Mexico’s Volcanoes

Mt. Paricutín quiet and on fire!

Mexico is home to some of the world’s greatest volcanoes, and to some of the most active. Volcanoes were held sacred by the peoples of ancient Mexico. Now, as then, volcanoes are viewed with awe, respect, and often fear by people living in their shadows. The country’s highest peak is the mighty Mt. Orizaba. This snow-capped, 18,406-foot (5,610-meter) volcanic giant is the third highest mountain in North America. Most volcanic activity occurs in an area reaching from Mexico City southward. This huge capital city, in fact, is surrounded on three sides by a high wall of volcanoes—including Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl, both of which rise to over 17,000 feet (5,182 meters). Several of Mexico’s volcanoes have been active in recent years. Unfortunately, they are located in densely populated areas, and they pose a great threat to human life and property.

Certainly one of Mexico’s, if not the world’s, most famous volcanic peaks is Mt. Paricutín. One morning in 1943, a farmer named Dionisio Pulido was plowing his field near San Juan, a small town located some 180 miles (290 kilometers) west of Mexico City. Plodding along behind his yoke (team) of oxen, he suddenly noticed a strange odor. Imagine his shock when he saw a thin column of smoke spiraling upward from a small hole in his field! Not knowing what to do, he covered the hole with a rock and continued plowing.

Soon, he noticed even more smoke coming from the ground. Startled by this strange sight, he ran to the village to tell the priest and townspeople what was happening in his field. Many people returned to the field with him to see this strange event for themselves. When they arrived, a hole nearly 30 feet (9 meters) deep had formed. This gaping monster was now belching dense black clouds of foul-smelling smoke.

That night, a violent explosion shook the village, and a mountain began to rise from the field that Señor Pulido had been plowing only hours earlier. Within one week, the mountain had reached a height of 560 feet (171 meters). Two months later, it had grown to nearly 1,000 feet (305 meters) and was still growing. Today, a 1,300-foot (396-meter) high volcanic cinder cone—Mt. Pericutín—rises above the field in which corn once grew.

El Chicón is a large volcanic peak located in Chiapas State just east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. In 1982 the mountain erupted violently, spewing huge clouds of ash high into the atmosphere. Scientists believe that the volcanic ash shaded Earth from some of the sun’s rays, causing temperatures worldwide to be 2° to 3°F (.5 to 1.5°C) cooler for several years. “El Popo,” as Mexicans call the giant Mt. Popocatépetl, rises to an elevation of 17,887 feet (5,452 meters). It is one of the tallest active volcanoes in the world. Unfortunately, it is also located in one of the world’s most densely populated areas. More than 25 million people, including most residents of Mexico City, live within 40 miles (64 kilometers) of the volcanic peak. Recently, El Popo has shown increasing activity. During the late 1990s, the volcano once again began living up to its Aztec name—“Smoking Mountain.” It experienced several rather violent eruptions, sending huge clouds of smoke and ash thousands of feet into the atmosphere.

There is reason to fear Popocatépetl. Three things could happen that would devastate vast areas, two of which could take a terrible toll of human lives. First, an eruption of gas, dust, and ash (such as that of the late 1990s) could change Earth’s temperature for several years and also bury surrounding areas in gritty ash. A second type of event, a blast of hot lava and ash, would melt glaciers and snow on the mountain’s northern slope. This would cause lahars, or mudflows, that would race down the mountain and into the surrounding valley, destroying everything in their path. Finally, some scientists fear a more violent eruption, similar to the 1981 massive blast of Mount Saint Helens in Washington State. In such a densely populated area, were this kind of violent eruption to occur, millions of people could be killed and billions of dollars of property destroyed.

Much of western and southern Mexico also lies on fault zones that spawn severe earthquakes. Nearly all places located on the half of Mexico facing the Pacific Ocean have experienced destructive tremors. Many communities have been struck on numerous occasions. In 1985 a violent earthquake struck the heart of Mexico City. More than 10,000 people were killed, hundreds of thousands of families were left homeless, and the devastation caused billions of dollars in property losses.

Geocentrism - It makes the World go round!

The Ptolemaic model of the solar system held sway into the early modern age; from the late 16th century onward it was gradually replaced as the consensus description by the heliocentric model. Geocentrism as a separate religious belief, however, never completely died out. In the United States between 1870 and 1920, for example, various members of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod published articles disparaging Copernican astronomy, and geocentrism was widely taught within the synod during that period.[citation needed] However, in the 1902 Concordia Theological Quarterly, Prof. A. L. Graebner claimed that the synod had no doctrinal position on geocentrism, heliocentrism, or any scientific model, unless it were to contradict Scripture. He stated that any possible declarations of geocentrists within the synod did not set the position of the church body as a whole.

The most recent resurgence of geocentrism began in North America in 1967, when Dutch-Canadian schoolmaster Walter van der Kamp (1913–1998) circulated a geocentric paper entitled “The Heart of the Matter” to about 50 Christian individuals and institutions. From these seeds grew the Tychonian Society and its journal, Bulletin of the Tychonian Society.

In 1984 Van der Kamp retired as leader of the Tychonian Society and Gerardus Bouw, an amateur cosmologist with a Ph.D. in Astronomy from Case Western Reserve University and a B.S. in astrophysics from the University of Rochester (Rochester, NY) succeeded him. In 1991 Bouw reorganized the Tychonian Society as the "Association for Biblical Astronomy" and changed the name of the Bulletin to The Biblical Astronomer.

Previous works include Bouw's earlier With Every Wind of Doctrine (1984), Walter van der Kamp's De Labor Solis (1989), and Marshall Hall's The Earth is Not Moving (1991). Other modern geocentrists include Malcolm Bowden, James Hanson, Paul Ellwanger, R. G. Elmendorf, Paula Haigh, and Robert Sungenis (president of Bellarmine Theological Forum, author of the 2006 book Galileo Was Wrong).

Modern geocentrists subscribe to the view that a literal reading of the Bible contains an accurate account of the manner in which the universe was created and requires a geocentric worldview. For this reason, modern geocentrists are also creationists, many of whom actively promote creationism in the creation-evolution controversy, and a few, such as Hall even argue against modern views of celestial mechanics, although most, particularly Bouw and Sungenis, use General Relativity against the modern view. However, many creationists hold that while the Bible makes explicit historical claims regarding the origin of the Earth and life in the creation account in Genesis, it does not explicitly endorse geocentrism. The most popular creationist societies (specifically Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International and the Institute for Creation Research) explicitly reject the absolute geocentric perspective, and creationist journals such as TJ (now Journal of Creation) have rejected modern geocentric articles in favor of geokineticism (moving Earth). Geocentrists regard such groups as compromisers.

Modern geocentrists believe that they are the true standard-bearers for an appropriate integration of science and religion. In particular, Gerardus Bouw has claimed "Invariably, those [creationists] who do take more than a cursory look [at geocentricity] become geocentrists". Many modern creationists disagree, including Ph.D. astronomers such as Danny Faulkner.

Morris Berman quotes survey results that show currently some 20% of the USA population believe that the sun goes around the Earth (geocentricism) rather than the Earth goes around the sun (heliocentricism), while a further 9% claimed not to know.

Biblical references
Modern geocentrists point to some passages in the Bible, which, when taken literally, indicate that the daily apparent motions of the Sun and the Moon are due to their actual motions around the Earth rather than due to the rotation of the Earth about its axis. One is Ecclesiastes 1:5:
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
Another is in Joshua 10:12–13, where the Sun and Moon are said to stop in the sky:
Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

At this point, the Wycliffe Bible Commentary says:
"The usual interpretation of the miracle described herein is that God prolonged the daylight about a whole day (v. 13) to enable the Israelites to complete their pursuit of the enemy. However, if the sunlight was extended for ten, twelve, or more hours, so that the entire ancient Near East could have observed the phenomenon – a more spectacular miracle than the crossings of the Red Sea and the Jordan River – then it seems strange that only one other reference to the event (Hab. 3:11) is to be found in the OT ... What Joshua deemed necessary for his pursuing troops, already tired from their all-night climb, was relief from the merciless sun in the cloudless summer sky ... The true explanation of this miracle, told in ancient, Oriental poetic style, tends to confirm the idea that Joshua was looking for relief from the sun. The word dom, translated stand thou still (v. 12b), means basically 'be dumb, silent, or still'; and then 'rest' or 'cease' from usual activity ... Robert Dick Wilson demonstrated that the root dm in Babylonian cuneiform astronomical texts meant 'to be darkened.' Thus the sun is spoken of as 'dumb' when not shining ... Joshua 10:12–14 may then be translated: 'Now Joshua spoke to Jehovah, in the day that Jehovah gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel; and he said before the eyes of Israel, "O sun, be dumb at Gibeon, and thou moon, in the Valley of Ajalon." And the sun was dumb and the moon ceased (shining), until the nation took vengeance on its enemies – Is it not written in the Book of Jashar – For the sun ceased (shining) in the midst of the sky, and (i.e., although) it did not hasten to set about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that Jehovah hearkened to the voice of a man; for Jehovah was fighting for Israel.'"

One may also note that miraculous contexts, such as this one and Hezekiah's miracle (II Kings 20:10–11, Isaiah 38:8), overrode one or more of the laws of physics and so would have nothing to say about geocentrism, whose description supposedly relies on no overriding of the laws of physics.
Psalm 104:5 (according to King James Version numbering):
[God] (w)ho laid the foundations of the Earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
A suggestion that the Earth is stationary (relative to Heaven) is Isaiah 66:1:
 Thus saith the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool.

And another in I Chronicles 16:30
 Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
Creationists ascribing to an inerrant, literal reading of the Bible such as those at Institute for Creation Research would argue that interpreting the descriptions of heavenly/spacial events as phenomenological rather than strictly scientific or literal is important and so assert that it is necessary to interpret the seemingly geocentric passages of the Bible as phenomenological because it is easily demonstrable that the Bible describes other heavenly events in similar language (the moon's light, stars falling from heaven, etc.).

They also argue that the Bible does not mix the phenomenological hermeneutic (or, interpreting the passage as being merely a description of the observer's point of reference) with the literal hermeneutic (or, interpreting the passage as what the observer saw, but also what literally happened). However, their critics would respond that Isaiah 13:10 does mix these two hermeneutics.

For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

Critics argue that this passage includes literal descriptions (the sun going forth) as well as phenomenological descriptions (sun and stars darkened, moon actually shining light).
Those who allow for phenomenological descriptions can say that Amos 8:9 (“I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day”) simply means that the day will be dark at noon. Yet the geocentrist must hold that the sun literally doubles its orbit around the earth during the Tribulation period. However, even this would not solve it, because it says that the entire earth is dark. (See Amos 5:20—“Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?”)

Joel 2:2—“…a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness…”

Zeph 1:15—“That day is a day of…darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness…”
A faster-spinning sun would only mean that periods of consecutive daylight hours were shortened and would not plunge all the earth into darkness. Micah 3:6 and Jeremiah 15:9 are similar:
...the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them."
...(Jerusalem's) sun is gone down while it was yet day..."

Yet the sun dictates night and day. This clearly is both metaphorical and phenomenological. Specifically, it is called Jerusalem's sun. This refers to the daytime over Jerusalem specifically. Yet if the sun truly did "go down while it was yet day", this would mean its orbit increased in speed, even in a geocentric cosmology. The passage is therefore interpreted as a metaphor for the arrival of darkness in the land.
Ezekiel 32:7–8 "And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD."

In this passage, the only literal language is the "darkness upon thy land".

Recently, geocentrists have developed a new paradigm that God created the earth first and the heavens later, making the Earth incomplete at first and surrounding it with a "firmament" (a now-obsolete theoretical concept comparable to "sky") before completing it. This relates to geocentrism because it is claimed that God did not place the earth in the heavens, but rather created the firmament around earth, putting it in the center of the universe. However, not all geocentrists are in agreement on this position. The leading proponent of modern geocentrism, Gerardus Bouw, holds that planets and stars were created before the earth. Hence, the heavens they are in must have been created prior to the creation of the earth.

Geocentrists tend to be careless or sloppy with their interpretations of passages, attempting to prove their own view of Biblical cosmology without keeping passages in their intended context.[neutrality is disputed] For example, geocentrists cite Psalm 119:90:
...thou hast established the earth, and it abideth (see also Ecclesiastes 1:4).

The word "abideth" means "to stand", and geocentrists claim this further proof of their position.
However, critics point out that the context of this passage is about the Bible and its endurance. To claim this discusses a stationary earth seems out of place in this passage. Also, they would argue that the Hebrew word used here for established and abideth is also used in other passages to refer to the sun, moon, stars, and the heavens. For example:
Proverbs 3:19 says that the heavens are "established". In fact, it compares the establishing of the heavens to the founding of the earth.

God prepared the heavens in Proverbs 8:27;
The moon and stars are ordained in Psalm 8:3;
The day, the light and the sun are all established in Psalm 74:16; and
In Psalm 148:6, the sun, moon, stars, and the heaven of heavens are all established (this is the same word abideth, used in Psalm 119:90 to refer to the earth).
Geocentrists take passages such as Psalm 96:10 to be geocentric:
the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved.
Some geocentrists (such as Gerardus Bouw) identify Mercury and Venus as the "morning stars" of Job 38:7 and the "wandering stars" of Jude 14 as references to planets. Given that these are planets, then they only appear to be stars.

Finally, the movement of the Holy Spirit during Day One of Creation is not orbital movement. It is translated as "hovered over" in most modern Bible versions and the words "moved upon" is translated as "fluttereth over" (Deuteronomy 32:11) and "shake" (Jeremiah 23:9) in the King James Version. This would seem to support heliocentricity rather than geocentricity, since it gives the image of a stationary Holy Spirit hovering above the earth. If the Spirit was shining light on earth, then the earth must be moving in order to create day and night, a point argued by Dr. Robert McCabe at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary

Ocean heading for mass extinction, scientists warn

Impending doom: the report says without swift action the fight to save species could be lost.
(Supplied : Linda Cash )

By Sarah Dingle

Scientists are warning of a potential marine massacre with a mass extinction of sea life akin to the death of the dinosaurs.

A new report says the seas are battling pollutants, overfishing and warming, and warns that without swift action the fight to save species could be lost.
The International Program on the State of the Oceans report brought together coral reef ecologists, toxicologists and fisheries scientists.
And when they compared notes, the result was grim.
Co-author Professor Ove Hoegh Guldberg, who specialises in reef ecosystems, says scientists found "unprecedented warming".
"We're seeing acidification in the ocean and now we're starting to see a drop in oxygen concentration throughout the major part of the ocean," he said.
"Now it's impacting directly on sea life, but the other is that it is a potential early step towards conditions which are associated with so-called mass extinction events."
Professor Guldberg does not want to be alarmist, but says a growing human population is to blame for many of the changes.
He warns the pressure will only increase, with the world's population set to grow by another 3 billion people in the next 30 to 50 years.
"As human populations have expanded in coastal areas - and it's really boomed throughout the world - you've had the modification of coastlines by the very fact that by destabilising vegetation you get nutrients and sediments going out in those coastal waters," he said.
"That's had a tremendously damaging effect in our neighbourhood. In South-East Asia for example, the entire loss of marine ecosystems that used to be there and used to support people."
Dr Alex Rogers is the scientific director of the International Program on the State of the Oceans and a professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.
He says when he got together with his colleagues they realised changes in ocean temperatures were occurring much faster than they had expected.
"The changes that people had been predicting would happen in the lifetime of our children, or our children's children, are happening really now before our eyes," he said.

Dead zones

Professor Guldberg says concerns about marine environments often take a back seat both in public debate and scientific research.
"They did a study last year where I counted the number of peer-reviewed papers on climate change on the land versus the sea and there were 20 more papers, 20 times as many papers, associated with problems on land versus the sea," he said.
He says the sea provides up to a quarter of the world's protein and is concerned about the proliferation of dead zones if nothing is done.
Dead zones are areas where oxygen levels in the water drop to zero, a condition known as anoxia.
He says in these conditions only certain species survive.
"It won't be fish that we like to eat. There are animals and plants - well in fact I shouldn't say animals but more plants and bacteria, green slime, that will prosper in the anoxic environment," he said.
Professor Guldberg says the ocean is the life support system for the planet's atmosphere and if uncontrolled degradation continues, the threat of mass extinction is real and does not just apply to the sea.
"If we barrel along as we are right now, there's an increasing risk that we will be entering into one of these mass extinction events," he said.
"This is where you essentially get a runaway set of conditions which will be very unsustainable as far as human or any other life that we have on the planet today."
"This comes back to the fact that the ocean is central to the climate and conditions across the entire planet."
Professor Guldberg says to control the pace of change the world must move to zero emissions within the next 40 years.
The report's findings will be presented at the United Nations headquarters in New York this week.

Disk of Phaistos

In Greek tradition, a “sea people” who entered the Peloponnesus and the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean about four thousand years ago. They were the forefathers of the Achaean or Bronze Age inhabitants of Greece, named after their leader, Pelasgus, remembered as the First Man. A third-century B.C. vase painting portrays him emerging from the jaws of a serpent, while the goddess Athena stands ready to welcome him. In Aztec sacred art, Mesoamerica’s whiteskinned culture-bearer, Quetzalcoatl, the “Feathered Serpent,” identically appears out of a snake’s mouth. In both instances, the serpent signified their hero’s arrival by sea. Pelasgus was believed to have been born between the fangs of Ophion, a primeval, metaphorical snake personifying the undulating ocean. Athena’s presence in the vase painting signifies the destiny of Pelasgus as the first civilizer of Greece.

Notable mariners, the Pelasgians came from the Far West, where they conquered Western and Northern Europe, just as Plato’s Atlanteans were said to have done, previous to their arrival in the Eastern Mediterranean. The pre-Greek “Linear A” written language of ancient Crete and the enigmatic Phaistos Disk are attributed to the Pelasgians. The disk is a baked clay plate found at the Cretan city of Phaistos, inscribed in a spiral pattern on both sides with unknown hieroglyphs. According to the first-century B.C. Greek geographer Diodorus Siculus, writing was introduced by the Pelasgians, and the mathematical genius Pythagoras was supposed to have been directly descended from them.

Waves of immigrants from Atlantis who entered the eastern Mediterranean during the geologic upheavals of the late third millennium B.C. were referred to by the Greeks as “Pelasgians.”

LINK

The Origins of Kingship

"So beautiful do you look when you are angry oh Mukunda"
"What happened to your oath not raise weapons in Kurukshetra?"

Clung onto the Lord's feet did Arjuna
Please do not slay the dear Pitamaha (Grandsire)
Both India and China had a concept of a golden age in the remote past that provided a model for later governments and peoples to emulate. This passage from the famous Indian epic known as the Mahabharata describes a three-stage process in the evolution of government in human society. Yudhisthira and Bhishma are two of the main characters in the story.

The Mahabharata Yudhisthira said: ‘‘This word ‘king’ [raja] is so very current in this world, O Bharata; how has it originated? Tell me that, O grandfather.’’

Bhishma said: ‘‘Currently, O best among men, do you listen to everything in its entirety—how kingship originated first during the golden age [krtayuga]. Neither kingship nor king was there in the beginning, neither scepter [danda] nor the bearer of a scepter. All people protected one another by means of righteous conduct, O Bharata, men eventually fell into a state of spiritual lassitude. Then delusion overcame them. Men were thus overpowered by infatuation, O leader of men, on account of the delusion of understanding; their sense of righteous conduct was lost. When understanding was lost, all men, O best of the Bharatas, overpowered by infatuation, became victims of greed. Then they sought to acquire what should not be acquired. Thereby, indeed, O lord, another vice, namely, desire, overcame them. Attachment then attacked them, who had become victims of desire. Attached to objects of sense, they did not discriminate between what should be said and what should not be said, between the edible and inedible and between right and wrong. When this world of men had been submerged in dissipation, all spiritual knowledge [brahman] perished; and when spiritual knowledge perished, O king, righteous conduct also perished.’’

When spiritual knowledge and righteous conduct perished, the gods were overcome with fear, and fearfully sought refuge with Brahma, the creator. Going to the great lord, the ancestor of the worlds, all the gods, afflicted with sorrow, misery, and fear, with folded hands said: ‘‘O Lord, the eternal spiritual knowledge, which had existed in the world of men, has perished because of greed, infatuation, and the like, therefore we have become fearful. Through the loss of spiritual knowledge, righteous conduct also has perished, O God. Therefore, O Lord of the three worlds, mortals have reached a state of indifference. Verily, we showered rain on earth, but mortals showered rain [religious offerings] up to heaven. As a result of the cessation of ritual activity on their part, we faced a serious peril. O grandfather, decide what is most beneficial to use under these circumstances.’’

Then, the self-born lord said to all those gods: ‘‘I will consider what is most beneficial; let your fear depart, O leaders of the gods.’’

Thereupon he composed a work consisting of a hundred thousand chapters out of his own mind, wherein righteous conduct [dharma], as well as material gain [artha] and enjoyment of sensual pleasures [kama] were described. This group, known as the threefold classification of human objectives, was expounded by the self-born lord; so, too, a fourth objective, spiritual emancipation [moksha], which aims at a different goal, and which constitutes a separate group by itself.

Then the gods approached Vishnu, the lord of creatures, and said: ‘‘Indicate to us that one person among mortals who alone is worthy of the highest eminence.’’ Then the blessed lord god Narayana reflected, and brought forth an illustrious mind-born son, called Virajas [who, in this version of the origins of the Indian state, became the first king].

Kiev Monastery of the Caves and Microminiature Museum

This 1000 year old relic-filled cave monastery and UNESCO World Heritage Site also hosts an amazing micro-miniature museum.

Also known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, first and foremost it is a a historic Orthodox Christian monastery, built on top of a massive series of tunnels. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the one of the largest museums in Kiev with many sub-museums held within it.

Though from a distance it looks like an standard orthodox church it is built on top of a hage and "very complex system of narrow underground corridors" that contain monks living quarters. Travelers in the 16-17th century wrote that "that the catacombs of the Lavra stretched for hundreds of kilometres, reaching as far as Moscow and Novgorod" which, though an exaggeration, helped make the complex famous. The catacombs also contain numerous burials and relics, such the bodies of mummified saints such as Saint Kuksha, Nestor the Chronicler, and Alipy of the Caves, which today are displayed covered with cloth.

Among the museums in the above-ground complex are the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, a Book and print history museum, a museum of Ukrainian folk art, a theater and film arts museum and the state historical library, but by far the strangest and most curious of the museums is the microminiature museum.

This too has a Ukrainian connection, as the micro miniatures are the work of the world microminiature master Mykola Syadristy. Syadristy was born in Ukraine in 1937 and has been crafting micro-miniatures since he was in his twenties or for nearly forty years. Among his creations are the words "‘Long Live Peace in Ukrainian engraved on a human hair, minuscule portraits of Ernest Hemingway and Yuri Gagarin, what is believed to be the world’s smallest book with 12 pages at an astonishing 0.6 square millimetres, each page filled with the writing and illustration of Syadristy himself.

Among the other items to be seen (all of which must be viewed through a microscope) are a golden chess set on a pin head and the picture of Russian composer V V Andreev etched onto glass and fitted into one half of a poppy seed.

Temple of Mithras

Rebuilt remains of a temple to the Zoroastrian god Mithras.

Conspiracy theorists the world over look at major financial centers for signs of secret societies. Long before IIluminati, Masons, or even Templars had instituted their secret handshakes and hidden brotherhood - and even longer before bestselling author Dan Brown made everyone aware of them - ancient Rome had its own secret societies.

Mere blocks from the financial epicenter of the London Stock Exchange in the center of the city of London lies the reconstructed remains of a Roman temple to the Zoroastrian god Mithras, whose mystery cult was known to exist all over the empire. As would be expected of a secret society that came to power almost two thousand years ago, not much is known of the secret cult surrounding Mithras. Even in antiquity the rites were kept shrouded in secrecy, and male-only membership was proven with secret passwords and handshakes.

What we do know is that Mithras was a hero figure in a battle between good and evil, and that he is often depicted in a cave slaying a bull. He was popular with the military and political elite, so garrisons all over the Roman world were known to have temples dedicated to Mithras, called Mithraeum.
The Mithraeum in Londinium was built in the late second century, but seems to have fallen out of use by the early fourth century when the temple was filled with religious statues and apparently sealed. This temple was easily ignored; as was common with Mithraeum, it was built 18 feet below street level to create a symbolic cave emulating the one where Mithras slayed the bull.

The location of this temple to Mithras is hardly surprising, as the city of London (Westminster) is roughly in the same location as the Roman settlement in Londinium. Subsequent development in London's financial district lead to the Mithraeum being disassembled and rebuilt on Walbrook Street, where it can be seen by all at slightly above street level.

Great Blue Hole

Massive underwater sinkhole made famous by Jacques Cousteau

The Great Blue hole, located just 100 kilometers (60 miles) off the coast of Belize, is an underwater sinkhole that researchers believe is the largest of its kind. Circular in shape and characterized by its rich, blue color, it is over 300 meters (984 ft) across and 125 meters (410 ft) deep. It lies in the center of an atoll called Lighthouse Reef, where an island of coral encircles the shallow, light turquoise-colored waters of a lagoon. Water levels there are so shallow that parts of the ring surrounding the dark blue sinkhole are even known to crest the surface at low tide.

The sinkhole originally formed as a limestone cave during the last glacial period, a time when sea levels were much lower. As the ocean began to rise, the cave system flooded and eventually collapsed, creating a "vertical cave" in the ocean. As such, the site is popular among divers, who flock to the area to see the geological formations that now lie in the ocean's depths.

One such diver was undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau, who made the site famous in 1971 by declaring it one of the top ten best diving places in the world. At the time, Cousteau, sailing on his ship Calypso, investigated the sinkhole's depths and confirmed that it had, indeed, originated from a limestone cave formation. Huge stalactites and stalagmites were also found below the surface, some even reaching 9-12 meters (30-40 ft) in length.

These geological formations can still be viewed by divers today. It is said that the deeper one goes, the water becomes more clear and the formations, more complex. The Great Blue Hole is part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Eaglehawk Neck Tessellated Pavement

Extraordinary geology resembles man made pavement

The isthmus connecting the Tasman Peninsula to Tasmania is covered in a pattern of regular rectangular saltwater pools. Although these depressions look distinctly man made, they are in fact the result of a rare type of natural erosion.

Occurring near sea coasts on flat rock which has broken into regular blocks, the effect is known as "tessellated pavement" for its resemblance to Roman mosaic floors (also called tessellated pavement). The pavement takes two forms. Depressions are known as pan formations, occurring when saltwater wears away the center portion of the stones into pools. The opposite effect is known as a loaf formation, when the edges of the stone are worn away leaving a rounded crown resembling rising bread.

Tessellated pavement is extremely rare, found only in a few places on Earth. The geology is not related to the effect that created the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland and Fingal's Cave in Scotland. Those features were formed as basaltic lava cooled and fractured; tessellated pavement occurs as sedimentary rock erodes.

Eaglehawk Neck is also famous for its association with the prison colony at Port Arthur. In 1832, a military outpost was setup to watch for escaping prisoners, and dogs were positioned along the isthmus to raise a ruckus if they spotted an escapee. The motley army of dogs were described in 1840:
"There were the black, the white, the brindle, the grey and the grisly, the rough and the smooth, the crop-eared and the lop-eared, the gaunt and the grim. Every four-footed, black-fanged individual among them would have taken first prize in his own class for ugliness and ferocity at any show."
Port Arthur closed in 1877 (now open as a tourist attraction), but there is a monument to the dogs at Eaglehawk Neck. Along with the tessellated pavement, there are several other unusual geologic formations, including a natural arch and blowhole, nearby.