Total Lunar Eclipse, Blood Moon...and the World Didn't End

I had a nice perspective on the Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse tonight from my vantage point in the parking lot of the Olive Garden in Redding, California. Mrs. Geotripper tried to be patient when I got up every 15 minutes to go outside and take another picture.

We didn't get to see the beginning of the eclipse out here on the west coast, or at least I didn't as I was driving down the mountain road from Lassen Volcanic National Park, and couldn't see the moon at all until after 8:00 PM. The boundary zone between the Sierra Nevada and Cascades is a rather prominent visual blocker to things on the eastern horizon. But we sure had a nice sunset at Manzanita Lake (see below).

The moon appears red during the highest totality because sunlight is refracted through the Earth's atmosphere and shines across the surface of the Moon. If we had no atmosphere, the Moon would go completely dark during totality. 

Columbus didn't discover that the world was round. That fact was known thousands of years ago from the shape of the Earth's shadow across the face of the Moon. One of my favorite teaching moments took place a few years ago when I asked an earth science class if they could prove that the Earth was spherical. They didn't do all that well ("we have pictures from space!"), so we all went outside and looked at an ongoing lunar eclipse!

The world didn't end (at least not yet). I always get irritated at religious claims about the end times that pop up at moments like this. I'm truly sorry that people can be so gullible about this sort of thing. If one is going to be convinced about their particular religion's claims that the world will end because of a lunar eclipse (or comet, or solar eclipse, or whatever), it's like saying that the sun is predicted to rise tomorrow and therefore the world will end. If a phenomenon is going to be convincing as a sign from God or the gods, then it should be totally unexpected. Like a solar eclipse when the moon is in some other part of the sky. Or the sun coming up in the west. Or planets changing the direction of their orbit. That would be worthy of attention.

This, by the way, is why I wasn't in some place with a view of the eastern horizon. The sunset on Lassen Peak at Manzanita Lake kind of distracted us. A little.

Is the Second Coming...Coming Because of an Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest?

No, it's not real, it's a photoshopped hoax after the Indonesia tsunami of 2004

Geotripper stands bravely on the coast of the Pacific Northwest, camera and binoculars in hand, ready to liveblog the end of the world during the apocalyptic earthquake that is going to happen SOON. Well, okay, I'm actually visiting with family, but if anything happens earthquake-wise, I will let you know.

I want to tread lightly here, because I'm not in the business of attacking anyone's religious beliefs. But I do want to provide some perspective to counter the kinds of headlines I've been seeing in the aftermath of an excellent piece in the New Yorker (please click here to read it; it's worth your time) concerning the potential for a large earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, one which will cause catastrophic damage to the infrastructure of the region and possibly kill 16,000 or 17,000 people.

I get a bit tired of the predictable hype that follows such viral stories. The idea that the Pacific Northwest will "be destroyed" by the earthquake feeds into the fears of people who have been reading too many headlines like this one:

"Jesus’s Prophecy Of Massive Earthquakes Is Now Confirmed As Fox News Reports Of A Mega-Quake To Soon Destroy U.S. Pacific Northwest Triggering Christ’s Soon Coming"

It's a real headline from the internet, but you'll have to Google it. I don't want to provide them with any more publicity than they've already gotten with their irresponsible hyperbole (and just how did FOX news end up in that title?).

The Great Wave at Kanagawa (from a Series of Thirty–Six Views of Mount Fuji), Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1831–33  Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849).

Here's the thing. This earthquake, should it happen in our lifetime, will be a horrible catastrophic event. But it will also be a natural event that is predictable with certain limits, follows the natural rules of physics and geology, and has happened numerous times in the past, most notably in the year 1700. Our understanding of the dynamics of this potential earthquake is one of the great detective stories in the science of geology, as the New Yorker article points out. 

USGS Simulation of tsunami pattern from 1700 Cascadia earthquake

It is not some kind of supernatural event that is planned to herald the second coming of Christ. I arrive at this conclusion because it is arrogant for Americans to think that a natural disaster that happens to us and results from well-known geological processes is somehow different from other natural disasters that have happened elsewhere and will continue to happen long into the future. Let look at some examples of earthquakes in the past (source is from the US Geological Survey via Live Science).

Date Location Deaths Magnitude Comments January 23, 1556 China, Shansi 830,000 ~8 Damage up to 270 miles away July 27, 1976 China, Tangshan 255,000 (official) 655,000 (estimated) 7.5 Estimated death toll as high as 655,000. Dec. 26, 2004 Sumatra, Indonesia 227,898 9.1 Deaths from earthquake and tsunami August 9, 1138 Syria, Aleppo 230,000 n/a   Jan. 12, 2010 Haiti 222,570 7.0 1.3 million displaced. May 22, 1927 China, near Xining 200,000 7.9 Large fractures. December 22, 856+ Iran, Damghan 200,000 n/a   December 16, 1920 China, Gansu 200,000 8.6 Major fractures, landslides. March 23, 893 Iran, Ardabil 150,000     September 1, 1923 Japan, Kanto (Kwanto) 143,000 7.9 Great Tokyo fire. October 5, 1948 USSR (Turkmenistan, Ashgabat) 110,000 7.3   December 28, 1908 Italy, Messina 70,000 to 100,000 (estimated) 7.2 Deaths from earthquake and tsunami. September, 1290 China, Chihli 100,000 n/a   May 12, 2008 Sichuan, China 87,586 7.9 More than 45.5 million affected Oct. 8, 2005 Pakistan 85,000 7.6 More than 69,000 injured November, 1667 Caucasia, Shemakha 80,000     November 18, 1727 Iran, Tabriz 77,000 n/a   November 1, 1755 Portugal, Lisbon 70,000 8.7 Great tsunami. December 25, 1932 China, Gansu 70,000 7.6   May 31, 1970 Peru 66,000 7.9 $530,000,000 damage, great rock slide, floods. 1268 Asia Minor, Silicia 60,000 n/a   January 11, 1693 Italy, Sicily 60,000     May 30, 1935 Pakistan, Quetta 30,000 to 60,000 7.5 Quetta almost completely destroyed. February 4, 1783 Italy, Calabria 50,000     June 20, 1990 Iran 50,000 7.7 Landslides. SOURCE: USGS

The question I have for the hucksters and frauds on the internet and elsewhere: what gives you the right to decide that a particular earthquake is somehow a harbinger of the religious end of the world? People throughout history have found it far too convenient to blame natural disasters on the perceived moral failings of those who were most affected. It's not an old tribal thing either. Pat Robertson tried to blame the Haiti quake on the Haitians themselves. It's truly disgusting.

I suspect I'm mostly preaching to the choir here, to use a religious metaphor, but if you happen to have stumbled onto this site while tracking down biblical prophecies, please consider something as you do your research: If an event has happened many times before, is predicted by science to happen many times again, then it doesn't really fall into the realm of supernatural judgement. It's the Earth doing what it has been doing for a very long time. If the death tolls from natural disasters seem to be rising, it is because more and more people are being forced to live in ever more dangerous and marginal environments.

Just because bad things happen to human beings doesn't mean they are being punished by a capricious god. Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis and other disasters are part of living on the Earth, and they happen to the good, the bad, and the ugly alike.