ET

Wednesday 27 June 2001

Is the real Nessie just a case of the shakes?

By Roger Highfield

THE Loch Ness monster stirs from her underwater lair when the earth shakes, according to a geological explanation unveiled today at an international scientific meeting.

Decades of argument about whether the lake is inhabited by a dinosaur-like monster may be ended by the new theory advanced by Dr Luigi Piccardi of the Centro di Studio dell' Appennino e delle Catene Perimediterranee in Florence.

The first record of the monster in the seventh century was inspired by an earthquake, according to Dr Piccardi, a geologist who specialises in seeking links between myths and geological phenomena.

He argues that the most convincing of the many thousands of recent sightings agree on few details except that the "monster" creates a huge splash and commotion in the loch, similar to the wake of an earth tremor.

Dr Piccardi presented his theory yesterday in Edinburgh at Earth System Processes, a meeting organised by the Geological Society of London and the Geological Society of America. The scientist, who believes studies should be conducted to link seismic activity with unusual water movements in the loch, has not yet discussed his paper, Seismotectonic origins of the monster of Loch Ness, with Nessie hunters.

He admitted yesterday that he will be relieved if they merely listen and "don't become Piccardi hunters". It is no coincidence that Loch Ness is positioned directly over the fault zone of the most seismic sector of the Great Glen Fault, the major active fault in Scotland, said Dr Piccardi.

Still active, the fault was responsible for a major quake as recently as 1901. And a huge earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 triggered a small tidal wave in the loch when the fault channelled its energy, he said.

The first recorded mention of the monster appeared in the seventh century AD in Adomnan's Life of St Columba, the saint who converted the northern Picts. The Loch Ness monster is thought to derive from a primitive cult of the water horse, sacred to the Picts. St Columba chased off the ferocious monster on the loch by "forming the saving sign of the cross in the air".

He said that the Picts' beast was not their creation but originated from the hippocampus of Greek mythology (hippos, horse, kampos, sea monster), the sea horses that drew the chariot of Poseidon, the god of earthquakes. "They called Poseidon the earth shaker," said Dr Piccardi.

He said: "Loch Ness is exactly on the fault zone. When there are small shocks, it can create a commotion on the water surface. Along the fault there can be gas emissions, which can create large bubbles on the surface. There are many surface effects which can be linked to the activity of the fault."

There have been more than three and a half thousand Nessie sightings. Of those, some are due to natural explanations, others are due to hoaxers. If these are excluded to leave relatively few reliable accounts, what is usually described is a violent commotion or anomalous wave, and the beast is inferred as the cause. Few describe Nessie, and if they do the details do not match, Dr Piccardi added.

The first locally-recorded sighting, announced in the Inverness Courier in 1868, spoke of a huge fish. But the phenomenon did not really take off until 1933 when a Mr and Mrs MacKay reported seeing a massive creature disporting itself in the lake for over a minute. The following year the first "photograph" of the creature was taken.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2001

Answers

Ed Dames has already spoken. Nessie is a "dinosaur ghost".

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2001