Mars was the Roman god of war. Vulcan was the Roman god of fire and was good with metalworking and forging of weapons. Can you imagine the chaos that Vulcan could produce with his fires, then Mars move in to incite war among peoples?
During this last week there have been earthquakes around the world from Japan to Ecuador. Our sympathies go to families of victims, and hope for the survivors. It was long ago thought that Vulcan caused the fire from volcanoes. We know now that volcanoes, whose name comes from Vulcan, are caused by the magma coming up from along the edges of tectonic plates, like the volcanoes around the "Ring of Fire" surrounding the Pacific plate, or from "hot spots" like in the case of Hawaii, USA. Sometimes around the ring of fire, shifting magma causes the plates to slide together or away from each other, or sideways erupting in an earthquake. We understand these why these earthquakes and volcanoes exist. An interesting volcano happens to be North Korea's Mt. Paektu, which has been in the news recently. Mt. Paektu is an active stratovolcano, which means that it is made of layers, or strata, of ash, hardened lava and pumice (yes, like the pumice you buy in the store). A volcano similar to it is Mt. Vesuvius near Naples, Italy.
Also interesting has been a hoax about the planet Mars glowing green this coming Wednesday, April 20th due to some planetary conjunction. Our friends at Space.com refute that this will occur. Too bad. Sound like it could've been something right out of a Marvin the Martian cartoon courtesy of Warner Brothers.
No comments:
Post a Comment