The Volcano That Changed The World (2 page)

“That’s correct.
That runoff to the oceans is part of the hydrologic cycle.” Mark enjoyed this part of the course. He used geology to debunk myths and to describe natural phenomena that explained popular legends. He had discussed the myth of Noah’s flood in his last lecture. Now he would recap and reinforce that lecture before moving to the next myth.

He continued
his discussion of floods. “As you recall, some believe that Noah’s Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, a peak in Turkey having an elevation of 2.42 miles above sea level.”

Then he asked, “
What happened to the floodwaters that submerged Mount Ararat? That flood would have covered the entire world. Where did all that water go?”

Glancing around the room but w
ithout waiting, he answered his own question, “Given the earth’s circumference, that flood would have consisted of about 19,000 million cubic miles of water, or approximately sixty times more water than currently exists in the earth’s oceans. There would have been no place for the quantity of water causing a worldwide flood to run off.” As he said this in a loud voice, he stressed the large number that described the quantity of water.

He
paused for effect and to let that information sink in. Eventually, he softly repeated his earlier question, “So where did all that water go?”

Again pausing and looking around the auditorium,
all eyes were on him; the students were transfixed. Even though they had heard this before, Tallahassee was in the Bible Belt and some students shook their heads in disbelief but remained silent.

H
e finally answered in a normal tone, “There is no water balance that can explain the dramatic volume of water that would have been associated with Noah’s flood. It simply is not possible. The story about Noah’s flood is a myth. As we discussed, it was based on the Babylonian flood story of Gilgamesh that grew out of the yearly spring flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in present-day Iraq. It could not have been a worldwide phenomenon.”

As he watched, several
students squirmed uncomfortably in their seats as they were being introduced to new ideas that challenged what they had previously been taught.

Mark moved on.
“Now for today’s class, let’s consider the lost island of Atlantis. Has everyone heard of Atlantis?”

Many heads bobbed up and down and no one asked for clarification.
From the students’ body language, Mark saw a renewed interest in his lecture. He asked, “Who thinks Atlantis was real? Raise your hands.”

T
he students slowly looked at each other and about half the class raised their hands.

“Okay, now w
ho thinks the story of Atlantis is a myth?”

The other half of the class raised their hands.

“It turns out, all of you may be partially correct. As we will see, it may be that the story of Atlantis is a myth, but that the tale was based on an actual location and an actual event.”

Mark
continued his questioning, “Does anyone know where the story of Atlantis originated? Who first mentioned the lost island of Atlantis?”

He was
surprised when Shannon raised his hand. He didn’t think anyone would know the answer.

“Yes,” Mark
said nodding in Shannon’s direction.

“Wasn’t it Plato?” a
sked Shannon tentatively.

“Yes, that’
s correct, Mr. Taylor.” Mark beamed at the student-athlete.

Mark
explained. “Plato, the Greek philosopher, first mentioned Atlantis in 360 BCE in his written dialogues called
Timaeus
and
Critias
.” He spelled out the names for students taking notes.

He
continued, “Plato wrote about a dialogue between his mentor Socrates and a politician named Critias. It was Critias who suggested that Atlantis was the antithesis of Plato’s ‘perfect society.’”

Mark
paused, adding, “If you can believe a politician.” He smiled over the brief laughter.

“According to
Critias, the story of Atlantis, including the mysterious island’s destruction, was discovered by an Athenian lawgiver named Solon in the sixth century BCE while he was visiting Egypt. There, Egyptian hieroglyphs, translated into Greek, described events concerning Atlantis that took place nine thousand years before Solon’s time, or approximately 9600 BCE. However, this date presents a problem.”

Hearing the word “problem,” the note
takers in the auditorium became active, jotting down his every word.

Someone shouted out, “Is the problem that Plato wasn’t t
he first to mention Atlantis. That it was the Egyptians?”

Mark looked at the young man and smiled. “That’s not the problem I had in mind, but that’s a good observation. For some r
eason, historians give Plato credit for being first. Perhaps it’s because his writings on Atlantis are so widely known. I will have to give your question further consideration.”

Pushing
on, Mark said, “The problem with this Plato date of 9600 BCE is that it’s clear from Plato’s descriptions that the people of Atlantis used bronze. Yet the Aegean Bronze Age didn’t begin until much later, around 3000 BCE, when advanced metalworking developed, and copper and tin were smelted to form bronze.

“
Consequently, the demise of Atlantis had to have occurred after 3000 BCE; it couldn’t have been as early as 9600 BCE because bronze didn’t exist then. So based on archeological evidence dating the Bronze Age, the timing of the Atlantis story appears to be off by nearly ten thousand years. Thus, Plato’s story of destruction appears to occur much too early.”

Mark
became more animated, “On the other hand, here is where geology may offer a clue to the possible location of Atlantis, or rather the actual island that became the basis of Plato’s story. During the Bronze Age, the copper ore needed for bronze was mined in Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea. Perhaps what we know as Atlantis was actually an island near Cyprus.”

Mark paused to take a sip of coffee from his FSU mug, and then continued.
“In Plato’s story, Atlantis was the property of the Hellenic god, Poseidon. And what did Poseidon preside over?”

Several students shouted
, “The sea.”

“That’s correct. Poseidon was god of the sea.
What you may not know is that Poseidon also was the god of earthquakes. Could that provide a geological hint as to what may have caused the demise of Atlantis? Is this another case of interaction between geology and archeology?

“We know from Plato that Atlantis was a nav
al power. He describes the island as being larger than Ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined. That is a significant piece of land—as we will see, perhaps too large. Plato tells us that Poseidon made his son, Atlas, king of Atlantis and the surrounding ocean, which was called the Atlantic Ocean in his honor.”

Mark
wondered if anyone in the class picked up on the fact that Plato located Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean whereas he was suggesting that the basis for the story was actually an island in the Mediterranean.

He concluded Plato’s story
, “Ultimately, earthquakes and floods caused Atlantis to vanish; ‘swallowed by the sea’ is how Plato described it. So the question is: Was the story of Atlantis fiction or was there an actual island that formed the basis of Plato’s story? Now how many of you think the story was based on a real place?”

This time, more
hands shot up into the air.

Just then
, the back door of the lecture hall opened and in stepped Professor Bolton. Mark paused and looked at him, expecting Bolton to speak.

When he d
idn’t, Mark continued, “Although I don’t believe Atlantis was real, I do believe that an actual island formed the basis for Plato’s story. I believe that island is Crete, the largest of the Greek islands located in the southeastern Mediterranean Sea, not far from Cyprus. Crete was the home of the Minoan civilization, known as the first link in the European chain of civilization.”

He paused giving ti
me for the class to absorb his thesis. “Why do I think Atlantis is based on Crete?

“
Well, like Atlantis, Crete was a naval power. Bronze was used on Crete, which was considered to be the first metalworking center in Europe. The same trees and plants Plato described in Atlantis grew on Crete. The political structures of both islands were similar. Both Atlantis and Minoan Crete were wealthy, powerful states ruled by a priest-king. On both islands, men and women had equal rights. Obviously, Crete and Atlantis were far more advanced than some countries are today.”

The class laughed.

He continued with his litany of features the two islands shared. “Their religions may have been similar. Poseidon was the main deity in Crete, same as on Atlantis. On Atlantis and Minoan Crete, the bull was considered a sacred animal, a symbol of fertility. Bull fighting was popular on Atlantis and Crete, where acrobats performed summersaults over charging bulls—not football, but still pretty impressive.”

That
too produced a laugh.

Shannon
raised his hand. “But, Dr. Malloy, wasn’t Atlantis supposed to be in the Atlantic Ocean? Crete is in the Mediterranean Sea.”

Mark smiled.
“Yes, Mr. Taylor, that’s correct. But what if Plato changed the island’s location in his story, using literary license to emphasize the role of Atlas or just to move the story further from Greece? Perhaps he didn’t want his readers to make the connection. After all, the Minoans had been enemies of the early Greeks. In addition, Crete was held in high regard by the Greeks, so Plato couldn’t connect a totally destroyed Atlantis to an existing Crete and have a credible story.”

Mark
hesitated, and then added, “To be sure, there are other theories about where Atlantis was located, and some of those theories do place Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. As I hope you will see, I believe the preponderance of evidence supports Crete, located in the Mediterranean Sea, as the basis of Plato’s story.”

He continued, “
In the meantime, another problem with my theory relates to the size of Crete; it’s about ten times smaller than Plato’s description of Atlantis.

“The size
is off by about an order of magnitude. Both the date and size of the island in Plato’s story appear off by the same amount, assuming Crete was, in fact, the basis for Atlantis. These discrepancies still need to be resolved.

“
If we assume that the fictional story of Atlantis was based on a real location, is there an actual event in the geological record that might have inspired Plato to write about Atlantis’ disappearance—or at least the destruction of its civilization?”

Pausing momentarily, Mark
continued, “Here is where geology again enters the picture. Some scholars believe Plato took the eruption of the Thera volcano and the subsequent destruction on the island of Crete as the inspiration for the disappearance of Atlantis. The Thera volcano was on the Greek island of Santorini, which at the time was part of the Minoan Empire.”

At that point
Bolton
humphed
so loudly that Mark could hear it from the front of the auditorium. The students all rustled and some turned to see Bolton shaking his head, a look of disgust on his face.

Despite Bolton’s outburst,
Mark ignored the intrusion and continued excitedly. “There is archeological evidence that the eruption on Santorini was preceded by an earthquake. And let’s not forget that Poseidon was the god of earthquakes and, according to Plato, the destruction of Atlantis supposedly involved both earthquakes and floods.

“
During the eruption of Thera, more than eighty-three square kilometers of Santorini were destroyed or submerged into the sea, to a depth of three to four hundred meters, creating one of the largest calderas in the world. People on Crete would have felt the earthquake and seen ash from the eruption, but more importantly the eruption triggered a tsunami, which would have reached Crete within twenty to thirty minutes. Once the tsunami struck, Crete’s coastal cities such as Knossos, the center of their government, would have been devastated within seconds by flooding.”

He
forced himself to slow down. “Now, what other large, devastating volcanic eruption have we discussed in this class?”

He picked the one hand raised that wasn’t Shannon’s. “Krakatoa,” the girl said shyly.

“That’s right. And what were the measurements of the caldera when Krakatoa erupted in 1883?”

There was a general rustling of paper as students flipped back through their
notes. “The explosion removed twenty-three square kilometers of land, and the resulting caldera fell to a depth of about two to three hundred meters,” another student called out.

Mark
could tell they were getting excited. “That’s right. So the Santorini caldera was two and a half times larger in area and five times larger in volume than the one associated with the island of Krakatoa in Indonesia.”

He heard a student say
to a nearby friend, “That was massive!”