The History of the Earth

The History of the Earth

History has shown that the Earth's surface can change, and just as fast, as our lives can change with it. In an instant our planet can be violent and out of control creating and destroying life and land. There is not a single day that the earth goes silently without effecting lives in a positive or negative way. The rich ash from a volcano can produce mass crops for a farmer, but in most cases it leads to mass clean up for an entire culture. Humankind has a natural instinct to adapt to our environment, and that's just what we do in every case where Earth has left us no choice. From the tiny island of Montserrat, to the many islands of Hawaii, and a little closer to home, (about six miles north of my back door) are several fault lines where a major earthquake could occur at any time.

The 11,000 or so residents of Montserrat, a tiny island in the Caribbean, had an unwelcome visit from a mountain of furry that destroyed over one-third of their island. Although over half of the island, including the now non-existent capital, had been evacuated and warned of the volcano, nothing could prepare them for the destruction of their homes and lives. When the volcano had been uncorked it let out mass pyroclastic flows down the side of the volcano and right into their lives. Full of deadly gases, ash, and rocks these flows swept over land that was full of life only months before.

The vivid images of that island and its struggle with the mountain replaced my foggy views the power a volcano has. The action from sixty miles below the surface of the earth can bring together and unite people from sixty or more miles away. People from all over the world have experienced the same furry that the earth can create, whether it was from a volcano, earthquake, tsunami, or any other vicious face the earth can show. The earth has many moods that we need to learn to respect, for they all keep this planet in its ever-changing state, including creation of new and someday habitable land.

Included in this new habitable land, one of our own states, Hawaii, has new land being created everyday. Because of this hot spot on our earth over a million people can call a volcano home. An active shield volcano exists there today burping out lava and constantly pouring it into the ocean.