BIG BLOW HARD

I  nominate the island of Sumatra (above) as the earth's appendix. Stretching over a thousand miles from the northwest to the southeast, and up to 270 miles wide, it is evenly sliced asunder by the equator, and was built by earthquakes and 68 volcanoes,  making this island the most likely landmass on earth to eventually kill us all. If that is even possible anymore.

Off its south-eastern tip lies the treacherous 15 mile wide Sunda Strait, in which resides Krakatoa (above), whose explosive May 1883 eruption killed at least 36,000 people locally. 

In December of 2004, the Java trench (above) just off Sumatra's south-western coast was the epicenter for the 9.3 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami which killed 230,000 humans across the Indian Ocean.

There was also the 1815 eruption of 14,000 foot high Mount Tambora (above), which killed perhaps 11,000 locally and threw enough sulfuric acid into the stratosphere to turn 1816 into the “Year Without a Summer”,  destroying an entire season of crops across Europe, China and North America and thus killing another 60,000 through starvation and disease. 

But in the 12, 000 foot high Barisan Mountains on Sumatra lies the ultimate monster.  Lake Toba (above), is a water filled caldera 18 miles wide by 60 miles long. It was this tropical vacation spot which on a December or January day 71,500 years ago came very close to killing every human being on earth 

But back on that very bad day 71,500 years ago the once great Mount Toba had a lump of rhyoite stuck in its vent, preventing the magma in its six mile wide reservoir nine miles below the surface from exhaling. The pressures built up until, as it must eventually, something gave. Perhaps it was a minor earthquake along the Sumatra Fault. Perhaps, as at Mount St. Helens, it was a landslide that released the twin beasts beneath the mountain. 

The initial explosion was big enough, throwing tens of millions of tons of rock skyward, but it was also big enough to unleash an older, deeper magma chamber just to the north. The co-joined reservoirs were 17 cubic miles across. And the resultant combined explosion lasted an entire week, and threw ten trillion, trillion with a “T”, ten trillion tons of 1,500 degree Fahrenheit magma, rock and gas into the stratosphere. 

The eruption of Mount Toba was the largest volcanic explosion in the last 2 million years. The Toba ash fell in Greenland. The math says it caused 6 to 10 years without summers. Global temperatures dropped six degrees Fahrenheit. That makes it big enough to have killed almost every human on earth.  And that has been the accepted theory for decades.

Off course it was easier back then, because there were only about 55,000 primates walking around on two legs, divided, like a biblical tale of Cain and Able, into two family tribes; homo Neanderthal and homo Erectus. Now, it is important to remember we are talking about fewer humans than there are endangered Gorillas and Chimpanzees alive in the wild today. So killing all the humans on earth was not that big a job 71,500 years ago.

Erectus was the older brother, and the theory was that he left his African home first, taking his innovative hunter-gatherer life style on the road. It was Erectus' far flung prodigy who camped in the shadow of Mount Toba, 71,500 years ago. And according to research by geneticist Lynn B. Jorde at the University of Utah, the genetic markers passed down to us by our ancestors indicate a "bottleneck"

when the number of Erectus was reduced to a mere 10,000 individuals, maybe, even, as low as 40 “breeding pairs”. 

In other words, 70,000 years ago the total world-wide population of Erectus humans and Neanderthal humans could have attended a Sacramento Kings basketball game, with the stadium still left half empty, and the  “breeders”, scattered about in the corporate sky boxes.

But, half a million years before the Toba eruption, the more robust humanoids, named after Germany's Neander River valley where their skeletons were first uncovered, had moved into Europe and, it was once thought Asia as well.  

But 40,000 after Toba, Homo Neanderthals were extinct. The last survivors discovered so far were a  family group, camped in what is now Spain, and dated to no later than 45,000 years ago.  Why did they die out?  They weren't at Toba.  No Neanderthal bones have ever been uncovered west of Africa or the Carpathian mountains.

So what killed them off?  Well, we know that their body type required between 100 and 350 more calories per day than the ancestors of Homo Erectus, otherwise known as “us”. Or maybe it was a new family of viruses, or bacteria. The one thing we know for certain is that it wasn't the eruption of Toba, despite half a century of speculation that it might have been.

Sixty thousand years after Toba, human (Homo Erectus) populations had not only rebounded, but had grown to more than one million individuals world wide. This was primarily thanks to the invention of agriculture, but it was also a byproduct of the elimination of our competition -. Neanderthals.

In other words, as any supermodel can tell you, we are a better at surviving starvation, or at least better at it than Neanderthal was.  Hard to believe given the current population of fat assed Big Mac eating, French fry inhaling Americans. And maybe that explains our obsession with “all you can eat” buffets. 

The first problem with our mystical tale of a volcanic doomsday was uncovered in 2013, when  paleontologist working at Lake Malawi (above, bottom), at the southern end of the African Rift Valley, discovered a layer of 71,500 year old volcanic ash tied chemically to the Toba eruption. This was to be expected, and, given that the African Rift Valley was ground zero for human evolution, it should tie into any story about how humans were almost wiped out by the great Toba eruption. 

But the herds of wildebeests and antelope in the rift valley which human erectus were feeding off of were more far numerous then, than they are now. And their genetic heritage shows no Toba bottleneck. How could we starve if our food did not?

By 1804 the population of Homo Sapians sapiens (humans) had reached 1 billion individuals. And collectively we now weigh 100 times the biomass of any other land animal that has ever walked the earth. It would seem we have created enough people to no longer have to worry about becoming extinct because of some unlikely equatorial volcano. 

Maybe, 65 million years ago, instead of growing into the largest creature on earth, the Apatosaurus, should have chosen to invent the Whopper. Then they could have snorted at the meteorite that killed them.  Maybe.

Well, it turns out that just about the same time Toba blew its top 71,500 years ago, smallpox made its first appearance. We can surmise this from reading the bacteria's genetic clock. If we are reading it correctly.  Today, small Pox kills 40% of adults infected and 80% of children. Originally, it must have been much more deadly. In fact, it is far more likely that a tiny bacteria or an even smaller virus would produce a genetic bottle neck, rather than a big bad volcano, as anybody with a runny nosed six year old can testify. 

The Black Death (Yersinia pestis) killed about 200 million people in the 14th century alone – 1/3 of the population of Europe at the time. So what would have happened if a Mount Toba had erupted in Europe near the time of the arrival of the Black Death, or the first introduction of small pox?

Add Toba to just about any other disaster and together the pair could be a human ending event. This may explain, at least in part, why it has taken four billion years for a life form on earth to develop the cognitive power stand up on their own two legs and say, “I'll have a Big Mac with fries, please.”

The one thing we know about Toba is, it is going to do it again. Over the last million years, Toba has produced three major eruptions, one 840,000 years ago, a second 700,000 years ago, and the big one 71,500 years ago. The lake that fills the caldera is currently 1,600 feet deep, but beneath that is another 1,500 feet of sediment, created by the last 70,000 years of tropical rain fall.

The lava reservoir beneath the caldera has refilled enough to raise a resurgent dome in the middle of the lake, more than 3,000 feet above the water. It has been named Samosir Island. At 30 miles long, 15 miles wide, and 247 square miles in area, it is the largest island within an island in the world. And it contains two lakes with their own islands. This appendix is reloading to rupture again. Should we be worried?

I would be, if I didn't have anything else to worry about, like Covid or taxes.  And worrying, just worrying, that will kill you, for sure.

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END OF THE WORLD....AGAIN.

 

I don't know if you are aware of it. but the world ended on 12  April, 1761. If you haven't heard of this tragic event, well, your ancestors were just not paying attention. 

In a world where most people still believed in the literal history of a real Adam and Eve, a certain William Bell, trooper in the Life Guards Horse Cavalry (above), went about London telling everyone and anyone who would listen that doomsday was nigh. And on the date predicted, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people, acted on his prediction. And what was amazing was that Corporal Bell was right. HIs world did end.  But Corporal Bell was right for the wrong reasons. And reason made all the difference. 

The 8th  day of February,  1761 dawned cold, as was to be expected in a world still in the grip of “The Little Ice Age”.  Most winters the Thames froze over allowing people to cross on the ice. And the great city was chocking on her own coal smoke to keep warm. This Sunday The “Picadilly Butchers”, as the members of the Life Guards Household Cavalry were called, were gathering for their parade, set then, as now, on every Sunday, for 11:30 A.M.

Then, from Greenwich below London on the south bank, to Richmond, on the upstream north shore, the entire Thames valley shuddered. In Hampstead and Highgate houses shook. Among the ship construction ways in Limehouse, the chandler’s tools were vibrated off their frames.

In the tiny village of Poplar across from the Isle of Dogs in the great bend of the Thames River, chimneys were shaken apart, their bricks crashing to the ground. In ‘The City’ itself pewter keepsakes slipped off mantles and chairs were upended. It was over in a few seconds. The dust settled. Nerves calmed. Normality returned.

On Sunday, 8 March, 1761, between five and six on in the morning, the Thames valley shuddered again. This time the shaking was stronger and lasted longer, roiling from north to south and back again.

In St. James Park a section of an abandoned canal in the private gardens behind Buckingham House (above) collapsed. In the churches of London, words of reassurance offered after the first quake, now fell on deaf ears.

Reason and logic began to fade. All that people could think of was their fear. Panicked, the richest and poorest citizens of central London ran from their beds at the slightest suggestion of another quake, convinced their homes were about to collapse around their heads, as some already had.

But the most well known collapse caused by the twin London earthquakes of 1761 was the collapse of sanity in the person of William Bell. He was one of the “Tinned Fruit”, aka a “Picadilly Butcher", a corporal in the Household Cavalry. And he became convinced that the shaking of 8 February (the second Sunday in the month) and 8 March (the second Sunday in that month), would be followed by a truly catastrophic shaker on the second Sunday in April - the twelfth.

In his mind Bell saw the earth split open. The mighty Thames River boiled and roiled. The bridges cracked and fell. The fires of damnation burst forth from the bowels of the earth. Sinners and Saints were cowed before the angels of the Lord. Spirits of the dead rose up. And the earth was laid bare, swept clean of the sins and works of man. Corporal Bell's visions became so intense and detailed, that he began to share them with any and all who would listen. He related them with such passion that Bell's visions took hold of the entire city like a fever.

Charles Mackay’s excellent book, “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” (Harmony Books – 1843) records that, “…all the villages within a circuit of twenty miles …(were) crowded with panic-stricken fugitives, who paid exorbitant prices for accommodation to the housekeepers of these secure retreats. Such as could not afford to pay for lodgings at any of those places, remained in London until two or three days before the time, and then encamped in the surrounding fields…

"...and hundreds who had laughed at the prediction a week before, packed up their goods, when they saw others doing so, and hastened away. The river was thought to be a place of great security, and all the merchant-vessels in the port were filled with people, who passed the night... expecting every instant to see St. Paul’s totter, and the towers of Westminster Abby rock in the wind and fall amid a cloud of dust.”

One enterprising chemist even advertised pills which he claimed to be “good against earthquakes”, although exactly how the pills proposed to save the swallower, was never fully explained.

Needless to say, the world did not actually end on Sunday 12 April, 1761, at least not in the way Corporal Bell had anticipated.  As Mackay recorded, “The greater part of the fugitives returned on the following day, convinced that the prophet was a false one; but many judged it more prudent to allow a week to elapse before they trusted their dear limbs in London.”

Corporal Bell became a man scorned, a repository for all those angry with themselves for having believed his prediction. And when he tried his hand at other doomsday prognostications, Corporal Bell was confined for some months in an insane asylum, probably, in part, for his own protection. Edward W. Brayley recorded in his book “Londoninania” (Hurst, Chance and Company – 1829) that Bell “…afterward kept a hosier’s shop in Holborn Hill during many years, and …retired to the neighborhood of Edgeware where he died a few years ago”.

Some things did change because of the twin quakes. His royal highness King George II picked up the damaged Buckingham House at a bargain price.

He kept the gardens but filled in the collapsed canal behind the structure and turned it into the Parade for the Household Cavalry. He renamed the residence “The Queen’s House”, but over the years, as additional wings were added, the old name returned and it became known as “Buckingham Palace”.

The channel between the Isle of Dogs and the hamlet of Poplar was bridged at two points and eventually the inside of the bend in the Themes became the East End of London (above). But something more fundamental had changed with the Earthquakes of 1761, and while the superstitions of William Bell were largely forgotten, another man was inspired, in part by the quakes  to a vision which indeed gave birth to a new world.

His name was James Hutton (above).  He was an ugly little man with a great big brain who was trained as a lawyer, a chemist, a doctor of Medicine, a businessman, and late in his life, a farmer far from the Thames valley, in Scotland. But the earthquakes of 1761 tweaked his curiosity as what effect they must have had on land under his feet. 

He had already come to the observation that the forces of erosion he saw on his two farms, (streams and rivers, wind and rain) must be have been working in the time of Adam and Eve. But how long ago was that? 

Hutton did not know. Nobody did. But Hutton was curious and sure enough of his God given brain to believe that he could understand the process, even if he didn't know all the details. 

He allowed the idea to percolate in his mind until, 27 years later, in 1788, when he went sightseeing with the mathematician John Playfair (above).  And while walking at the cliff edge at Siccar Point in Scotland, southeast of Edinburg,  Hutton saw a single formation of rock that utterly lifted the veil of superstition from his eyes.

There, in front of Hutton (above), was a bed of schistus, (to the right) thrusting up vertically from below. And sitting directly on top of this was a bed of sandstone, (left side of picture) lying in opposition to the schist. The junction point between the two kinds of rocks came to be called an “Angular Unconformity.”  

They were different kinds of rock and they could not have been formed in the same place or the same time, or even close to each other in time or place. Something between them must be missing; that something was the unconformity.

Sandstone is produced by compressing desert or beach sand under tons of more dessert sand or other rocks, with little to no water present. We now know that this particular sandstone had been formed when England was at the same latitude as the Sierra Desert is today, and looked very similar.

Schist is created by lava cooling deep under water, then reheating almost to the melting point and letting it to cool again, still under pressure but now without the presence of liquid water. Each of these processes takes millions of years by themselves. But the schist rock must form in the presence of water, and the sandstone in the absence of water. 

So the missing layers at the angular junction of the two beds were like a book with missing pages,  pages that must tell a story of mountains perhaps rising and wearing down to nothing, of seas opening and closing, of river valleys cutting through the land before filling in again.  That would take millions of years to achieve, given the rates of erosion Hutton had observed on his farm. Those millions of years whose record had been destroyed,  had to been laid down between the crystals of the schist and the grains of the sandstone.

The Angular Unconformity which Hutton stood over that day demanded an untold millions of years, and hinted at why earthquakes happen -  not because God was seeking to destroy a sinful humanity, but because that is how God remakes the world every day -  with erosion and earthquakes, one after another, millions of them over the  last four billion years of erosion. The next question was: why are there earthquakes? 

Hutton did not try and answer that question. He would need more data first. But he had come to believe he knew the world was not made, but remade, out of the remains of the day before.  It is the same way our minds are formed, and reformed by experience, and made out of the same stuff as the rest of the world  It is a world without end, because everything in it is reused, time and time again, Even us. Even time.

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