06-28-2007, 04:33 PM
I think the change to the history books comes in the qualifying statement that follows Mattew. The books might have said something like: "There were stories of these omens before the revolt, but we know that is a load of hooey invented by the ancient authors to make the story sound good."
They'll have to change it to: "There were stories of these omens before the revolt, which we believe are the ancient authors describing the effects of a seismic event which happened in the area."
As I recall from one of my geophysics classes, there is a system for estimating the strength of an earthquake based on written records. It takes into account things like the amount of damage done to structures, the types of structure damaged (it takes more energy to knock down a house than to topple a brick chimney and it takes more energy to topple a brick chimney than it does to topple a wall of stones fitted with no mortar), any noises involved, and whether things were flung into the air or merely shook up a bit. Ground motion in an earthquake has a vertical component as well as a horizontal component and in a really big quake things get thrown into the air - just one of the many reasons why big quakes are unhappy events!
If the only damage mentioned was a statue getting vibrated off its base then I am going say that it was not a very energetic event as far as earthquakes go so we aren't likely to get any better proof than what was written down.
I am guessing earthquakes in England are much like earthquakes on the East Coast of the US - typically the quakes are not associated with any surface faults which makes them difficult to study.
They'll have to change it to: "There were stories of these omens before the revolt, which we believe are the ancient authors describing the effects of a seismic event which happened in the area."
As I recall from one of my geophysics classes, there is a system for estimating the strength of an earthquake based on written records. It takes into account things like the amount of damage done to structures, the types of structure damaged (it takes more energy to knock down a house than to topple a brick chimney and it takes more energy to topple a brick chimney than it does to topple a wall of stones fitted with no mortar), any noises involved, and whether things were flung into the air or merely shook up a bit. Ground motion in an earthquake has a vertical component as well as a horizontal component and in a really big quake things get thrown into the air - just one of the many reasons why big quakes are unhappy events!
If the only damage mentioned was a statue getting vibrated off its base then I am going say that it was not a very energetic event as far as earthquakes go so we aren't likely to get any better proof than what was written down.
I am guessing earthquakes in England are much like earthquakes on the East Coast of the US - typically the quakes are not associated with any surface faults which makes them difficult to study.
Dan Zeidler
Legio XX
Legio XX
