Myth and Geology

This volume provides an overview of the study of the geological foundation to human myths, an emerging discipline in the Earth sciences called 'geomythology'. This term was coined by Dorothy Vitaliano, in her pioneering book Legends of the Earth: their geologic origins (1973), as 'the study of the actual geologic origins of natural phenomena which were long explained in terms of myth and folklore'. That book represented the first systematic approach to such matter in a systematic way. More than thirty years later, the present volume aims to make this discipline a recognized scientific research field, by providing the first peer-reviewed collection of papers discussing the study of the geological reality lying behind myths and legends of the past. The publication of this volume was inspired after the 'Myth and Geology' session held at the 32nd International Geological Congress in Florence, Italy, in August 2004. Dorothy Vitaliano presented the keynote address to the symposium and her address is presented as the first chapter. It outlines the great strides that have been made during the past three decades and the potential for future growth and change. Most of the papers included in this volume were presented at that session; they analyse a variety of myths, legends and ancient folk tales, that is historical documents derived from oral tradition, whose origins appear to contain memories of geological phenomena that occurred in the past. Such phenomena were codified in terms of the local knowledge of the time and gave rise to well credited myths which spread abroad and influenced the local cultures for centuries, in many cases lasting up to the present time. The term 'geomythology' is not yet enlisted in vocabularies and encyclopaedias. Hence, the term has been used with very different meanings, from 'world mythologies' to 'false ideas supposedly based on geological data' or 'wrong geological concepts which have attained large popularity'. It is due to the preparation of the current volume that this term is now accepted by respected scientific journals (e.g. Science, 4 November 2005) and, following an entry of December 2005, it is defined on the on-line encyclopaedia Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/) as follows: 'Geomythology is the analysis of mythological stories to learn about geological events portrayed in them. Sometimes this gives very valuable information about old earth-quakes, tsunamis, floods, etc. which are either scientifically not known or hard to know. These stories give scientists hints and clues about old unknown geological events which can then later on be analyzed and scientifically studied in detail'. This definition still remains restrictive. Geomythology indicates every case in which the origin of myths and legends can be shown to contain references to geological phenomena and aspects, in a broad sense including astronomical ones (comets, eclipses, meteor impacts, etc.). As indicated by Vitaliano (1973) 'primarly, there are two kinds of geologic folklore, that in which some geologic feature or the occurrence of some geologic phenomenon has inspired a folklore explanation, and that which is the garbled explanation of some actual geologic event, usually a natural catastrophe'. The famous myth of the Chimera (represented on the volume cover), the indestructible three-headed fire-breathing dragoness, provides a perfect example of a geomyth. The Chimera was