Vesicular Basalt Pololu Valley, Hawaii November, 2022
Photo by Tim Giller
What is the crucible in which you were made? The burbling stew of influence, experiences, genetics, impurities baked in that give one their character. Our interior amalgam moving outward to the surface, a rich mixture of these messy inputs precipitating out just so into its own unique sample of our human concoction.
Vesicular basalt is the raw material directly from the molten cauldron of the earth’s mantle. What we think of as solid ground is a thin skin of crust floating upon this massive quavering deeply subterranean gradient of fluidity. A hot furnace, unimaginable pressure, obliterating ancient rock far beyond recognition into a chemical soup, a swirling periodic table. It rises like any hot thing. Squeezing through weak zones and faults, finding the surface, the pressure decreases and sublimated gasses are released, pockets and bubbles forming in quickly cooling stone. Presented to us at the surface, basalt is original earth both young and primordial. A message from below, our living planet constantly in flux. Each fossilized bubble a whisper of gas filled nooks and innumerable interstices. Stones now piled on a beach, rounded by ocean waves, an abraded patina of sibling rocks tumbling together.
Our ride is short in comparison. I felt an earthquake the other day, a 3.9. That exhilarating pause of recognition, evaluating. How do I feel about this cinder block construction that I live in and these good sized single pane windows? By then it is over, this fault block telling its story, another message from deep time.