![]() Webcams show no signs of activity on Mauna Loa. Seismicity remains low. Summit ground deformation rates show inflation above background levels, but this is not uncommon following eruptions. Its USGS Volcano Alert Level is at NORMAL. Over the past week, summit tiltmeters showed inflation and seismicity remains elevated beneath Kīlauea summit and Nāmakanipaio. The summit sulfur dioxide (SO 2) emission rate was most recently measured on May 24, when it totaled 90 tonnes per day. Webcams show no signs of active lava in Halemaʻumaʻu crater, at the summit of Kīlauea in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. Its USGS Volcano Alert level is ADVISORY. Next time you come across a tale from long ago, imagine what real events may be hidden in the story. We are wise, then, to listen to stories that our ancestors have passed to us for clues about Earth’s history. Rumbling hooves, bellowing giants on enormous stone shields, sparks and shattered stone raining from above… sounds like an eruption, doesn’t it? So, why not just call it that? Why cloak these events in flowery language and turn them into myths or legends? Because that’s how we’ll remember them for thousands of years.Įarth events fade from memory within a generation or two, but great stories become myths, legends, or oral traditions that are remembered far longer. It collided with Hrungnir’s whetstone in mid-air with a thunderclap, showering the land with sparks and shattered fragments. Instead, Thor hurled his mighty hammer from above. At one point, Hrungnir tries to protect himself by standing atop his great stone shield, thinking Thor would attack him from beneath the Earth. He challenged Thor to a duel, and the two clashed brutally into the night. The gods invited Hrungnir for a feast, but soon he became loud and boastful, saying that he would kill the gods. It begins with the pounding of hooves as Thor’s father, Odin, raced Hrungnir from Jötunheim, the land of the giants, to Asgard, the land of the gods. Many dreaming stories from eastern Australia describe volcanic eruptions that Aboriginal people had witnessed and passed down in story for thousands of years.Īnother legend, passed down orally for hundreds of years in Iceland before being scribed by Snorri Sturluson, recounts a great duel between the god Thor and a giant, Hrungnir. ![]() Gambier in southeast Australia, about 4,500 years ago. This dreaming recalls several eruptions, ending with the formation of four crater lakes at a maar volcano, Mt. Finally, Craitbul and his family moved one last time and settled for good in a cave on the side of the peak. ![]() They dug their ovens again and again-four times!-and each time water rose to douse the flames, leaving gaping holes where their ovens once were. All was peaceful until one day water rose from the ground and destroyed their cooking fires. Schank.Īgain, the bullin shrieked and chased the family from their rest. They fled their home and built a new cooking oven at Mt. They dug their cooking oven and were settled in for the night when they were awakened by a shrieking bullin (bird) warning them of an evil spirit. The dreaming stories of the Bungandidj (Boandik) people tell of a giant named Craitbul who traveled across southeastern Australia with his family in search of a home. ![]() Let’s examine examples from Australia and Iceland. Time and artistic embellishment have disguised many volcanic eruptions in oral traditions. In other parts of the world, however, the connection is not so straightforward. ![]() Hawaiian oral traditions are full of riveting stories-like the two chiefs of Kahuku who became the two hills of Nāpuʻuapele-that can be traced in some cases directly to the eruptions they record. Good stories, however, are usually rooted in real events, if you know how to look. Today, we call them myths, legends, or oral traditions, and we can imagine these colorful stories being told for entertainment. Long before we were writing books or reading seismographs, our ancestors were recording events in their memories and passing them down through stories, poetry, and song. There is one important tool, however, that can sometimes be overlooked: oral history. Using geochemistry and geochronology, for instance, we can reconstruct ancient magma chambers from their eruptive products even millennia after they formed. Geoscience is full of tools to help us investigate the past. When a water lake began forming at the base of Halema‘uma‘u at the summit of Kīlauea, scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory looked to Hawaiian chants for mention of a crater lake before western contact and whether it was associated with explosive eruptions. ![]()
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