Earthquakes
Much of eastern New York has been broken by long fractures in
the earth, much as we would find in unstable regions of California and
Japan. Faults can be found in several places in the state - one along the
Hudson River which runs over 100 miles. in length. In the last 200 years New
York has experienced the third highest earthquake activity of all the states
east of the Mississippi River, although mild ones. Even though most of the
earthquakes are not great ones, the intensity of the earthquake is felt over
a greater area than might be felt in the western portion of the country
because the crust and upper mantle of New York is more rigid than it is
elsewhere. Therefore, even though they are rare, when they hit they are
significant.
A great deal of earthquake activity has taken place on the US-Canadian
border in an area just to the north of the Book of Mormon lands. The
greatest one in recent years occurred in 1944 in the Messina - Cornwall
area. Even though it registered only a 6 on the Richter scale, it had a
maximum intensify level of 8, which is massive. Now, if the epicenter of the
earthquake that shook the land at the time of the Savior’s death was in that
same location, it might help to explain why there was more destruction in
the land northward than in the land southward. Another interesting phenomena
is that studies show the land in Canada - on the opposite side of Lake
Ontario - shifts counter-clockwise during an earthquake, and the ground in
the United States shifts clockwise which may further intensify a quake.[1]
Terrestrial Impact
A terrestrial impact just offshore New York’s Long Island Sound is radio
carbon dated to around 2300 years ago. When dating methods are more precise
we might find it took place 2100 years ago at the time of the Savior’s
crucifixion. Evidence indicates the shock waves of the impact created a
tsunami which covered New York from Manhattan to the Hudson River according
to Dallas Abbot, a geologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. Sediment samples along the continental shelf
and inland to the Hudson show the event was large scale.
Evidence of terrestrial impacts have been noted all through Canada, some
leaving great craters behind. Although most impacts took place in the dark
mists of earth’s early history, Indian legends speak of an impact along the
St. Lawrence River which obviously must have taken place later in time, with
who knows how many other impacts yet to be discovered.
Great Tempest
Although Hurricanes are best known in the open waters of the Atlantic, some
move inland as far as the Great Lakes, some doing terrible damage along the
shores bordering the lakes where major flooding took place. One newspaper
report said: "...It was a gigantic flood with smashed houses and uprooted
trees bobbing like corks, everything going down the river so fast. Houses
crashing into the sides of other houses, people everywhere screaming. And
then you couldn't even hear the screams anymore." — Volunteer fireman Bryan
Mitchell. (Toronto Star, October 14, 1984).
Of a similar hurricane, we read: “On October 15, 1954, the most famous
hurricane in Canadian history struck Southern Ontario. Hurricane Hazel was
projected to dissipate, but instead re-intensified unexpectedly and rapidly,
pounding the Toronto region with winds that reached 110 kilometres per hour
(68 mph) and 285 millimetres (11.23 inches) of rain in 48 hours. Bridges and
streets were washed out, homes and trailers were washed into Lake Ontario.
Thousands were left homeless, and 81 people were killed—more than 30 on one
street alone. The total cost of the destruction in Canada was estimated at
$100 million (about $1 billion today). This storm would change the Toronto
landscape forever and mobilize the need for managing watersheds on a
regional basis.” (Toronto and Region Conservation and ThinData.)
300 million tons of water fell during the Hurricane Hazel with winds
reaching 155 mph in the Caribbean, making it a category 4 hurricane. 4,000
people in Ontario lost their lives from the flooding, with 1,868 families in
southern Ontario left homeless as waters
washed away their homes. How
perfectly such a description fits the terrible tempest which struck Nephite
territory at the time of the Savior’s crucifixion, with the land northward
in Ontario especially hard hit.
In 1996, Lake Huron Cyclone, commonly known as Hurricane Huron also hit the
area, just one more in who knows how many more in the last 2000 years. In
addition to the eye of the hurricane, as convective clouds formed, the
eyewall of a tropical cyclone was also formed. Cyclone circulation persisted
over the eastern shores of Lake Huron with another center north of Lake
Ontario, which was the heartland of the Nephite’s land northward, and
describes perfectly the whirlwind activity the scriptures say ravaged so much
of Book of Mormon territory at the time of the Savior’s death. (See 3 Nephi
8:12.)
Volcanic Activity
Most of the volcanic activity which impacts the northeastern United States
comes from Alaska in the west, and Iceland in the east, a small island just
to the southeast of Greenland. Forty-six active and extinct volcanoes have
been documented on Iceland, with the Heckla volcano considered the most
active in the world. Yet, underwater volcanoes located in the Atlantic Ocean
have also impacted the area. In a US Geological Survey for the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dan Scheirer claims if we were to
drain the oceans basins, we would see tens of thousands of underwater
volcanoes called “seamounts,” or sea mountains. The best known chain of
seamounts is the Hawaiian Islands, which stretches from Hawaii to near the
Aleutian Islands west of Alaska. But there is another chain of seamounts in
the Atlantic, one of which is referred to as the Corner Rise and the other
the New England Seamounts. The New England Seamounts are a long-lived
hotspot chain which stretches from Canada to undersea volcanoes on the
African tectonic plate. As isolated plumes of hot material rise from the
mantle below the tectonic plate, it forms magmas that may erupt at the
surface in volcanoes known as hotspots.
Copyright © 1998 by Phyllis Carol Olive
The Monteregian Hills, near Montreal Canada, are the “eroded remnants of
volcanoes that are the oldest volcanoes of the hotspot track.” Slightly
younger hotspots can be found in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and
neighboring U.S., all very close to Book of Mormon territory. “The next
youngest hotspot track forms the New England Seamounts in the Atlantic
Ocean,” according to Scheirer.[2] Although thought to have been most active
millions of years ago by those who foster the new geological time line, who
knows but what some may have erupted during that terrible time in history
when the Savior of the world was slain, and the earth itself wept for the
loss and convulsed, creating earthquakes and mass destruction in numerous
areas worldwide.
Notes:
1-Bradford B. Van Diver, Roadside Geology.
2-Dan Scheirer,
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/05stepstones/background/geologic-history/geolgogic-history.html
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