Apocalyptic Planet - Chapter 8: Cataclysm Strikes, Hawaii

As a class we once again declared Craig Childs crazy!!  Going to Hawaii to celebrate New Year’s Eve on top of a quiet volcano to watch a moon rise and sun set at the same time is one thing.  To go to the most active volcano on the planet to observe as close as possible is an entirely different thing!

Of course, unbeknownst to us, the readers as we started this chapter, the main focus would be on meteors and volcanoes….but who knew, given how the chapter started.  He did start off with a bit of trivia that I for one did not know.  Mount Kea, where he was situated for his New Year’s observation is the tallest mountain in the world, contrary to popular belief regarding Mt. Everest.  It is 33 thousand feet when measured from its seafloor base.  

He quickly shifts the focus of his attention for the evening, the full moon and begins writing about the Late Heavy Bombardment…I must have missed a lot in my science classes!  “The Late Heavy Bombardment appears to have been caused by Saturn and Jupiter entering a gravitational resonance with one another, which drew their orbits out of whack.  As the two planets rapidly migrated farther out in the solar system, the asteroid belt was disrupted.” 

He describes the backside of the moon, that side which we never see, as covered with craters so dense they cover all evidence of earlier ones.  So, around 4 billion years ago the Moon was heavily bombarded with meteors and that bombardment last for about 20 million years, and according to his version, it’s a good thing the Moon was there to protect the Earth.  What did reach us reliquified large portions of the Earth’s surface into molten rock.  This is the beginning of time on Earth.  He claims that the Moon is the better storyteller of this event.  

Childs classifies volcanoes and bolide impacts in the same category….random, explosive, devastating events.  The biggest meteor impacts like the Chicxulub impact over the Yucatan Peninsula is credited with taking out the dinosaurs.  I shared with the class our own local impact site in Adams County, 5 miles in diameter its epicenter is the site of the Serpent Mound, a well known local archeological site.  Look up Serpent Mound Crater on Google for details.  

Quickly Childs and his companion JT moved to Mauna Loa for a close up look at fresh-lava surfaces.  He then switches back and forth between fresh lava and asteroids.  He told the story of one that passed between the Earth and the Moon on Nov 8, 2011 and of another projected to arrive in 2029 is about 885 feet across and projected to pass Earth by just 29,000 miles.  And then again in 2880 a 4000’ wide asteroid has a 1 in 3 chance of hitting the earth.

He is making a connection between asteroid hits and volcano eruptions.  He states that there about 200 extremely active volcanoes presently so that we are better off looking beneath our feet if we are looking for natural disasters.  He does mention the super-eruption brewing beneath Yellowstone that is just waiting to happen.  I’ve known of this one for a while and can work myself into a frenzy over it if I let my imagination go wild.  He notes that volcano activity during human history has been shown to bring on cold spells leading to failed agriculture and starvation.  Childs notes “If volcanoes change the world, asteroid do the same, only more rarely, on a much grander scale and much more swiftly.”  Food for thought.

He then shifts to how the Earth reseeds itself after a cataclysmic event.  One theory is that microbes do survive and can stay long periods in outer space.  Falling back to earth, if they survive reentry they could reseed the earth.  “That is a lot of ifs, but it is at least hypothetically possible to reseed the earth from a cataclysm of asteroids and meteorites.”  

 “An open lava, biotic succession generally starts with crickets and spiders.  And then you see small green flames of crack ferns.  Moisture gathers a little rainwater in hairline factures where rhizomes break down glass and iron to pockets of primitive soil.”

He and JT wandered to active lava flows, noting that 10’ was as close as you could get.  He did get within 3’, but was quickly pushed back by the extreme discomfort.  

“The heat inside of the earth, which drives both tectonics and volcanism, as well as our protective magnetic field, reaches temperatures nearing 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  This heat exists because of earlier bolide impacts, mostly a by-product of the Late Heavy Bombardment.  These impacts triggered nuclear reactions, and unstable elements formed deep within the earth where their half-lives are slowly burning out.”

He finishes out the chapter with a visit to a forest that has recovered from previous lava flows.  It is an area managed by the National Park Service that is typically visited only by scientists or NPS employees.  Childs and JT are given a hard time regarding their desire to visit the forest by a Park Ranger, but they do gain access.  They find some biodiversity.  You need to read the chapter to get the full description of what is possible after a lava flow.  His note is, “It is one of the possible futures, abundance returns, the earth lives on, and we are not there to see it.”