National Geographic: Born of Fire (1983)

[bunniefuu]

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 thr*at

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 b*rned

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 thr*aten 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

thr*at 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 k*lled

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 thr*at 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 d*ed 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 expl*si*n

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

inv*de 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