(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)
I’ll share a passage here from Jeff Wynn and Louise Wynn, Everyone is a Believer: The Growing Convergence of Science and Religion (2019). Dr. Jeffrey C. Wynn, who has described himself as a “recovering atheist,” is a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a research geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). He is currently based at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, one of the five USGS volcano observatories in the United States. His wife, Louise Wynn, is a writer whose research for her master’s degree focused on the Pumice Plain or “Blast Zone” of Mount St. Helens. In other words, they have expertise surpassing that of the typical anonymous internet commenter:
In 3 Ne 8:6 we find these words:
“And there was also a great and terrible tempest; and there was terrible thunder, insomuch that it did shake the whole earth as if it was about to divide asunder.”
This and subsequent verses make it clear that an earthquake and a coincident volcanic cataclysm are being described here. (47-48)
For my previous posts regarding their thoughts on volcanism and the natural catastrophe described in 3 Nephi, see:
“Mount St. Helens and the Book of Mormon”
“3 Nephi: Another Volcanological Perspective (1)”
“3 Nephi: Another Volcanological Perspective (2)”
“Has the volcano responsible for the destruction in 3 Nephi been located?”
I also wrote a long series of posts based on the work of my friend and now-retired former BYU colleague Bart Kowallis. Here is a listing of them:
“Krakatoa, a Comparison, and a Concordance”
More recently, I’ve been looking at Jerry D. Grover, Jr., Geology of the Book of Mormon (2014). Here are my posts based upon that reading, thus far:
“Commencing another look at the geology of the Book of Mormon”
“Ancient geology and really ancient geology”
““Sturm und Drang” in 3 Nephi”
“3 Nephi and Regional Earthquake Fault Zones”
I intend to get back to the topic fairly soon, at least to the extent of finishing off my little reports on Brother Grover’s book, which I recommend. This is, to me, a fascinating subject. And it’s remarkable how well that thoughtless farmboy Joseph Smith was able to invent plausible volcanological and seismological details with which to adorn his hastily-dictated frontier American yarn, the Book of Mormon. Well enough to convince trained, experienced geologists that the Book of Mormon actually knows what it’s talking about on this subject.
Posted from Park City, Utah
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