Were there Really Earthquakes? – Part V

Continued from the previous post regarding the unusual and specific wordage of events that accompanied the destruction outlined in 3 Nephi and Helaman 14, and the earthquakes and volcanoes behind the destruction. The first three were covered in the previous post. Here we pick up with item #4:

(Image A – A tempest combines strong winds and a high magnitude storm

 

4. A great and terrible tempest (3 Nephi 8:6).

• This event was mentioned five times in 3 Nephi. As the Disciple Nephi said of the event: “there arose a great storm, such an one as never had been known in all the land. 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” (3 Nephi 8:5-6, emphasis added).

It the Bible, the use of “tempest” meant: “a violent commotion, disturbance, or tumult; an uproar.” In 1828, the word “tempest” meant: “An extensive current of wind, rushing with great velocity and violence; a storm of extreme violence.” This is as in “the storm blew a tempest,” or “the tornado blew a tempest.”

Evidently, to the Disciple’s point of view, while the storm “was the worst ever seen in the land,” the storm’s strong and violent winds were blowing an even greater destructive “tempest,” and over a prolonged period of time—and he feared the cataclysmic event would rip the world apart.

5. Quaking of the earth was worse than any ever before seen (3 Nephi 8:12)

• This quaking shook buildings until they collapsed—certainly the case of an earthquake that was experienced for three hours, also viewed by Nephi in a vision: “I saw many that did tumble to the earth, because of the quaking thereof” (1 Nephi 12:4);

As the Disciple Nephi wrote: “the exceedingly great quaking of the whole earth” is the result of the movement of tectonic plates, which are gigantic segments or pieces of the Earth's crust and uppermost mantle that together constitute the Lithosphere.

Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle, together referred to as the lithosphere. The plates are about 62 miles thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust and continental crust 

 

These tectonic plates are gigantic slabs of solid rock with an irregular shape made up of the oceanic and continental lithosphere. Tectonic Plates are of two types, namely oceanic crust and continental crust that differ in composition. The size of the plate varies to a large extent, ranging from a few hundred to thousands of square miles. Those at the surface of the Earth move due to intense heat from the core of the planet, which causes the molten rock to move in convection cells pattern, consequently causing the plates to move.

Because these plates are not fixed, they move above the molten mantle below them and form either divergent, transform, or convergent boundaries when they come in contact, these boundaries are highly susceptible to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. There are 17 of these major and minor tectonic plates. As an example, the major South American tectonic plate, which covers 27,091,784 square miles including South America and the surrounding Atlantic Ocean, borders the Nazca Plate, which is 9,693,391 square miles in size. The coastline of South America is the boundary between the two. Where these plates meet, the denser oceanic lithosphere of the Nazca Plate is forced down and under the more buoyant continental lithosphere of the South American Plate, descending at an angle into the mantle. This movement is called subduction, which process causes earthquakes and volcanic activity that

continues all around the Pacific Ocean where it borders with the continental shoreline, and referred to as the Ring of Fire.

Severe movement of these plates often results in earthquakes, some extremely powerful of which the Disciple Nephi said shook the whole earth so severely he thought it was going to break apart.

Top: What is called today a whirlwind; Bottom: A tornado, with some being extremely powerful—anciently, there was no term “tornado” so everything was called a whirlwind as the Disciple Nephi did

 

6. Whirlwinds that carried away people never to be heard from again (3 Nephi 8:16)

• This was undoubtedly a tornado. First of all, a supercell is a long-lived (two to three hours) and highly organized storm feeding off an updraft (a rising current of air) that is tilted and rotating. This rotating updraft—as large as 10 miles in diameter and up to 50,000 feet high—can be present as much as 20 to 60 minutes before a tornado forms. Scientists call this rotation a mesocyclone when it is detected by Doppler radar. Most large and violent tornadoes come from supercells.

A huge and severe storm can have a top rating today of EF5, over 200 mph winds—an EF6 has never been recorded. Such a rating of a tornado would have to be of extreme magnitude that has never been witnessed. Though a Category 7 is unheard of and seldom discussed, it has been given a rating of over 250 mph winds.

There has been numerous incidents of tornadoes sucking up people and transporting them some distance away.

Badwater basin in Death Valley occurred when the mountainous region changed, with mountains tumbling down and forming the basin or valley as the land extended forcing remaining mountains a distance away

 

7. Mountains tumbling down and becoming valleys (Helaman 14:23)

• This was also witnessed by Nephi in a vision: “I saw a mist of darkness on the face of the land of promise; and I saw lightnings, and I heard thunderings, and earthquakes, and all manner of tumultuous noises; and I saw the earth and the rocks, that they rent; and I saw mountains tumbling into pieces; and I saw the plains of the earth, that they were broken up; and I saw many cities that they were sunk; and I saw many that they were burned with fire; and I saw many that did tumble to the earth, because of the quaking thereof” (1 Nephi 12:4)—an earthquake so violent that it tumbled buildings and whole cities as well as destroy mountains and form valleys.

 An extremely powerful earthquake could accomplish this if the earth was shaken to and fro as described. In fact, Death Valley a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert, 120 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada. The current basin and range did not always look like it does today. At one time in the past the dynamics of crustal movement changed, and Death Valley proper began to form. At that time, compression was replaced by extensional forces. This "pulling apart" of Earth’s crust allowed large pieces of rock to fall and huge blocks of land to slowly slide past one another along faults, forming alternating valleys and mountain ranges. Badwater, an endorheic basin in Death Valley with a salt pan and the Panamint mountain range comprise one block that is rotating eastward as a structural unit. The valley floor has been steadily slipping downward, subsiding along the fault that lies at the base of the Black Mountains. Subsidence continues today, which evidence can be seen in the fresh fault scarps exposed near Badwater.

Now consider the short life of the planet, and the quickness of how things were put in motion at the time of the crucifixion, when mountains tumbled down and formed valleys. The similarity of Death Valley is an example of that event.

(See the next post, “Were there Really Earthquakes? – Part VI, for more on the unusual and specific wordage of events that accompanied the destruction, and the understanding that earthquakes and volcanoes resulting in the destruction outlined in 3 Nephi, and continuing with the list of events)