As the world is flooded with pictures of the unfolding crisis in Japan, I weep along with everyone. Upgraded to 9.0 - no surprise there! The power of a geologic event that can move the coastline 8 feet and shift the axis of the Earth is staggering.
But after years of research of the Bronze-Age disaster in Santorini, Greece - I cannot help but compare the magnitude of this tragedy to one that took place 3,500 years ago. Clusters of earthquakes spanned decades, a volcanic eruption (second greatest in HISTORY) pulverized with the power of millions of atomic bombs, tsunamis eradicated an entire civilization - Tsunamis that raced all the way from the Aegean and bullied their way 30 miles inland in Syria. With today's visual technologies - what would that look like before and after? My husband and I did our best to describe the before and after in "Cataclysm in Blue Water." Still - what would satellite photos tell us if we could travel back in time? A mountain halved and slid into the ocean. An entire island in the bay disappeared beneath the waves. New land masses appeared. The world's climate changed. How did a Bronze-Age world recover from a disaster that vastly overshadows what is happening in Japan today?
At times I wept for the Minoans as I researched and penned my novel. I am anguished over what is happening in Japan. It is all just a reminder that we are but tiny visitors on this powerful planet in a vast universe. The Minoans fevered over how to implement new building techniques to better withstand the earthquakes. We do the same. And history repeats in a planet of plate tectonics and rupture zones and molten lava and vast oceans.
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