Landscapes

Executive summary by darmansjah

That seize our imagination, “ Land is immortal, for it harbors the mysteries of creation.” – Anwar Sadat.

We humans see very little of the planet’s surface in our lifetimes. About two-thirds of that surface, of course, is below the ocean; of the remaining third, much is covered with ice, or barren rock, or uninhabitable mountains.  Human settlements cluster around coasts and rivers and the flatlands that we have tamed and cultivated.

Our cities and our gentle farmlands have their claims to beauty, but the landscapes that seize our imaginations are those that reveal the elemental power of nature. We feel awe in places where the forces that shape the Earth are still visibly at work. We marvel at places such as Yellowstone, where an enormous caldera heats bubbling pools and propels geysers skyward. In the Sahara, we witness how shifting climate patterns took a swampy land, dried it into a scorching expanse of sand and scrub, and now are bringing greenery back to its edges.

In New Zealand’s Tongariro Naational Park, sacred volcanoes rise amid waterfalls. In Patagonia, winds sweep across lonely grasslands backed by the cruel spikes of the Andes. Krubera, the deepest cave yet explored, descends into a limestone blackness that seems to take us back into the darkness of time. Even some of humanity’s grandest constructions, like the magnificent temples of Angkor Wat, have been easily disassembled by nature. Although these places may be hostile to human life, they still enthrall us.

In these parts of the world, we can see the land forming itself on a grand scale, following its own natural logic, indifferent to our needs. We experience something greater and stronger than ourselves and know it as wonderful!.

Beautiful and Deadly

As lava pours into the sea near Kalapana, Hawai’I, it raises a cloud of hydrochloric acid steam that reflects the lava’s glow. The Kilauea Volcano largely destroyed the town of Kalapana in 1990.