This is a sample of how I “learn” stuff. While I hesitate to say that my approach to learning new things adheres to proven methodologies, my way is really fun. An adventure. One that has no clear roadmap. I just go where my curiosity take me.
My curiosity this morning began when I was reading about Salisbury’s “drowned coastline”; Margaret Rice’s On These Things Founded says just enough to inspire me to dig a little deeper for an adequate explanation. What was – or is – the Fundian Fault, and what was its role in the “drowned coastline” of New England? And why would I be interested in that? I’ve been delving into Salisbury’s history as a way to better understand my own place in its present. By and large, it’s working, too. But, first, about Fundy. (Fundy wasn’t a person, so you won’t find any namesake connection, just some suggested etymological explanation about “fendu”, a French word meaning “split”). On to the Bay of Fundy, a cold place with fascinating associations to be made: 1) the first European settlement in North America was near there, making me wonder how reasonable a people were the Europeans, to freely settle in a North Atlantic locale where water temperatures rarely get above 45ºF, 2) it boasts the world’s highest tides, something to do with “resonance” and rocking motions, an idea that is kind of pleasant to consider, and 3) also because of tidal behavior, the exposed cliffs of Joggins, Nova Scotia offer the paleontologist the greatest array of fossil pickins’ in the world.
Every reasonably-aware American has a vague understanding of the perils of earthquakes and tidal waves, and living on or near fault lines. As New Englanders we reassure ourselves that our fault lines are ancient, well-worn, and less prone to catastrophic quakes. At least, that logic allows us to sleep comfortably at night; we think, thank God we don’t live anywhere near the San Andreas Fault along that other big ocean. But, earthquakes do register – and fairly regularly – in our region. One of sizeable magnitude, 5.6 on the Richter Scale, occurred here in October, 1727, and had all adults on their knees, trembling; they trembled both because the ground beneath them was shuddering and because their terrified minds were convulsing as they tried to reconstruct recent events – had they pissed off our Glorious God in some way, and was it too late to promise good behavior; at the very least and with nothing to lose, they begged God’s mercy. And then they pooped their homespun breeches. . . seismically. An earthquake of even greater magnitude shook the region in 1755, with an equally predictable result: every colonialist – from Asa to Zebediah – dropped to his knees and once again begged God’s great mercy. And once again, these God-fearing colonialists pooped their breeches.
It takes some imaginative thinking to visualize our coastline miles further to the east. In all honesty, I have just as hard a time accepting that the sub-aquatic surface is anything but sand, miles upon miles of nothing more than sand. So, it causes me delight when I learn things like, in the waters off Nantucket Island, while mapping the sea floor in 2005 for a proposed wind farm, scientists discovered an ancient submerged forest beneath the seabed. The ocean, it turns out, doesn’t just cover sand that is endlessly wide and deep. In stumbling upon traces of insects and various flora - artifacts associated with life on land, the implications are clear; once upon a time, the coastline was further out to. . . well. . . sea.
Episodic erosion can account for only so much of the changing shoreline. When we invoke Mother Nature, we automatically conjure extreme weather events, perhaps Nor’easters, but surely hurricanes. Can we assign earthquakes, too, to her purview? We raise a much thornier geological issue when we introduce concepts such as glacial melt; there’s the natural association - at least to some - with global warming. We know how that discussion will unfold, don’t we? Be that as it may, scientific evidence points us toward a single conclusion; rising seas have long been gnawing away at our coastline, and will continue their relentless advance. That’s not welcome news to those among us who live at the watery fringes of our continent. While it’s intriguing to witness occasional signs of transformation - after all, one can’t help but stand in awe of nature, it can be quite unsettling to reflect on the overall pattern of shore abrasion. I’ll leave you with one comforting thought: erosion is, by and large, a gradual phenomenon; that means, most of us will probably be long gone from this earth by the time the sea has advanced enough for us to take notice. (On the other hand, Massachusetts' barrier beaches seem to have been taking incessant thrashings in recent years. What's up with that, Mother Nature?!)
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