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"Tracking
Myth
to Geological
Reality"
Once
dismissed,
myths are winning new attention from geologists
who find that they may encode valuable data about earthquakes,
volcanoes, tsunamis, and other stirrings
of the earth.
James Rasmussen,
owner of a funky used-record store called Bud's Jazz,
and Ruth Ludwin,
a seismologist at the University of Washington, Seattle,
are an unlikely professional team.
Late last year,
they were walking down the beach near the bustling Fauntleroy ferry dock,
searching for a reddish sandstone boulder.
Native
American legends
- Rasmussen belongs to the local Duwamish people -
say the boulder is haunted by a'yahos,
a spirit with the body of a serpent and the antlers and forelegs of a deer.
Old folks
used to say not to look in the direction of a'yahos
because it couls hake the ground or turn you into stone.
"It was not at all clear to me what my granddad was talking about
when he said you should be carful as you travel through here along the shore,"
said Rasmussen.
"Then I heard the scientific evidence, and it got me thinking
about the old stories."
The evidence is this:
In the 1990s, geophysical images
and excavations revealed a huge,
hidden fault traversing Seattle.
Disturbed soils and other evidence show
that 1100 years ago, it produced a quake that would level Seattle today.
Scientists agree
that the fault could slip again at any time,
toppling buildings and elevated highways.
The city's infrastructure
is now being reinforced for disaster.
Ludwin, Rasmussen,
and others have documented at least five Seattle-area legend sites
related to shaking, including the boulder, all aligned along the fault near old landslides
and other signs of seismic violence.
They conclude that the threat was encoded in folklore
long before scientists uncovered
physical signs.
More and more geoscientists
are now willing to combine their work with such stories these days,
in a budding discipline called geomythology.
Volcanologist Floyd McCoy of the University of Hwaii, Manoa,
says discussing myth has traditionally been "a good way to sink your own credibility";
it can put you on the list with flaky Atlantologists and other amateur zealots.
But, says McCoy, "I'd be a fool to write it all off.
There is a new realization that some myths
have something to say."
Myths can sometimes
alert researchers to previously unheeded geohazards;
in other cases, where science has demonstrated the danger,
legends "enrich the record"
and reinforce tha fact that people lie in harm's way,
says paleoseismologist Brian Atwater of the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle,
who has spearheaded many studies of seismic events in the Pacific Northwest.
The trick is teasing out which myths carry kernels of truth
that can be connected
to hard data.
Myth
to Geological
Reality"
Once
dismissed,
myths are winning new attention from geologists
who find that they may encode valuable data about earthquakes,
volcanoes, tsunamis, and other stirrings
of the earth.
James Rasmussen,
owner of a funky used-record store called Bud's Jazz,
and Ruth Ludwin,
a seismologist at the University of Washington, Seattle,
are an unlikely professional team.
Late last year,
they were walking down the beach near the bustling Fauntleroy ferry dock,
searching for a reddish sandstone boulder.
Native
American legends
- Rasmussen belongs to the local Duwamish people -
say the boulder is haunted by a'yahos,
a spirit with the body of a serpent and the antlers and forelegs of a deer.
Old folks
used to say not to look in the direction of a'yahos
because it couls hake the ground or turn you into stone.
"It was not at all clear to me what my granddad was talking about
when he said you should be carful as you travel through here along the shore,"
said Rasmussen.
"Then I heard the scientific evidence, and it got me thinking
about the old stories."
The evidence is this:
In the 1990s, geophysical images
and excavations revealed a huge,
hidden fault traversing Seattle.
Disturbed soils and other evidence show
that 1100 years ago, it produced a quake that would level Seattle today.
Scientists agree
that the fault could slip again at any time,
toppling buildings and elevated highways.
The city's infrastructure
is now being reinforced for disaster.
Ludwin, Rasmussen,
and others have documented at least five Seattle-area legend sites
related to shaking, including the boulder, all aligned along the fault near old landslides
and other signs of seismic violence.
They conclude that the threat was encoded in folklore
long before scientists uncovered
physical signs.
More and more geoscientists
are now willing to combine their work with such stories these days,
in a budding discipline called geomythology.
Volcanologist Floyd McCoy of the University of Hwaii, Manoa,
says discussing myth has traditionally been "a good way to sink your own credibility";
it can put you on the list with flaky Atlantologists and other amateur zealots.
But, says McCoy, "I'd be a fool to write it all off.
There is a new realization that some myths
have something to say."
Myths can sometimes
alert researchers to previously unheeded geohazards;
in other cases, where science has demonstrated the danger,
legends "enrich the record"
and reinforce tha fact that people lie in harm's way,
says paleoseismologist Brian Atwater of the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle,
who has spearheaded many studies of seismic events in the Pacific Northwest.
The trick is teasing out which myths carry kernels of truth
that can be connected
to hard data.
06 feb 2006 - bewerkt op 04 mei 2008
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