Photo by Dan Johnson

NON-HAWAI‘I VOLCANOES,VOLCANO DEIETIES, AND

VOLCANO LEGENDS

GG 104

OCEAN FLOOR

SEA LEVEL

MT. FUJI 3777 m

above sea level

MT. ST. Helens(after 1980 eruption)

2554 m above sea level

Mauna Loa4170 m above sea level9100 m above ocean floor

(from a diagram at the Jaggar Museum, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park)

COMPARISON OF VOLCANO SIZES

Colima Volcano, México, a typical strato- or composite-volcano

Louwala-Clough (Mt. St. Helens)

Louwala-Clough (Mt. St. Helens)

Louwala-Clough (Mt. St. Helens)was once the maiden Loowit, who was turned into thisbeautiful volcano

She was fought over by two warriors:

Wy’east (Mt. Hood), who sendslava streams and throws hotstones

Pahto (Mt. Adams), who mainlyhunches over gloomily

Mt. Mazama (Crater Lake)

llao was an underworld god (kind of ugly), and Skell was a sky god. llao could only see the outside world by peeking out of the summit crater (no lake then). Llao fell in love with a chief’s daughter, who rejected him.He took revenge on people, and Skell came to their aid. The two warriors fought a huge battle, probably an account of the caldera-forming eruptionof Mt. Mazama ~6800 years ago.

Now, Llao and Skellstare at each other from afar

from: http://oregonexplorer.info/craterlake/history.html

Painting of what the Mt. Mazama eruption might have looked like

http://gonzopublicrelations.blogspot.com/2013/08/mt-mazama.html

http://higheredbcs.wiley.com/legacy/college/levin/0471697435/chap_tut/chaps/chapter15-04.html

DEVIL’S TOWER (BEAR ROCK), THE ERODED CORE OF A THICKLAVA FLOW OR SHALLOW INTRUSION, WITH SPECTACULAR COLUMNAR JOINTS (the first National Monument, 1906)

http://paranormalknowledge.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/devilstower.jpg

Air view of Devil’s Tower (Matȟó Thípila ("Bear Lodge") in Lakota

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Devils_Tower_aerial.jpg/1024px-Devils_Tower_aerial.jpg

Native American stories involve a bear trying to get one or more people who have climbed to the top of the tower. The bear tries and tries to climb to the top, but keeps sliding back down. His claws scratched the side of the mountain. There are many other stories:

http://www.nps.gov/deto/historyculture/sacredsite.htm

photo from: http://www.piquaclimber.com/past/dtower/dt1.jpgpainting from: http://www.gerhard-lang.com/legend_of_devils_tower.jpg

http://www.piquaclimber.com/past/dtower/dt.htm

Volcanoes of México

Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl, the angry warrior and his sleeping beloved

http://legadema.deviantart.com/art/Popocatepetl-and-Iztaccihuatl-77879546

Popocatépetl is active, andhas been erupting off and onsince the mid 1990s

Iztaccihuatl has been carvedby glaciers, and thereforehasn’t erupted for at least~10,000 years

http://www.mexonline.com/culture/images/popo2.jpg

AOTEAROA

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/6720/maui

Active volcanoesin Aotearoa

Auckland

White Island

Tongariro cluster(Ruapehu, Tongariro,Ngauruhoe)

Taupo

Rotorua

Taranaki

Ngauruhoe, the embodiment ofTongariro

Pihanga, the beautifulvolcano who choseTongariro over all others

Taranaki, who wandered broken-hearted into the sunset (West)

Geologic maps of part of the Central Volcanic Zone, North Island

http

://in

fo.g

eone

t.or

g.nz

/dis

play

/vol

c/N

gaur

uhoe

Ngaruruhoe eruptingin 1974

http://www.photovolcanica.com/VolcanoInfo/Tongariro/NZ07_8571.jpg

Photo by Dan Johnson

Mayon, Philippines

A beautiful princess had a possessiveuncle named Magayon. One day ayoung prince climbed into theprincess’s room and enticed her toelope. The uncle was furious, andchased them.

They preyed to the gods, who senta landslide to bury the uncle.

Mayon eruptions are the Uncle, stillpissed off annoyed.

Pyroclastic flows, Mayon

The Kuwae (Vanuatu) eruptionin the 1400s: when was it, anddid it have global effects?

Mon

zier

et a

l. (1

994)

http://www.futura-sciences.com/comprendre/d/images/473/vanuatu_47.jpg

A legend tells of Raherir, a man so old he couldn’t move, but who waskept alive by a spell. He instructed his sons on how to cause a tsunamithat would drown him, and this tsunami also killed many people.

Many oral histories tell of a huge eruption “When embellishments common to oral folklore are filtered out, it appears that after several strong earthquakes of increasing magnitude, Kuwae tilted and broke into several pieces while a gigantic eruption was ocurring.” (Monzier et al., 1994)

A young chief, Ti Tongoa Liseiriki, was one of the people who re-settledthe nearby islands after the eruption

So…when was the eruption?

Ti Tongoa Liseiriki died in 1475 based on 14C dating of his skeleton

14C dating of carbonized wood in eruption deposits on nearby islandsgive eruption dates of between 1420 and 1430

KUWAE, VANUATU

Records from the Ming Dynasty (China) for the spring of 1453 mention: - "Non-stop snow damaged wheat crops" - dust darkened the sky - "Several feet of snow fell in six provinces; tens of thousands of people froze to death". - Early in 1454, "it snowed for 40 days south of the Yangtze River and countless died of cold and famine". - Lakes and rivers froze, and the Yellow Sea was ice-bound even 20 kilometers (13 miles) from shore.In Sweden, corn tithes fell to zeroIn W. North America, Europe, and China, tree rings show stunted growth from 1453-1457Constantinople fell to the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II, accompanied by lurid sunrises and sunsets as well as a strange fogIce cores in Antarctica show increased acidity in the 1453 layer

But…