“And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” “Beyond Good and Evil“, Aphorism 146 (1886) by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) Since prehistoric times humans ventured into caves, as proved by the discovery of rock art even in remote parts of many European cave systems. In historic times and [...]

The flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 and especially the past and present Russian meteors are impressive reminders that the terrestrial biosphere can be affected also by extraterrestrial forces. However contrary to headlines by the general media the connection between mass extinctions and large meteor impacts is still poorly understand. The Scaglia Variegata and Scaglia Cinerea [...]

The lake of Alleghe in the valley of Cordévole is today exactly 242 years old. The moment of the birth of the lake is well known, at 7:02 in the morning of January 11, 1771 the river flowing through the valley became dammed by a landslide coming from the mountain Piz. Fig.1. General view of [...]

In the early morning of December 28, 1908 a 30 to 42 seconds long earthquake with a reconstructed magnitude of 6.7-7.2 hit the Italian cities of Messina and Reggio Calabria. The earthquake damaged 90% of the buildings and broken pipes fuelled a firestorm, an aftereffect known from many other earthquakes; however one of the most [...]

The tsunami of Indonesia 2004 and Japan 2011 showed that they are a common element associated with earthquakes. Modern databases list more than 2.000 tsunami events worldwide in the last 4.000 years, most of them recorded in historic documents, chronicles and even myths – and yet tsunami deposits in the geological record seem to be [...]

Movies that deal with the Armageddon caused by the impact of a meteorite on earth have the great advantage that they can almost completely define the scenario – until now almost no references exist how such an event would occur in reality. Large impacts were relatively rare in historic times; the most famous (and still [...]

“It is not good that these stories are forgotten. Friends, you are telling them from mouth to ear, and when your old men die they will be forgotten. It is good that you should have a box in which your laws and your stories are kept. My friend, George Hunt, will show you a box [...]

In just one day and one night – August 24 to 25 – in 79 A.D. a sequence of deadly pyroclastic currents coming from Mount Vesuvius destroyed and buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. But this volcano, periodically active and despite his modest size considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes of the world, [...]

“It was nothing of this earth, but a piece of the great outside; and as such dowered with outside properties and obedient to outside laws.” “The Colour Out of Space“, by H.P. Lovecraft (1927) In the morning of June, 30 1908 eyewitnesses reported a large fireball crossing the sky above the taiga of the Stony [...]

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 [...]