HAYLI GUBBI AND THE AFAR TRIANGLE—A CHICAGO RAP BAND OR A LITTLE KNOWN VOLCANO? FIND OUT

HAYLI GUBBI ERUPTS

On November 23, 2025 a surprisingly violent eruption of the volcano Hayli Gubbi brought world attention to this volcano and the seminal earth processes that caused its eruption in the geologically active Afar Triangle in Ethiopia. 

Ethiopia is a modest sized landlocked nation in Eastern Africa with an exceptionally diverse terrane and of enormous geologic interest and importance. The Afar Triangle region of Africa is the site of a “hot spot” where the Earth’s crust is splitting apart to form new isolated continental masses as well as new ocean basins!  This process, known as—Plate Tectonics—describes the active rupturing of continents, their movement or “drift” over the Earth’s surface, their convergence to form mountains and their submergence and subduction into the mantle at points of convergence. Plate Tectonics is a theory of extraordinary significance in the understanding of our dynamic Earth, its history and its life forms.  Plate Tectonics explains why the Himalayas are so high, the Marianna Ocean Trench so deep, why Japan has so many earthquakes, why world-wide glaciers formed in the Pleistocene Ice Age more than a million years ago, why Elephants are found both in Africa and India and why marsupials are the dominant mammals in Australia. 

Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle and Hayli Gubbi are part of an outdoor Plate Tectonics laboratory where scientists can study how and why continents fracture and move over the Earth’s surface. 

The geological process at the Afar Triangle is initiated by  rising hot (1000C -1200C) plumes of molten magma toward the surface. As it reaches the base of the crust the dense, hot, rising plume “domes up” (pushes up) and thins the Earth’s crust above it. Τhis now thin, domed -up crust is subject to fracture and separation. Highlands such as the Ethiopian plateau may form on either side of the fracture zone as a result of uplift. At the fracture zone, lateral movements (perhaps by convective flow in the mantle or gravitational drag of the uplifted crust plate itself). However it occurs, widening the fracture takes place and initiates  the ultimate splitting off of masses of continental bodies and the formation of ocean basins in the new depressed zone between continental masses. 

Thus it is in Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle that we can observe and study this process of Plate Tectonics which occurs  worldwide.  See note on Pangaea below.*

The volcano Hayli Gubbi, is a modest, shield-type volcano of low slope and modest elevation (@ 1,400feet) and was considered “extinct” until it made headline news on November 23, 2025.  (Note: “Shield” volcanoes (the name is derived from the shape of  a Hoplite battle shield) are generally gently sloped, non-explosive forms, since their magma source is hot, low-silica low, low viscosity, low gas, low water content magma. So Hayli’s violent eruption was unusual on that score.)

Hayli Gubbi is located in an isolated, difficult to , area of north-eastern Ethiopia.  Most reports emphasize the fact that Hayli has been dormant for more than 12,000 years.What was unusual was the explosive and violent eruption of this seemingly inconsequential, shield cone volcano located in a poorly known part of the world. 

ASH CLOUDS

The violence of the Hayli Gubbi eruption was remarkable and the height of the gas and ash cloud generated towered up to 45,000 feet, an elevation well into the stratosphere and at heights where commercial passenger aircraft regularly cruise. This incursion into areas which affect safety of international travel caused consternation in transportation management and air travelers around the world. Planetary winds caused ash clouds generated by Gubbi to drift across the Arabian peninsula and over Pakistan and India, causing flight cancellations and disruptions in those nations. 

ETHIOPIA—AN OUT DOOR GOLOGY LABORATORY 

Let’s start with Ethiopia. This ancient nation known as “the Land of Cush” in the Old Testament, is a modern landlocked country in east Africa and about twice the size of France.  If one begins in Egypt’s Nile River and continued upstream (south) passing through the nation of Sudan would  reach Ethiopia.  The high plateaus of Ethiopia are the source of a major branch (the Blue Nile) of headwaters of the Nile River.  Geographically Ethiopia lies across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia and occupies a major part of the inland area of what is known as the Horn of Africa, a promontory which thrusts` out into the Indian Ocean. To the south of Ethiopia and occupying the Indian Ocean shoreline is the nation of Somalia (and it neighbor further southwest is Kenya); while to the northeast, the nation of Eritrea, hugs the shore of the Red Sea. To the east, blocking Ethiopia from access to the Red Sea is the tiny state of Djibouti (about the size of the Italian island of Sardinia).  

THE AFAR HOTSPOT 

Hotspots at the Earth surface form when exceptionally hot plumes of hot magma rise up from the mantle and melt their way into the crust. Ethiopia is the site of one of the three largest hot spot plumes in the Northern Hemisphere: the Hawaii Hot spot, Yellowstone Hotspot, the Canary Islands Hot Spot, Iceland and the Afar Hotspot in Ethiopia.   The Afar Hotspot is perhaps the largest.

Three crustal plates, the African Plate, Somali Plate and the Arabian Plate are pulling apart to form the “triple point” which is centered at the Afar hot spot.  Ethiopia is the site of one of the planet’s largest and most active hot spots (Afar Hotspot) where hot plumes of magma rise up toward the surface forcing the Ethiopian crust upward  as much as 5,000 feet to produce a highlands called the Ethiopian Plateau.  This central highland of diverse flora and fauna in Ethiopia is cut across by a long, wide depression (the Great Rift Valley (GRV) and the o. These rifts or splits in the Earth crust are moving apart as a result of the upwelling of hot maga and its movement. 

The GRV and Danakil Depression form one leg of a triple point where three crustal rifts intersect. The intersection point occurs just off the coast of  the tiny nation of Djibouti, at the Bab el Mandeb Strait -the narrowest point in the Red Sea.  

The Red Sea rift and the Gulf of Aden rift form  two legs of the triple point, while the less apparent, younger, but just as active leg is formed by the Great Rift Valley and Dankil Depression in Ethiopia (and its neighbors). (See Google Maps or Google Earth to visualize this more clearly.)

The GRV is a more recent crustal fracture, or split in the  Earth crust or rift which is moving to separate the Somali Plate from Africa (we assume Africa is stable).  Nearby,  the Arabian Plate is separating from the latter two plates as the Red Sea rift grows wider. (Take a look at Google Maps or Google Earth in this region to actually see the rift in the Red Sea sea-bed itself.)   

The entire rift system in Ethiopia is affected by “geothermal features” such as large shield cone volcanos like Erta Ali, thermal or hot-springs, hot mud lakes, and rift zones with depressed regions such as the Dankeli Depression and the Great Rift Valley, as well as the Ethiopian Highlands which are the result of doming of sub crustal upwelling which have pushed up the Earth crust and caused thinning as well.  The highlands are the source area for the waters of the Blue Nile River—a tributary to the Nile of Egypt. As well as its geological exceptionalism, Ethiopia has a long and ancient cultural and religious history. 

DANAKIL DEPRESSION AND EAST AFRICAN RIFT

Of great interest to geologists is the Danakil Depression a vast, elongate, north-south oriented depression located in the extreme northeast corner of Ethiopia, bordering Djibouti and Eritrea. The base of the depression drops to about 375 feet below sea level.  Here, at about 8 degrees north of the equator, solar radiation is intense and cooling winds are blocked in by the steep surrounding cliffs of the depression. But besides those sources of heat, hot Earth Mantle materials i.e. magma, wells up below the rocks at the base of the depression. These geothermal sources of heat are a source of heat as well as magma..and when it exits onto the surface—of lava of volcanoes, lava of flood basalts and the heat of hydrothermal fields which produce steaming gysers, hot springs, hot mud pools, and colorful salt deposits dissolved by the hot water from surrounding bedrock.  The Danakil Depression  is often claimed to be the hottest place on Earth, where temperatures often average about  35C (95 F) and may often reach 48C (118F).   

The Earth’s rigid rocky continental crust is composed of low density, lighter colored silica-aluminum rich (felsic) rocks which form the crust which is between 9-12 miles thick. The ocean crust is thinner and composed of mafic or dark colored, dense, iron-magnesium rich rocks.  Below the solid crust lies the hot mantle which is comprised of mafic  “magma”, which is so hot that at the surface (where pressure is low) it can flow like hot asphalt—though its temperatures are much higher. Mantle material is cooler near the base of crust at about 500 C-1000C but heats up to about 4,000 C at depth.. 

Like a heated pot of maple syrup, hot syrup in the bottom of the pot is buoyant and rises toward the surface. In the Earth’s deep mantle magma is eight times hotter than that near the surface.  Hot plumes are buoyant and rise toward the crust- mantle boundary.  There, these hot plumes (some claim the existence of “super plumes”) can push up or “dome” the crust. These cause elevated surface features such as highlands and plateaus (See Ethiopian Plateau and the Ahmad Mts in Ethiopia) and bordering these domed up structures are regions of earth fracturing such as the Danakil Depression and the Great Rift Valley.  

Magma arising as it does from depth is hot @ 3,000-4,000 C.  At the crust-mantel boundary it comes in contact with felsic crustal rocks (Granite a felsic rock can melt at 1,220C-1,300C) which the hot plume may partially melt. This molten felsic rock material may drain away from the overlying crust (1) causing thinning of the crust and making it more subject to fracturing and (2) form pools of molten magma which can undergo physical and chemical alteration.

HAYLI GUBBI

How did Hayli Gubbi become an explosive volcano?  The magma chambers of explosive volcanoes are composed of felsic magma rich in silica and water. But most of the base rocks in this region are mafic. Some theorize that as plumes of maga rise toward the crust they may melt some of the overlying rock (‘plume head melting process”)  to form a magma pool (or magma chamber) below the surface where chemical changes and other processes can alter the mineral composition over time.  Mafic magmas can undergo physical and chemical reactions (called fractional crystallization) to form more silica, water and gas rich felsic magmas. Were that to happen below Hayli Gubbi that might result in more viscous, gaseous and violent eruption prone magma to form in its magma chamber. Perhaps this is the source of the violent eruption of Hayli Gubbi.  

FLOOD BASALTS

Crustal fractures resulting from the doming and thinning caused by magma plumes may produce elongate crust fractures which may release the hot magma through long fissures in the crust to the surface. The lava  may spread out to cool and solidify forming a low-slope lava terrane covering vast areas of the Earth’s surface. These areas covered in volcanic lava flows are called “flood basalts” (Note that fine grained mafic rocks are classed as basalt). In the USA state of Washington, ancient Columbia River flood basalts cover vast areas estimated to have spread over more than half of that state. Similar features are found in Siberia (Siberian Traps) and India (Deccan Traps)

If the rising magma finds a narrow fissure through the fractured crust which reaches the surface it may generate a shield cone  type volcano such as Mona Loa and Kilauea in Hawaii and Erta Ali in Ethiopia. These volcanoes erupt from a magma source of mafic, hot, highly fluid low-gas-low silica magma. They form low slope “scab like” or shield like eruptions on the surface.   

Note: Lower Mantle= 4,000C, compare to Sun surface which is @ 5,500 C

*PANGAEA

A supercontinent which formed in Paleozoic and began to break apart—in similar fashion to that what we are observing in the Afar Triangle A hotspot formed somewhere along the boundary between what is now Africa and South America pushing up and thinning the crust and subcrustal magma currents generated by the upwelling plume slowly caused the break up of the supercontinent. 

Today continents comprise about 29% of Earth surface and ocean covers about 71% with most (2/3) of the continents spread across the Northern Hemisphere.  Between about 300mya  to 200 mya years ago…all of Earth’s continents were cobbled together into one giant “C” shaped continent called Pangaea.  Pangaea covered an area of about one-third of the Earth surface in a more or less north-south orientation with the remaining two-thirds, an ocean called Panthalassa. There was no Atlantic, Indian or Arctic Ocean—only Panthalassa. At its widest part Pangaea, may have been @ 6,300 miles from west to east coast, creating a Panthalassa of  as an uninterrupted @18,600 miles of open ocean.  Compare that to today’s 12,300 miles wide ocean  of the present Pacific Ocean.                                                                    .

Pangaea’s core area was located close to the equator, while other parts stretched toward the higher latitudes in a “C” shape with no polar ice caps. As a result of its orientation, a great central desert formed near the equator. Land dwelling animal and plant species of that era were spread widely across the continents, and ocean currents and winds were altered as well.  

But the Earth did not remain with only a single supercontinent.  About 200 million years ago fissures developed in the central part of Pangaea and the “supercontinent” began to split apart. 

NB note; End of Paleozoic @ 250 mya,  250=66 mya Mesozoic, 66 mya to present Cenozoic…Pleistocene 2.6-mya to 12,000 ya

“CREEPING CHARLIE” THE LAST GREEN PLANT OF FALL AND FIRST OF THE SPRING

 On my daily walks this fall I observed the slow but steady progression of season foliage colors from deep green to yellow, to red and finally, to dull and dry muted browns and grays. By mid-December after several wind storms, most leaves—brown and crinkly-had fallen a week past to carpet the ground.   So, on this day, against a bright blue sky, the fall of a single brown leaf, tumbling and gliding downward caught my eye.  It came from thee top of a 60 foot White Oak (Quercus alba) tree.  It floated with  its dried up leaf-lobes curled up like ailerons or winglets on an airplane—floating toward my path. 

I imagined its origin up on the tree top where its dry and brittle petiole, finally broke  away to release its captive leaf and permit a gentle fall to earth. It sailed downward at first, then up, lofted up by a gust it fell again far from its once warm and sunny, tree-top perch. 

The brown spent leaf twisted left and right, banking this way and that on a glide path controlled by the day’s blustery wind—-to drift past me—-just out of reach—and settle like a brown visitor onto an isolated  patch of bright greenery—a common weed called: Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea). It is the only bit of greenery in the area, found nestled under the now bare branches of an overhanging Russian Olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia)

With the entire floral world around it having long given up its green, the ground-hugging, earth-creeping Ground Ivy (or Creeping Charlie, Gill on the Ground, Alehoof …) braves chill days and sub freezing nights to stay lively and verdant well into fall and early winter and is some places survives as an evergreen.  Its rounded leaves—like a colt’s hoof print—are deeply veined and have scalloped edges. The leaves measure (here on Long Island) 2-3 inches across. They arise on opposite sides of a “lazy” horizontal stem which tends to droop toward ground (it’s prostrate) and grow or creep into adjoining areas hugging the warmer ground particularly important on these cold days. 

Perhaps this habit gave rise to the alias “Creeping Charlie” (Creeping OK, but why Charlie?) 

The plant grows in profusion in densely packed clumps which hug the ground and may help it conserve moisture and limit exposure to the chill air of the fall season.  Glechoma patches dominate many a southern exposed patch of earth along my walking path. They are a pleasant sight of green among the brown, wind-bent grasses and dead spent and fallen leaves. 

Glechoma is a member of the mint family Lamiacae and its squared stem and light blue to purple mint-like flowers are typical of the family.  The blue flower which arise from the axil of the leaf petiole is a tubular shaped six-lobed flower. The larger lower two lobes are fused together to form what appears to be an entry “porch” for pollinators (?). While the two “upper” smaller lobes form the “roof” of the “porch”. The last two ear-like lobes appear on left and right of the “porch” to complete the petal-whorl. Beside its square stem and  typical mint flowers the Creeping Charlie leaves have a distinctive “minty” fragrance, when they are crushed some describe as mid way between mint  and sage, while others claim the fragrance as unpleasant. Though it is often the mature fall leaves that have been described that way

Glechoma (from Greek γλεκον = “mint)” Hederacae (from Latin = ‘like ivy’) is native of Europe and Asia and was traditionally used as flavoring and preserving for beer and ale.  “Alehoof” another Glechoma alias, seems to suggest its use by those who used it for brewing.  Alehoof or Creeping Charlie was also used as a home medicine to treat coughs and colds, and also as source of a high-vitamin-C tea. It was likely carried to the New World by early settlers who used as a home medicine.  It is claimed to be edible, and used as a pot herb, as well as a substitute for peppermint and sage.  However, I can think of  no place where one could be sure that the plants have not been contaminated by pesticides or domestic pet wastes.

In England, where it had many uses Glechoma is known as “Alehoof” or sometimes “Alehoff” (the “hoff is German for  “Ivy”). As a native plant it grew luxuriantly at the base of the common hedgerows surrounding pastures and farm fields, it flourished there in the moist soil and partial shade. Its young spring leaves were used as a pot herb, and were collected, dried and then powdered to make a pleasant minty tea. Its leaves were used to flavor beer or ale during the brewing procedure.    

I enjoy seeing this lovely mint thrive in the fall and winter season—then appear among the first greenery in spring. During a winter thaw the plants often arise from a coating of snow as green as ever, giving a lively touch of color in the dull cold seasons. They remind us of how much we miss the greenery and also of the resilience and adaptability our floral coinhabitors of this planet of ours. They survive and even thrive in spite of our mismanagement and malfeasance as poor stewards of our planet.   Creeping Charlie may out live us on this planet…think of it!       

MODERN CLIMATE CATASTROPHISM

Musing of an observer of the political and scientific scene by one who would see us reforest the Earth, end our wars, control our population and right the“ship of Earth” —today so far off course and listing dangerously at 45deg first to port then to starboard. 

In 1992 Al Gore wrote “The Earth In Balance” and set off a tidal wave of literary and media responses which shortly led to a well funded cottage industry populated by political and scientific climate influencers devoted to supporting only one concept—that the Earth is on course for a cataclysmic overheating that will end our economy and the human presence on Earth. They emphasized the worst case scenario, a common human failure.  If there is only  “doom ahead” we create unwonted panic —they are climate catastrophists.  The catastrophists have created a “climate doom” future. For some it may serve their purposes as a way to enlist and engage the population to action.  For others it is a valuable means of supporting their often underfunded pet science projects. Left leaning politicians found climate panic as a valuable bludgeon for attacking political enemies on the right who often questioned “the science”. 

These events and questions have an interesting past. About 175 years ago humans discovered the usefulness and value of certain sedimentary layers of “black rock” cropping out on the face of steep cliffs and hillsides in Pennsylvania. Native Americans of the Iroquois Confederacy used “stone coal”: as a source of pigment to make a black face paint. From prehistoric times California native Americans knew of petroleum, the viscous black liquid or “rock oil” often found weeping out of earth depressions. They used it to seal hulls of their planked wooden vessels and also make useful waterproof baskets. 

By the beginning of the 19th century both these substances were found to be excellent sources of cheap heat. By the 1850s many Americans had come to realize that these common fossil carbon rich substances could be used as fuel and could  generate more heat when burned than wood, and with much less effort. 

Petroleum and coal can burn at temperatures much hotter than wood— and had the advantage of being easily obtained in comparison to wood, which (in 1850 had become scarce) had to be laboriously cut, split and then aged for a few years to dry before use.  

The primary source of these ancient, buried and altered, black, carbon rich fuels were prehistoric 300 million year-old forests and swamps.  There, early chlorophyll bearing trees and ferns used photosynthesis to combine CO2 with H2O to make carbohydrates such as sugars, starches, cellulose and other plant tissues. Each one of these CHO carbohydrate molecules stores carbon as a component . When taken from the air, converted into a carbohydrate, buried and metamorphosed  into coal, carbon, is stored (almost) permanently. 

During the Carboniferous Period (360-300 mya) of the Paleozoic Era the spread of forests across the Earth’s surface, and their luxuriant growth, drew vast amounts of CO2 out of the ancient (carbon dioxide rich and much warmer— 68F!) atmosphere. The carbon was  stored as a compound known as a carbohydrate (such as sugar, starch, cellulose) in organic solid plant matter.  At the end of the Carboniferous atmospheric temperatures had dropped to about  54degF, cooler than our modern temperature of 59F.  Forests remove carbon as a gas from the atmosphere and converts it to a solid..which separates it (sequesters it) from the atmosphere.  Over vast stretches of time, with episodes of mountain range uplift, mountains eroded away, surges of sediments covering lowland and marshy swamps those luxuriant forests were buried deep underground to become sedimentary layers of “black rock”. After the Carboniferous  the Earth continued on a with a lower concentration of CO2 in its atmosphere and a cooler atmosphere as noted above 54F!.

During the 1850s most of North American forests had been cut over for fuel and building material. Wood became more expensive. Demand for more fuel increased to serve the growing population and the needs of industries and businesses. This demand  led to the exploitation of underused fuel resources such as coal (and eventually petroleum) as cheap fuels (yes they were cheap then). 

These fossil fuels sought to feed the steam engines, factories and businesses of the Industrial Revolution extracted needed energy by “burning it’ in the air (combining it with oxygen) and venting waste CO2 into the atmosphere. The need for more annd more energy to heat water, a house or a steam engine, or later to move a sleek gasoline powered vehicle along a superhighway grew exponentially.  The result of burning carbon (C) based fuels is (CO2) or carbon dioxide which when released into the atmosphere acts as a heat trapping gas which warms the air.  

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, it was almost always a component of the Earth atmosphere with one unusual physical characteristic: it can absorb heat energy radiated from the Earth surface. Adding it to the atmosphere causes the atmosphere to trap more heat radiation and raises the average Earth temperature.

Thus there are two ways the Earth’s atmosphere is heated today (1) the Earth’s natural cycle of heating and cooling is not fully understood, but we know that factors such as :the Earth’s position relative to the Sun, the Sun’s energy output, the tilt of the Earth axis of rotation, Earth volcanic activity, the location and patterning of the continents on the Earth’s surface, and even the pattern of heated ocean currents all have an impact of Earth temperatures . The Eaarth went into a cooling phase of this cycle began more than 2.5 million years ago with the Pleistocene (Glacial Epoch) and ended about  20,000 years ago with the end of the Pleistocene and beginning of a (perhaps temporary) heating phase of the cycle. We live on in that natural heating cycle today!  

(2) The other form of Earth heating is a result of humans unearthing fossil fuels, burning them in the atmosphere and releasing the resultant CO2, a heat trapping gas, into the atmosphere.       

Sadly the frenzy of the catastrophists misconception is that the planet Earth is a static, unchanging, rocky sphere which if left in its natural state  (a state they propose) would remain at its “pre-industrial global temperatures” which in the 1850-1900 period averaged about 57 deg F.  The present day average, almost 125 years later after massive alterations to the Earth and its atmosphere, is about 59 deg F, or about 2 F degrees above the 1850-1900 value.  How much is human caused? The Earth so massive and complex it is a very conservative body..slow to change —even large changes in some areas make little change in it overall…it sis not likely to make catastrophic changes in short periods of time. 

Increases over the 1850-1900 “standard” are interpreted  by “doomers’ as strictly unnatural perturbations and are the result of past human actions—which presumably other modern day humans could alter so as to return the Earth temperatures to its 1850-1900 “standard”.  

There has been no effort to tease out of these data the difference between the average natural rise in post Pleistocene glacial temperatures vs what human pollution has caused. 

The Doomers (who claim to “cleave to the science”) have ignored the scientific supported evidence that we live on a planet which has been warming for the last twenty millenia.   For the last 20,000 years the Earth has been warming up—with no human intervention..and has experienced (melting of glaciers, alterations in flora and fauna, extinctions of species, etc.,etc.) in a natural cycle of warming. Only in the last two centuries have humans had an impact on these warming trends..But how much has that been? 

Some of that 2 deg F rise is no doubt caused by human alterations to the Earth. Today there are too many people (9 billion is a massive unsustainable burden), way too much of our carbon absorbing forests have been cleared, too much heat absorbing asphalt and concrete poured out to cover its surfaces, too many houses and autos spewing pollutants and heat trapping gases, too many manufactured products used for an instant in Earth time then abandoned to rot away.  

Heating up of the Earth has been going on a long time. Seventeen thousand years ago at this very place on a glacial morainal hilltop in New York, where I write this today, was covered  by more than 1,500 feet of glacial ice. Happily that ice is long gone.

Misconception of the Earth pressed on us by the climate fear mongers is that the Earth is or should remain as an unchanging and stable platform for human activities is not supported by past Earth history. 

The Climate Doomers who tout their adherence to “the science” have abandoned over 200 years of geological science. The Earth is a “living” evolving planet in which almost nothing is stable—even the very continents upon which we all live have been drifting around on is surface at the rate at which our fingernails grow. The continents go through a “clumping together” cycle too.  “Pangaea” a supercontinent formed  400 million years ago then some 200 mya began breaking apart completing a cyclic pattern which appeared to complete in a 200-300 million year period. 

The “doomers” assert  that climate warming is solely human generated, and that without radical alteration to human lifestyles—such as: abandonment of fossil fuels, achieving “zero carbon footprint”, limiting global temperature rise to some specific level (always patently impossible to achieve) catastrophic heating of the atmosphere is unavoidable and would lead to collapse of the economy and society in general.  

As a consequence of the many hyperventilating “climate influencers” there was no natural event, or news item which did not elicit some dire connection to climate warming, whether it was an isolated severe winter storm, California wild fires, invasive insect species, unusual wild bird sightings, human immigration, Russian forest fires, volcanic eruptions, hurricane intensity, or most often, simply an unusually hot summer day—someone claimed it was all tied together in one all inclusive “causa causans” as one of the many evil effects of burning fossil fuels and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.  

Climate Doomerism reminded me of other another  academic and public conflict—one of an historic conflict of science between the uniformitarinanism and catastrophism. In the late 18th century and into early 19th century evolving ideas concerning the age of the Earth and what processes were responsible for the Earth’s existing—rock structure topography  and its history——played out in academic conflict which was sharply complicated and intensified by religious beliefs.  

In the late 18th century Europe and Scotland (in the Age of Enlightenment) led to many discoveries in natural science. As the Age of Enlightenment progressed during the late 18th and early 19th century natural scientists, miners and civil engineers began to accumulate more detailed knowledge of the natural world. Reports of the occurrence of marine fossils in mountainous terrane far from existing coasts, as well as documention of sedimentary rock layers occurring in repeating successions. Others reported and mapped the occurrence of crystalline rock types which suggested an origin as a precipitate from a saturated solution. These latter observations as well as the existence in nature of rugged mountain ranges, abrupt changes in topography, deep river gorges and steep cliff-faces encouraged natural scientists (who also relied heavily on religious dogma and biblical Old Testament revelations) to promote an explanation of violent and rapid alterations of the Earth surface as a result of the “great flood” an occurrence of the recent past was responsible for the existing topographic features as well as the deposition of layered rocks and chemical precipitation from sea water of the crystalline rock types. This hypotheses known as Neptunism (or later catastrophism) was also supported by the religious establishment of the time which acted as a rational and scientific support for the story of the Biblical Flood of the Old Testament.  

One of the most effective and influential proponents of the Neptunists/Catastrophists was German mineralogist and geologist Abraham Werner (1750-1817) head of the Freiberg School of Mining in Freiburg, Germany who postulated that the Earth was once completely ocean covered and the various rock types (and their enclosed marine fossils) were either sediments which settled out of the water column, or were crystalline rocks (such as granite and basalt) which he considered chemical precipitates. Werner explained the variations in topography, existence of mountain ranges, steep cliff faces and river gorges as the result of flowing ocean water during as the cataclysmic flood receded and revealed a contorted and topographically altered dry land.

 In the view of the Werner catastrophists, the Earth was very young—perhaps only some six thousand years old, and all of its topography could be explained as occurring during this one-time earth-alterning event.

In the late 18th century a Scottish scientist James Hutton (1726-1797), whose life experiences in geologically diverse Scotland as a physician, farmer, mineralogist, chemist, and natural historian led him to conclude that it was the invisibly slow processes of rock weathering, soil formation, earth creep, erosion, sediment deposition and slow imperceptible, gradual mountain uplift that are responsible for sculpting and shaping the Earth over immense unimaginably long stretches of time—- not sudden catastrophic events.     

Hutton claimed that the Earth was shaped -not by a great flood—but (1) by the very same slow processes which alter the Earth today and which must have operated at a similar rate in the past.  But to do so Hutton understood they must have operated over very long stretches of time.  Thus he was the first to conclude (2)  the Earth must be very very old and  (3) to understand and interpret processes of modern day Earth we must refer back to present day processes for in geology “the present is key to the past”. Others who followed Hutton and popularized his concepts (Lyell, and  )  coined the term “uniformitarianist” to contrast his theory with the popular theory of the time, that of Abraham Werner and the Neptunists.    

Modern geologist—the modern day “Uniformitarianists”—understand that the Earth’s natural processes are in general characterized as imperceptibly slow uniform change punctuated irregularly by more robust and violent changes such as volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts but these events are relatively common and naturally occurring over the long stretches of “Earth Time”. 

The slow changes in Earth will continue whatever we humans do…yes we have exacerbated the “problem” to our society based as we are on the present state of the planet…but we must understand that all change is slow imperceptible and modulated by the vast size and mass of the planet Earth…nothing is going to happen catastrophically…           

THE END OF THE READING WARS? OR A NEW BEGINNING?

 In “Cleopatra, A Life”, Little Brown, 2010, the author, Stacy Schiff, opens her intriguing biography of Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs of Egypt by describing the education of the Queen of Egypt in the first century BC.  Schiff portrays Cleopatra as a well-educated and brilliant young-woman and political strategist, who used her many skills and in particular her language skills—she spoke her native  Greek, as well as Latin, Egyptian and several other local Egyptian dialects fluently—to advance herself and the fortunes of her nation. The author describes Cleopatra’s Hellenistic era education in Alexandria, Egypt  and details how in early childhood she was taught to read. Based on well-documented reports and archeological evidences which were exceptionally well preserved in Egypt, Shiff recounts how Cleopatra’s tutors used what we would today call the “phonics” system to teach reading.  

In her first lessons Cleopatra had to memorize and recite out-loud the alphabet..both forward and backward. She learn to recognize both capital letters and lowercase..as well as those written in cursive form. She was provided with a wax tablet and an ivory stylus to copy her letters…she was required to do this over and over again. Her tutors presented her with paired letters which she had to sound out sounds created by the pairings, then she was tasked with creating her own groups of letters to which she had to provide those sounds. She was encouraged to use any series of letters—even meaningless ones—had to be sounded out. The intention was that she would not be flummoxed by any combination of letters..however strange to her.  Then came actual reading of texts of the well-known Greek myths, fables and Greek and of Macedonian history. Alexandria and its Hellenistic children were of a homogeneous clulture. The verbal sounds (words) of these Greek myths and history were well known to every Hellenistic child…they had mental imagery—of Alexander the Great—Zeus—or Athena—to be able to identify words if they could sound them out they could recognize what that written word meant.

(That does become a problem in more diverse populations) 

When I was a youngster, early in the middle of the last (the 20^th) century, I was taught to read in a very structured and organized way. Similar to Cleopatra’s  regimen of 2,000 years earlier—by first memorizing the alphabet, reciting the letters out loud with the class, copying my letters (not with an ivory stylus, but with a steel nibbed pen which had to be dipped in an ink well) onto a sheet of lined paper over and over so I could recognize them as capitals and lower case and knew how to sound them out. Then, we were called on by our teacher to “sound out” two or more combined letters our teacher wrote on the chalk board. After that, we were introduced to simple books which had both pictures and words. 

I recall one of these stories well..in which a child “Jack” took a trip to his grandfather’s farm. The structured and conservative system worked for me…I quickly identified with the character Jack who liked going to the farm and loved animals. I even knew many of the animals he encountered and quickly learned how to sound out a word and recognize what that  word was referring to.

But by the latter part of that last century—- things changed greatly for my own children when they were tasked with learning to read.  Perhaps it was that the phonics based system of the past was too structured and mechanistic for the “age of change for change’s sake” in the last part of the 20^th century.  A fresh and new approach to the teaching reading arrived in my children’s class rooms. 

Gone were the elongate sheets with huge bold-painted capital letters of the alphabet stretched across the room above the teacher’s desk. In fact, the teacher’s desk was gone too. Now a reading specialist sat on a metal chair in the center of the room with about 15-20 small chairs surrounding her. His or her emphasis was not on learning to sound out short strings of letters but to appreciate books and try to read the legend below the pictures using visual “clues” from the words the student knew and the arrangement of the letters as well as the pictures. No more sounding out..this new approach was holistic and called the “whole language” approach. 

This holistic approach to teaching reading became popular in the 1980-90s when many other progressive ideas were being touted as “scientific” and better than the old way.  The 80s saw the rise of environmentalism, women’s rights, Anti-Apartheid movement against South Africa, AIDS response, Gay rights, Peace and Nuclear Disarmament. Many of these ideas proved useful and were improvements that served the nation well. But not all did. “Holistic” reading was a major failure. 

I read recently (November 2025) of a Wisconsin school district which finally abandoned its long held “holistic” or “whole language” approach (in 2025) for reading. Although this approach ignored the mechanistic “phonics based” system that most children experienced of earlier times, for about the last decade it had fallen out of favor in tandem with the massive falling abilities of youngsters to read well.  

Reading is a relatively difficult skill to learn. Statistics seem to prove this so. In a modern age when reading is essential for survival, on the global scale, about 14% of the world population over the age of fifteen years still can not read.  

The USA is no paragon of ability in this skill set. The USA has a functional illiteracy rate of 21% overall, (that is: only 79% of our population can read).  Furthermore, almost one-third of Americans are described as “having significant difficulty with simple everyday reading tasks” and more than half (54%) can not read above the 6^th grade level. Our own nation, at 79% literate is well below the 86% global literate average.  Some states in the US are significantly lower than the global average as well.  California has a literacy rate of only about 77% is the lowest in the US, while New York has a rate of 78%,  and Florida about 80%—all below the average. 

Though speaking -or making sounds—is a natural process for humans, we can babble and blurb baby sounds from infancy—(or almost all of us can), but reading is not a “hard wired skill”. We must learn to read!  Learning anything takes time, concerted effort, determination, mental focus as well as previous enriching experiences which provide mental support. Reading is more difficult for many children who come from impoverished backgrounds, and for non-native speakers. This, no doubt, partly explains the reason for California’s low literacy rate where many recent Hispanic immigrants reside.

To read, a young child’s brain is required to perform several tasks simultaneously. The child must see a letter of the alphabet and recognize it— and then, recall instantly the sound that that  individual letter represents—seen perhaps by a child as a “squiggly” line.. Then, almost simultaneous recognize an adjoining letter and combine the two (or more) juxtaposed letters to formulate a new sound. To read a word the child brain must put these representative symbols of sounds together with others to form a single sound or series of sounds which form a “word”. 

To understand what they have read, the word sounded out so laboriously, should represent a stored image, a concept or idea —that resides in the child’s mind. Here is the rub..for some children that stored image may not be there. Children who are not native English speakers, have had little exposure to books, or come from a different culture, economic level, or have had few enriching life experiences may not be able to relate a sounded English word to a meaningful mental image. 

Learning to read is hard work.  

The following are my own thoughts on the complex processes of the reading process. They are based on my personal experiences. I am sure there are some neuro/pschyo experts who would differ. This is simply how I see it. 

Thus, (according to this author) in order to understand  a word the child has “sounded” out,  he or she must have a stored mental image of the concept, or “thing” that that “word” represents. For a beginning reader—with limited or few stored images-or perhaps no images at all— that student has no relatable mental imagery that he or she can pair with the word on the page. This results in faulty (or absent) comprehension of what the word means or what the writer was attempting to convey.

Great poets and prose writers make use the typed words on a page…they use them to “call up” those mentally stored images in the mind of the reader..  A great writer’s words on a page cause bright images to flash up in the mind of the reader.  In a sentence or paragraph of an author, a whole panoply of related images form in the brain of the reader that can sometimes be more realistic and of greater intensity than actual reality.  

Often the written words of a great writer tell a fascinating story (such as Clemens’ imagery-rich story of Huck Finn on the Mississippi) can not be surpassed even by modern film and photography, with dedicated professional actors and modern electronic effects and technology. The mental impact of Clemens’ words far outdistance the visual and aural effects—even on film shot right there on location. This is the effect of the wonderful world of books and of reading…calling up the stored mental images with an innocuous looking little series of black letters on a white sheet of paper which are formed into magical words.  

So it seems to me…that what is needed in teaching reading is both the basics in phonics…as well as holistic whole language approaches…Phonics provides the means to sound out words so that they can be identified….Whole language approach may help to provide those mental images which are necessary for those children who do not have them —coming from a different culture, a challenging economic situation, or not having English as your native language.

So it seems to me..we need that old phonics system back! But we also need those mental images that typed words call up in our minds.  Perhaps a bit of both systems may function to solve our present situation of falling reading skills…where new readers come from diverse backgrounds and cultures and not all have English as their native tongue.