Feeling Small?

A story this week on NPR told of a series of tiny earthquakes currently hitting the coast of Maine. Earthquakes in Maine? Interestingly enough, 13,000 years ago--during the last Ice Age--the weight of the ice that crushed the earth in this part of the world was so great that even now, thousands of years later, the crust is still responding to the loss of all that weight when the ice melted. As Robert Marvinney, Director of the Maine Geological Survey explained, "It takes some time for the crust to respond and spring back, and these small earthquakes are a consequence of that."

Hmmm.

Osama bin Laden is killed, Wall Street excesses abound, we go about our busy lives and meanwhile, the earth reminds us that we are merely a footnote in the history of our planet and in the mind-boggling movement of time.