October 1792 the crew of the “H.M.S. Discovery“, surveying the western coasts of the American continent, spotted a mountain and named it after the British diplomat Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St. Helens (1753-1839). The true origin of Mount St. Helens was revealed to the naturalists only in 1835, when a minor eruption revealed its volcanic [...]

The fossil forests of Specimen Ridge and Amethyst Mountain, both situated in the area of the Yellowstone National Park, are peculiar because of many preserved trees still standing upright. The geologist, anthropologist and artist Dr. William H. Holmes was the first naturalist to study the outcrop of Amethyst Mountain and to publish his observations in [...]

“My Dear Sister: This morning the whole population of the city is on the alert and every eye is directed toward Mont Pelee, an extinct volcano. Everybody is afraid that the volcano has taken into its heart to burst forth and destroy the whole island.” Mrs. Thomas T. Prentis, wife of the United States Consul [...]

The first scientists and journalists arrived May 21, 1902, soon researchers from the United Kingdom and France followed. Just 13 days earlier the city of Saint-Pierre, on the Caribbean island of Martinique, had been annihilated by an unknown volcanic phenomenon. The geologists were baffled by the extant and pattern of the destruction inside the city, [...]

Already hundred of years before a fireball scared Nevada, another strange rock made the news of the day.  It was almost midday of November 7, 1492 when a “gruesome thunderbolt and long lasting roar” was heard coming from the sky and a rock impacted on a field, producing a crater “half a man length” deep. [...]

“O, promised land O, wicked ground Build a dream Tear it down O, promised land What a wicked ground Build a dream Watch it all fall down” “San Andreas Fault” Maybe the first persons to note something unusual in early morning of April 18, 1906 were the sailors of the ship “Wellington“, just entering the [...]

The tragedy of the “unsinkable” Titanic lost in the cold water of the Atlantic became part of history and pop culture, but the story of the main culprit that caused the disaster is mostly forgotten and only vague descriptions and some photos exists of the supposed iceberg(s). One famous photography taken from board of the [...]

“I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went – and came, and brought no day” “Darkness” (1816) by Lord [...]

In the early morning of April 6, 2009 a 20 seconds lasting earthquake with magnitude 6,9 (followed later by weaker aftershocks) occurred near the city of L´Aquila (Abruzzo, Italy). More than 45 towns were affected, 308 people killed, 1.600 injured and more then 65.000 inhabitants were forced to leave their homes. Italy has a long [...]

In the early 20th century the search for our ancestors – the supposed “missing links” between man and the animal kingdom – was a crucial task in the new emerging field of human palaeontology. First results came from Germany with the discovery in 1907 of a jaw with mixed characteristics between apes and humans – [...]