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Makin atoll8/22/2023 The analysis yielded a range of possible dates, with the most likely being 1576.īased on the scale of the boulders, and the energy that would have been required to move them, Terry and his colleagues think that a powerful tsunami-roughly as strong as the one that caused the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011-hit Makin Island in 1576. “It works like an atomic clock,” says Terry. Because corals extract uranium from seawater-and because that uranium decays and turns into thorium when the coral dies-the ratio of uranium to thorium in dead corals can indicate when they died. Terry and his colleagues then turned to the three boulders themselves.Įach boulder is made of coral. That’s two distinct-yet strikingly similar-accounts of gigantic waves bearing Tokia, Rebua, and Kamatoa to their present resting places. Eventually, he felt remorse and halted the final and most destructive wave. Out of anger, the man called three waves, each carrying a huge stone, and sent them hurtling toward the villagers. His neighbors on a nearby island had an ability to summon and hunt dolphins, but gave the Makin Island man only the internal organs-never the tastier meat. The Wiin te Maneaba told the story of a Makin Island man who was cheated by his community. He proceeded to narrate a different tale from the one Terry had heard years earlier by email. Noticing the scientists’ interest in the stones, Kabobouea offered to recite a story. The man is a “living archive,” as Terry and his colleagues write in a recent paper. While on the trip, they unexpectedly met Tobeia Kabobouea, a man in his 60s who holds the position of the Wiin te Maneaba, or traditional storyteller. Roughly 39 meters in circumference-broader than a school bus is long-Kamatoa is always underwater. The third stone, Kamatoa, is the largest. Arranged in a line, roughly east to west, are Tokia, a boulder 22 meters in circumference, and Rebua, slightly smaller at 18.5 meters. “They’re just sitting all alone, these isolated, huge boulders,” says Terry. There, standing proudly and almost entirely out of the water during low tide, were two massive rocks. With their guidance, the researchers were led to Makin’s southern shores. They introduced themselves to the locals, making a traditional offering of tobacco to their ancestors. It was possible that the tale about the angry king, passed down by the island’s Indigenous Micronesians, might be a geomyth-a legend that encodes true information about an area’s geological past.Īnd so, in June 2018, Terry and fellow researchers went to Makin Island to find out. He wondered if the story was, in fact, more than a story. The story grabbed Terry because, as a geoscientist at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates, he had a thing about offshore boulders. The king relented, stopping the third wave just in time. As the deluge crashed down, the terrified islanders begged for forgiveness. Each wave carried a huge rock toward the shore. But the fruit was rotten, and the king, enraged by the affront, sent three giant waves to punish the Makin Islanders. In the story, people on the nearby Makin Island brought the king a gift of fruit. Romano Reo, a retired chief surveyor from the Kiribati Lands and Survey Department, emailed him and relayed the story of a fabled king who once lived on an island that is now part of the Republic of Kiribati in the central Pacific Ocean. ![]() The first time James Terry heard the legend of Makin Island’s three boulders was in 2012. This article is from Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems.
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