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Geomythology: geological origins of myths and legends

D O R O T H Y B. V I T A L I A N O
(e-mail: c/o judy@.D'lor.com)

Abstract: Myths and geology are related in several ways. Some myths are the result of man's
attempts to explain noteworthy features of his environment, such as striking landforms or
unusual smaller features, whereas others try to account for conspicuous natural processes, such
as earthquakes, volcanic phenomena, and floods. Local myths have sometimes proved helpful
in solving geological problems, and even the geological nomenclature is indebted to mythology.
Examples of each kind of relationship are given.

As a child, I loved to read Greek and Roman of eroded coral rock called the Makatea, 110-210
mythology. Later, in my professional work, I was feet above sea level. A terrace at the base of this
intrigued to encounter occasional references to cliff slopes gently toward the sea, ending in a low
these myths in geological papers, and I began to cliff, and surrounded by a fringing reef of coral.
collect them just out of curiosity. Then, when the According to the myth, the island was once
first papers linking Santorini and Atlantis appeared, smooth and regular, with gentle slopes (Marshall
I gave a review of that theory to the Department of 1927). One day the god of the sea and the god of
Geology at Indiana University. A member of the rain had a contest to see which was more powerful.
Indiana University Press was present, and after the The sea god, aided by the wind god, attacked the
talk he said, 'Why don't you do a book on Atlantis?' island and eroded it to the height of the Makatea.
I replied, 'There already have been many books Then the rain god caused it to rain for five days
written on Atlantis, but I could do one on the and nights, washing clay and stones into the ocean
relationship between myth and geology'. At the and carving deep valleys into the slopes, until
time the book appeared (Vitaliano 1973), I did not only the flat top of the original surface remained.
realize that geomyths would prove to have very The inhabitants of the island took refuge on this
practical applications, and would be taken seriously peak, and as their situation became more and
enough to find a way into a scientific symposium at more precarious, their chief appealed to their
an International Geological Congress. supreme god, who ordered the others to stop the
Myth and geology are related in several ways. contest.
First, man has always sought to explain his This myth explaining the island's unique shape
natural environment. A good example of this is reflects an appreciation of the role of running
Devil's Tower in the state of Wyoming (Fig. l). water and storm waves in shaping the landscape.
Originally interpreted as a volcanic neck or plug, In geological terms, the island was a volcano built
closer study revealed that it is the eroded remnant up on the sea floor. After its activity had ceased, it
of a more extensive body, a taccolith. Two Indian was eroded down to sea level. Then it was elevated
tribes living in the vicinity have slightly different above sea level and subjected to weathering and
stories accounting for its unique shape (Mattison erosion, while a fringing reef of coral grew
1967), but both involve a group of people being around it. Gradual subsidence then allowed the
pursued by a giant bear, appealing to their deity coral to grow upward to become a barrier reef, sep-
for help, and having the ground on which they arated from the land by a lagoon. Re-elevation of
stood uplifted beyond the reach of the animal the land left the barrier reef high and dry, forming
(Fig. 2). The fluting of the columns, a classic the Makatea, and the lagoon became the moat-like
example of columnar jointing, is explained as the depression.
claw marks made by the bear as it tried to reach The Pacific islands have inspired many other
them. landform myths, including a number of 'fishing-
Another example of a myth inspired by unusual up' myths which explain the presence of certain
topography is the island of Mangaia, one of the islands (Nunn 2001, 2003), 'Fishing-up' myths gen-
Cook Islands in the South Pacific (Fig. 3). The erally tell of a god who, while fishing, hooks his line
central core of the island is an eroded volcano, on the sea bottom and hauls up rocks and other fea-
which is surrounded by a moat-like depression, tures that assume the specific configurations of the
and this in turn is surrounded by a raised platform islands in question.

From: PICCARDI,L. & MASSE, W. B. {eds) Myth and Geology.

Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 273, 1-7.
0305-87191071515.00 ~' The Geological Society of London 2007.
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2 D.B. VITALIANO

into what the Hawaiians call Pele's hair (the

threads)--Pele being the Hawaiian volcano
goddess--and Pele's tears (the droplets). These
terms have been adopted into the scientific nomen-
clature, and that fact constitutes yet another
example of the relationship between myth and
geology. For that matter, we are indebted to mythol-
ogy for the very word volcano, from Vulcan, the
Roman god of fire, whose forge was thought to be
in Mt Etna.
The Hawaiians believed that Pele came to the
islands because she was fleeing the anger of her
older sister, whom she had somehow offended.
First she came to the northwesternmost island,
where she dug a pit in search of fire, but her sister
chased her to the next island, and the next, and so
Fig. 1. Devil's Tower. Wyoming. on down the chain until she took up residence in
Halemaumau, the fire pit on Kilauea volcano
(Fig. 5). Then the sister gave up the chase, and
Nothing is too small to inspire geomyths. In vol- there Pele and her relatives are said to live today.
canic eruptions, small droplets of molten lava can This myth indicates that the Hawaiians were keen
be blown by winds from the surface of a lava observers of their environment, for the volcanism
flow, or from a lava fountain, usually trailing a becomes younger as one progresses down the
thread of spun glass. These can pile up (Fig. 4) chain, all activity in historic times being confined
to the big island, Hawaii, except for the last eruption
on its neighbouring island, Maui. That is because
the island chain is passing over a hot spot in the
earth's mantle. Submarine eruptions SE of the big
island indicate that a new island is in the process
of being created.
Myths have also been invoked to explain geo-
logical processes, particularly those manifested vio-
lently, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and
floods. In Japan it was believed that a giant catfish
in the earth was responsible for earthquakes (Ouwe-
hand 1964). This catfish was usually pinned down
by the Kashima deity (Fig. 6), but when this god
had to pay attention to other matters, the catfish
was left free to wriggle and a quake resulted. The
association of catfish with earthquakes may not be
entirely fanciful. Unusual activity in catfish was
long believed to portend a quake. Elsewhere in
the world, unusual behaviour in various creatures
has also been taken to be a sign of an impending
shock, and it has been suggested that they might
be sensitive to small changes in one of the Earth's
force fields, such as the geoelectrical field. At
Tohoku University in Japan, experiments were actu-
ally carried out to test this idea. A small stream was
diverted to flow through a tank of catfish, and their
response to a tap on the glass was recorded. It did
seem as though the fish were more agitated by the
tapping shortly before a shock, but the results were
not definitely conclusive.
Some geomyths actually constitute a record of
Fig. 2. The Indian legend explaining the shape of major geological events. Beautiful Crater Lake in
Devil's Tower, Wyoming. (Courtesy of the US National the state of Oregon in the United States is a volcanic
Park Service.) caldera (Fig. 7). It was created by an eruption of
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GEOMYTHOLOGY 3

Fig. 3. The island of Mangaia in the South Pacific (after Marshall 1927).

Mt Mazama in the Cascades Range (Fig. 8). A myth also helped to solve a geological problem
According to the myth of the Klamath Indians, for the German volcanologist Jrrg Keller. He was
Llao, the chief of the Below World, standing on able to date the last eruption in the Lipari Islands,
Mt Mazama, was battling Skell, the chief of the off the coast of Italy, on the basis of a local
Above World, who stood on Mt Shasta in Califor- legend (Keller 1970). Ash from that eruption over-
nia, about a hundred miles away (Clark 1953). lies Roman ruins on Vulcano that date from the
They hurled rocks and flames at each other, and fourth and fifth centuries AD (Fig. 9). According
darkness covered the land. The fight ended when to a local tradition, a hermit named Calogero, who
Mt Mazama collapsed under Llao and hurled him lived on Lipari and was later made a saint, was cred-
back into his underworld domain. The large hole ited with having driven the devil and his fires from
that was created then filled up to form Crater Lake. Lipari (Fig. 10) to Vuicanello, and as that was still
This sounds like an eye-witness account of too close for comfort, on to Vulcano. As St
such an eruption, and it undoubtedly is, for Indian Calogero is known to have lived from AD 5 2 4 -
artifacts have been found buried in the Mazama AD 562, Dr Keller inferred that the eruption must
ash. The eruption has been radiocarbon-dated to have occurred some time between AD 500 and 550.
about 6500 years ago on the basis of Indian Flood legends appear in the mythology of so
sandals found in the ash, but had no datable many cultures that a universal flood has often
materials been found, this myth alone would have been invoked to explain their prevalence. Many of
served to date the eruption as post-Pleistocene, them, however, appear to be purely of local
because this part of the world was first inhabited origin. The myth of the Makah Indians on the
by people who crossed the Bering Land Bridge Pacific coast of the state of Washington is such a
and migrated down through Alaska and Canada one (Andree 1891). The sea is said to have risen
into the northwestern United States. and fallen several times in the course of a few

Fig. 4. Pele's hair and Pele's tears, formed from Fig. 5. Halemaumau, the 'fire pit' of Kilauea volcano.
wind-swept molten lava. (Photo by C. J. Vitaliano.) (Photo by C. J. Vitaliano.)
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4 D.B. VITALIANO

The Flood is a prime example of a famous story

that has generated a powerful demand for scientific
explanation, a process that appears to be driving
much current geomythological research. Another
one is the Atlantis story, which has probably
given rise to even more speculation as to its origin
than the Flood. There are very few parts of the
world that have not been proposed as the location
of Atlantis, but not until 1960, when the Bronze
Age eruption of Santorini in the Aegean Sea was
suggested as the cause of the demise of Minoan
Crete (Galanopoulos 1960), did there seem to be a
truly plausible geological basis for the idea. True,
it was not a whole continent that disappeared,
only most of a small island, but a great empire
appeared to have declined quite suddenly.
My late husband and I became involved in that
problem as a result of our having been invited to
the first Santorini congress in 1969, and the two
subsequent congresses in 1978 and 1989. Because
no artifacts were found on Santorini which rep-
resented the latest Minoan period, the time when
they were at the very peak of their power, the ash
layers deposited in that eruption were initially inter-
preted as the result of a three-stage eruption
(Fig. 10): first, a violent phase which frightened
the inhabitants away, then a period of intermittent
minor eruptions, during which time they returned
to recover their possessions (Fig, 11), and finally
Fig. 6. The Kashima deity immobilizing the catfish another violent stage, which drove them away and
believed to cause earthquakes. (Drawing by Kenzo
left nothing for them to return to.
Yagi.)
The first congress was convened by Professor
Spyridon Marinatos, who was excavating Santorini,
days. The people took to their canoes and rode it out to bring archaeologists and geologists together in
safely, though some of them were carried far to the the hope that they could determine the duration of
north and stayed there. Such a rise and fall of the sea the middle stage of the eruption to see if it fitted
is typical of tsunamis, and the west coast of Canada with this interpretation of the archaeological data
and the United States is very susceptible to tsunamis (Marinatos 1971). To make a long story short,
resulting from Alaskan earthquakes, such as the one having observed that there was considerable misun-
recorded at Crescent City in northern Calilbrnia in derstanding among the archaeologists concerning
1964. the preservation of ash deposited in such an erup-
Noah's flood is a story so compelling that for cen- tion, my husband and I offered to examine
turies it has demanded a scientific explanation. The samples collected in archaeologically dated levels,
story clearly refers to an inundation so large that its We were also invited to do such collecting our-
survivors assumed that the whole world had been selves in many digs on Crete and on Melos. The
affected. People have long sought to tie the Flood results proved conclusively that the Santorini erup-
to a specific event and location, but only recently tion occurred about two generations before the col-
has a plausible explanation, based on sound scienti- lapse of Minoan Crete, enough of a time lag to rule
fic research, been proposed. Ryan & Pitman (1999) out cause-and-effect (Vitaliano & Vitaliano 1978).
hypothesize that postglacial melting elevated sea So, reluctantly, we had to recognize that the
levels to the extent that the Mediterranean broke Santorini-Atlantis theory does not have a scientific
through into the Black Sea depression, drowning basis and that the entire Atlantis story itself may
out so many settlements that a universal flood ultimately prove to be nothing more than a fiction,
legend resulted. I am not only convinced that this made up by Plato to prove a philosophical point.
is the true explanation of the Flood, but I am also These and other important myths and stories,
impressed with how quickly and effectively these many of classical or biblical origin, are stimulating
two scientists have brought this long-elusive story current scientific research in geomythology because
into the realm of science-based geomythology. previous explanations have generally failed to
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GEOMYTHOLOGY 5

Fig. 7. Crater Lake, Oregon. (Photo by C. J. Vitaliano.)

withstand scientific scrutiny. Others include the Atlantis now seems unlikely to find one. Interestingly,
Oracle of Delphi, the parting of the Red Sea, the the Oracle of Delphi may have a geological expla-
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the nation that confirms ancient accounts of intoxicat-
Loch Ness monster. ing gases emanating from underground fissures
It is interesting to compare the various outcomes (Piccardi 2000: De Boer et al. 2001), following an
of geomythological research aiming to shed light on interim where early modern scientists had con-
these famous stories. Whereas Noah's Flood cluded that there was no such explanation for the
appears finally to have found a sound explanation, Oracle's prophecies. As for the parting of the
waters before the fleeing Israelites, the destruction
of the sinners in Sodom and Gomorrah, and the

Fig. 8. Artist's concept of Mt Mazama in eruption

whose collapse created the Crater Lake caldera.
(Painting by Paul Rockwood on exhibit at headquarters Fig. 9. Roman ruins on Vulcano, overlain by ash from
of Crater Lake National Park.) the last eruption of Vulcanello.
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6 D.B. VITALIANO

Fig. 10, Map of the Lipari Islands, showing geographical relationships of Lipari, Vulcanello and Vulcano.

Loch Ness Monster, on the other hand, I think that

more research is needed before we can be confident
that these have found convincing geomythological
explanations.
I am honoured to have been invited to deliver the
keynote address for the Myth and Geology
symposium at the 32nd International Geological
Congress. Please allow me to feel just a little
responsible for, and proud of, the progress made
in this field and the status it has now achieved in
the geological profession. It was exciting, and at
the same time humbling, for me to see the variety
of topics offered at that session and to survey the
recent scientific literature in the field. It is one of
the major satisfactions of my professional life to
have been part of such a fascinating undertaking.

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CLARK, E. E. 1953. b~dian Legends of the Pacific
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DE BOER, J. Z., HALE, J. R. 8,: CHANTON, J. 2001.
New evidence of the geological origins of the
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707-710.
GALANOPOULOS,A. G. 1960. On the location and size
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evidence of a three-stage eruption coincident with the captions). Praktika tis Akademias Athenon, 35,
decline of Minoan civilization. 401-418.
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GEOMYTHOLOGY 7

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