by Anne E. Egger, Ph.D. We all see changes in the landscape
around us, but your view of how fast things change is probably
determined by where you live. If you live near the coast, you
see daily, monthly, and yearly changes in the shape of the
coastline. Deep in the interior of continents, change is less
evident – rivers may flood and change course only every 100
years or so. If you live near an active fault zone or volcano,
you experience infrequent but catastrophic events like
earthquakes and eruptions. Throughout human history, different
groups of people have held to a wide variety of beliefs to
explain these changes. Early Greeks ascribed earthquakes to the
god Poseidon expressing his wrath, an explanation that accounted
for their unpredictability. The Navajo view processes on the
surface as interactions between opposite but complementary
entities: the sky and the earth. Most 17th century European
Christians believed that the earth was essentially unchanged
from the time of creation. When naturalists foun