates as they thrust
beneath the Eurasian Plate
in a massive subduction zone
In the deep ocean trenches off Japan
the aging plates plunge back into
Earth's molten interior
causing powerful disturbances
The mists here are dragon's breath
the hissing steam of Japan's 20,000
hot springs
and forty active volcanoes
With a long history of
destructive earthquakes
Japan has begun a massive effort
to prepare for the future
In Shizuoka Prefecture near Tokyo
school children take lessons
in reading, writing
and catastrophe learning the skills
that may save their lives
In this temple to the victims
of a great disaster
memory and reality are like
the mismatched faces
of an earthquake fault
Here survivors come to witness
again the day a world ended
search again for faces that exist
only in old men's dreams
Just before noon on Saturday
September 1, 1923
an earthquake registering 7.9 on the
Richter scale struck Tokyo
shaking the earth for a full
five minutes
Ignited by hot coals thrown
from stoves against paper walls
and straw matting
the city burst into flame
As the people fled into the streets
they converged on the river
From opposite banks refugees started
across the wooden bridges
only to meet head on in midspan
Surrounded by walls of fire
with no escape
the fleeing mass was locked
in panic and chaos
Next day two-thirds of Tokyo lay
in smoldering black ash
and more than 140,000 persons
were dead
Today the Japanese are building
more than temples to the dead
Fearful of a predicted recurrence
of the great Kanto quake
thirteen million persons in the Tokyo
and nearby Tokai areas participate
in a vast drill in
which every citizen is learning to
play a role
Public communications center
during a crisis
NHK television relays information
from the Japan Meteorological
Agency, or JMA
Here a vast warning system keeps
constant watch
through scores of seismic stations
and a 125-mile line of
seismic monitors
along the floor of Suruga Bay
probable epicenter of the
expected quake
At the first sign of
unusual activity
JMA instantly alerts the head of a
six man committee of seismologists
Known as the Hanteikai
this team quickly evaluates
the information
and the prime minister is notified
While police, firemen
and other public employees
take their posts to prevent general
confusion or panic
there is a delay of 30 minutes
before a warning is broadcast
Each of the Tokai region's cities
and towns
has a municipal
disaster plan
and through drills most people
have learned the precise steps
required after a warning
Turning off gas and electricity
citizens secure doors and cabinets
then take up their earthquake kits
and march off to join
the general exodus
through predetermined escape routes
In the street a rope helps
maintain unity
and orderly wards off panic
by providing a sense of common
security within a group
Guided and patrolled by
emergency forces
a swelling flood of people from home
and factory moves toward assigned
refuge areas
To escape the giant sea wave
or tsunami
which often follows a quake
the harbor fleet sets out to sea
The drill has been a costly effort
but the price seems small compared
to the threatened loss of life
in one of the most heavily
populated areas on Earth
Eastward across the sea
this tree-shaded oasis near
California's Mojave Desert
offers deceptive sanctuary
Like Japan's thermal caldrons
it too is part of the Ring of Fire
that circles the Pacific
Here along the 700-mile San
Andreas Fault
the pacific plate grinds slowly northward
against the North American plate
sometimes locking
building stress, then suddenly
releasing in earthquake
Whether exposed as a naked scar
crossing the Carrizo Plain near
Los Angeles
or pleasantly disguised
under grassy slopes
and a chain of sag ponds
near San Francisco
the fault stretches like a taut
line of danger
between the state's two most
heavily populated centers
In times past each of the cities
has felt its power
Once the fabled gateway to
the gold rush
its hills crowned with ornate palaces
of mining and railroad tycoons
San Francisco today soars in a
dazzling array of skyscrapers
along its Embarcadero daring evidence
of a city that refused to die
Dr. Ballard recalls a
fateful morning
at the beginning of the century
"On the 18th of April 1906
the San Andreas Fault
suddenly snapped
The city of SAN Francisco
felt the brunt of the blow
Some 700 people were killed
and most of the city was
destroyed by fire
"Today, people think of it as an
event found in history books
Yet to geologists, the fault is
very much alive
We are monitoring the fault system
attempting to understand its behavior
predict its next move
One thing we do know
We will experience another earthquake
like that of 1906
It's just a matter of time
At dawn February 9, 1971
an earthquake registering 6.4
on the Richter scale
struck the San Fernando Valley
in Los Angeles
Twisting railroad tracks
shattering highway overpasses
it strewed disaster across
the city landscape
as if by an angry giant's hand
Like a silent accomplice
flames leaped through the wreckage
Great hospitals and other
structures collapsed
Everywhere the quake trapped
its casual human victims
When it had passed, the city counted
the cost 64 dead
in property damage
Because the water behind a weakened
dam was quickly lowered
thousands of lives were saved
which otherwise might
have been lost
In it's aftermath alarmed public
agencies radically
expanded their earthquake
preparations
Today not only standard
surveying methods
but a wide array of new
instruments are employed
to monitor California's
fractured landscape
Using laser beams and radio waves
from remote stars
scientists can measure the state
for crustal changes
or plate movements as small
as an inch
Along the San Andreas a network
of seismic devices
reports local changes in the release
of radioactive gas from rock strata
sudden drops in the water level
of wells
variations in gravity or the
Earth's magnetic field
Other meters detect the slightest
movement deep beneath the surface
measure strain in a locked section
of the fault
the state of California also
is checking its basement"
above which 24 million
people live
From hundreds of
instruments scattered
across the length of the state
continuous reports flow into
separate computer centers
for the southern and the
northern sectors
At the United States Geological
Survey in Menlo park
widely diverse in formation
is correlated
and condensed to provide a summary
of seismic activity
during each passing month
Like scholars trying to break
an enemy code
or decipher a lost language
scientists are trying to discern
a consistent meaning
in all the signals sent
from the Earth
Though the San Andreas remains
an enigma
a silent threat of havoc to come
sophisticated technology is
bringing closer the time
when man may be able to
predict earthquakes
with reasonable accuracy
and certainty
Scientists know
that in prediction lies a major
defense against catastrophe
Using an instrument no more
complicated than a garden hoe
one young geologist
from the California Institute of
Technology has shown
that the key to the future may lie
in the past
At excavations along the fault at
Pallett Creek near the Mojave
Dr. Kerry Sieh has revealed
a repeat pattern
of California quakes hundreds
of years
before any recorded history
of the region
"We are on the main trace of the
San Andreas Fault
And the layer that I just scraped
off
has been radiocarbon dated
at 1350 A.D.
The layer right
above it
which has the beautiful orange
color here
and here has a radiocarbon date near
its top of about 1560 A. D
or about the time Michelangelo was
painting the Sistine Chapel
This layer dates from about the birth
of Benjamin Franklin 1700
and this layer about right here
was the surface of the Earth
at the time of the 1857 earthquake
"Now, this is the main trace of
the San Andreas Fault running up
through these layers up though to
about here."
"Here's the 1353 A.D. layer broken
by the fault trace coming up
through the 1560 A.D. layer here
So here we have the Pacific Plate
and here we have the
North American Plate
broken only by this very narrow trace,
or plane
of the San Andreas Fault."
"And it continues on up
up through the 1700s level
and stopping at this level
the 1857 level
In 1857 there occurred the great
Fort Tejon earthquake
which was the last great earthquake
to break the San Andreas Fault
in the southern part of the state."
"Elsewhere at this site
we have exposures a total of 11
prehistoric earthquakes
and the great Fort Tejon earthquake
of 1857
The radiocarbon dates show
that the earthquakes occur
with frequency
they occur about every 145 years
It's been 125 years since the great
Fort Tejon earthquake
The chances are really quite
good that
within our lifetime
we're going to see another great
Fort Tejon earthquake."
"Give me the number of dead you
anticipate
that you are estimating
and I will try to work it out on
the end."
"Estimates of injured range
from 50 to 80 thousand
with an unknown number trapped in
collapsed structures
At this time the numbers of dead may
be in excess of ten thousand."
To train disaster agencies
and to alert the public the state's
Office of
Emergency Services stages
yearly drills
"I would like to clarify what's
turned out to be a rumor
of a radioactive release problem
at Cal Tech."
Alex Cunninham
director of the California Office
of Emergency Services
"The scenario for this exercise is
that an earthquake occurred
yesterday in Los Angeles
actually about 30 miles northwest
of San Bernardino
along the San Andreas Fault
Its magnitude, for exercise
purposed 8.3."
"And believe me
we are very selective
at this level on
using Guard resources
And I recommend strongly now
I can't handle a delicate issue
like this on the phone
I recommend very strongly that if
you want the Guard for this
that you are going to have to come
through bureaucratic channels."
"We need to have an update
as of this time on the number of
injuries and deaths, please."
"All the hospital beds in northern
county appear be down
Southern county looks like
they're in pretty good shape
But the Needs Assessment will be
back half an hour and will give us
all the figures."
"Hold on a second. We got to
get this together."
"The State of California is
very well prepared to
handle a moderate earthquake
And the citizens who have been
through these kind of quakes
are reasonably well prepared
But when we talk about a
catastrophic earthquake
something in the area of an 8
or an 8.3 no level of government
and particularly the
individual citizens
are prepared for such an event
It's no longer a question of if
the big earthquake is coming
It's simply a matter of when
Scientists are telling us
because of recent seismic activity
and other phenomena
other scientific data
that the great earthquake will strike
in southern California
some time in the next 30 years
Unfortunately, many people say well
if it's 30 years away
we don't have to worry about it
It's not 30 years away
It could happen tomorrow
it could happen today;
it could happen next month
But sometime in the next 30 years
we're going to have it
and people damn well better
prepare themselves for it."
Distantly aware of
threatened holocausts
most Los Angeles residents remain
caught in the traumas
and traffic jams of daily life
Too few know the mathematics of terror
At the time of the 1857 quake 11,000
people lived in Los Angeles
Today there are more than seven million
Many remember the impact of
the San Fernando tremor
But the 8.3 earthquake
which scientists now predict
will be a shock 800 times as strong
a natural disaster
without precedent in American history
Thirty-five hundred years ago
on the Aegean island of Santorini
these ruins too held a civilization
Here, long before the Parthenon
the maritime community of Akrotiri
created a culture
that rivaled the splendors of
nearby Minoan Crete
In frescoes artists painted
the sunlit landscapes of man
in his springtime
the years in Eden when the Earth
was filled with wonders
Upon the walls were mirrored
the ordinary tasks
and pleasures of a small world
in which the simplest acts of
everyday life held meaning
and even the gods often behaved
like noisy neighbors
Over the wide sea, returning seamen
brought strange gifts
and creatures from the shadowy lands beyond
told of odysseys across
a world still new
Now they are gone
abruptly vanished in
a great catastrophe
All that remain are a half-excavated
civilization under glass
a few amphoras in orderly array
life and death filed on
an index card
One of the scientists trying to
decipher the puzzle of the past
Dr. Christos Doumas of the University
of Athens leads Dr. Ballard
through the remains of a city
that died thirty-five centuries ago
"This is an ancient street leading
to the Triangle Square
flanked on the left by
the Building Delta
and on the right by the West House."
"Now here's where you
found the frescoes."
"Yes, we found frescoes
and other things which show
that we are discovering here a very
highly civilized society
of the Bronze Age."
"The houses are individual
surrounded by streets
There are several stories
as you see
and we have indoor plumbing
connected directly
with the drainage system
of the street."
"So you had a society of individual
families living together..."
"Yes. And every house was
an entity by itself."
"And here we can see how
sophisticated these houses were
The basement, as in
many of the houses
was used for storing
goods a variety of crops like barley
flour of barley
lentils, various nuts like almonds."
"So they had a pretty good diet
I mean it was varied."
"Yes. And they were consuming
also seafood
because we found shells of
sea urchins
and remains of dried fish
"The city was captured by
the earthquakes and
this staircase shows
that it was broken before the
eruption of the volcano
"So this probably caused
them to evacuate."
"Yes. It was a warning
for the people."
"And then after the earthquake
the major eruption occurred."
"Yes. It destroyed almost everything
as you sea and then the site was
covered with volcanic ash."
Before the great warning tremors
Akrotiri lay on the flank of a
steeply sloping island
unaware that miles below
the Earth's crust was in movement
Soon after the quake
the island exploded in one of historical
prodigious volcanic eruptions
Suddenly a mountain had disappeared
its walls collapsed into a volcanic
caldera now filled
by the inrushing sea
A vast searing cloud of pumice and
ash buried Akrotiri
and surged over the Mediterranean
with an impact on history that
still is being assessed
"We're inside the caldera
Behind me are the layered walls
of the volcano
which record its long history
The black layers are basaltic
lava flows;
the red ones a tephra ejected
from the volcanic vent."
"These prehistoric layers once
formed a great volcano over
About 3,500 years ago
the entire volcano erupted destroying
over two-thirds of the island
At the top today you can see a
white layer of pumic
and ash which records
that great event
That layer is over 100 feet thick."
Human beings still cling to the
narrow rim of cliffs
that now surrounds emptiness
Today several thousand islanders
live on the heights
and fish or search for sponges
in the depths of the caldera
Steep paths link them with the ports
through which supplies
much of their fresh water
and occasional visitors arrive
by sea
Today the centers of Western
civilization
have moved far beyond Santorini
Insulated from the rumors and
alarms of a wider world
it has settled into the ways of
village life
Upon the cliffs workmen build
and repair structures using
the very ash
and pumice of the explosion
that once destroyed their island
In the fields around them
farmers tend vineyards
and reap grain planted
in the volcano soil
The pumice is even sold for profit
was once exported for the
building of the Suez Canal
more than a century ago
Intermittently strong tremors still
shake the island
but the widows of Santorini remain
solitary symbols of the tenacity
by which life endures
Beneath them one plate slides
under another in endless movement
even the gods may change
but prayer remains a step
in the search
for reassurance and certainty
On Good Friday
worshippers are surrounded by frescoes
that describe not the joys of life
but its tragic burdens
Yet for the devout islanders
faith holds a triumphant hope
Out of death's darkness life returns
a flame passed from candle to candle
In the ritual of twenty centuries
the villagers
again find a ancient recognition
In the Easter story of resurrection
they tell their own
After the resurrection joy
the breaking of eggs to release
the symbolic life within
Across the island
after forty days of fasting
the villagers feast and dance
The world has changed many time
since this woman lived in Santorini
Her gods have vanished
The streets on which she walked now
end in walls of ash
Yet in these dancing rhythms of life
she might hear echoes of another time
the refrains of home
Imperceptible to living generations
the change goes on
toward a future
that science's computers
already have begun to outline
By its present drift
Africa, in its clockwise movement
will close the Mediterranean
and collide with southern Europe
raising great new mountain ranges
like a rumpled rug
In Africa itself the sea at last will
flood the desert thorn trees
isolate eastern Africa
invade a domain once held by
elephants and lions
In the Americas, as elsewhere
life will be radically altered
Mecca for millions of fugitives
from the wintry East
Los Angeles may have to doctor its
swimming pools with antifreeze
Set at the edge of the Pacific Plate
it is moving relentlessly
toward Alaska
at the rapid of two or three
inches a year
Ten million years from now
San Francisco will find
that for a time its scorned southern
rival has become a suburb
New York may become part of a
vast volcanic range
as the expanding Atlantic floor
passes under the eastern coast
Compared to Earth's history
man's tenure has be dazzling
and brief
In ten thousand years he has
created language
built cathedrals, invented the means
to destroy life one Earth
His computers can project
the destination
of continents 200 million years
from now
But where man will be none can predict