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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Noticing underground activity

The Earth, like every living organism has all kinds of systems built into it that keep it changing.  The Earth's surface may look like it doesn't change much, but it is constantly changing, just at a speed that is slower than the life span of humans.  In fact, it would take about 30,000 years of humans to see quite a good number of the changes Earth undergoes.  No one saw the Mid-Atlantic Ridge form, and it's likely our species will be extinguished before we see it disappear.  But, the ridge is there now for us to see in all of its glory.  We can imagine what will happen and what has happened by watching the Ethiopian rift and Greenland rift on the surface.
 
We know from Tsunamis that plates on the Earth's surface on the ocean floor drop a foot or two.  We know from  caving what the forces of water and heat cause under the Earth.  We know from volcanic explosions of the pressurized plumes beneath the surface blasting molten rock over calderas.  We can see layers of rock jutting above ground to investigate what happened before it came to the surface.  We can see fern leaves and crocodile bones inside the Arctic Circle and understand that at some point that piece of land used to be located elsewhere.

National Geographic put together a documentary called Journey to the Center of the Earth in which its photographers and script writers logged what occurs between the surface and the core.  The documentary ended with the words, "It's what happens underground that ultimately causes what happens on the surface."  I think the Journey to the Center of the Earth is also the Journey to the Center of Human Beings.  What a great metaphor for the forces that are at work inside each of us.  And, it is so true that what happens at our core and other invisible points under our skin, like our mind, ultimately affects the emotions we have, the words we speak, and the actions we take.

So I watch for people's tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic explosions (or even minor seismic activity) to know how to react to it.  It helps in staying alive a lot of times.

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