#97: The Whispers of Rock: Stories from the Earth (GA Conference 2025)

Back in April, I had the chance to attend the Geographical Association Annual Conference in the UK, where I also presented a session. A highlight of the conference was the headline lecture by Dr Anjana Khatwa, an earth scientist, whose talk wove together geology, indigenous knowledge and humans' connection to rocks. It was a powerful reminder that landscapes aren’t just physical spaces—they also hold memory, meaning and stories worth telling.

In this post, I share key points from the lecture, captured through the lens of a geographer and educator learning to tell more compelling stories about place.

Early Earth

Around 500 million years ago, the Earth looked very different from today. There were no plants with root systems to stabilise the soil, and rivers coursed freely across vast plains, carrying sand grains across the landscape. The sand eventually settled into sweeping, curved patterns, arcuate forms that trace the ancient migration of river channels. Over time, mineral-rich groundwater seeped through the sediment, staining the cement that bound the grains together. This process gave rise to the striking colours seen today in the sandstone formations of Petra.

Rock as an Economic Resource

Many people view rock primarily as an economic resource, valued for its utility in driving growth and development. A striking example is Gunung Kanthan in Ipoh, Malaysia, home to one of the world’s largest cement quarries. There, limestone is extracted, crushed into powder, baked into calcium oxide, and shipped around the world to produce cement by mixing it with water and gravel.

Impact on Nature

Limestone plays a critical role in cement production, but its extraction comes at a steep cost. Carving rock from mountains disrupts fragile karst ecosystems, which are rich in biodiversity and support unique plant and animal life. The quarrying process damages soil formation, removes vegetation, and destroys habitats. This undermines the ecological balance in ways that are difficult, if not impossible, to restore. The environmental toll doesn’t end there. The harvesting, processing and global transport of limestone also contribute significantly to carbon emissions, fuelling climate change.

Beyond ecological loss and environmental damage, something deeper is also erased. These rocks took over 50 million years to form, shaped by immense tectonic forces over geological time. Once removed, their story—embedded in every layer, every fossil—is gone for good.

Impact on People

Just as ecosystems bear the brunt of the over-exploitation of resources, so too do the communities connected to these landscapes. The dispossession of Lakota lands in South Dakota for gold prospecting by European settlers is one such example, where ancestral territories were taken to extract mineral wealth.

Indigenous Knowledge

Dr Khatwa shared how she worked with Indigenous communities around the world—including Native American, Inuit and Māori communities—as part of her research.

These communities hold deep, place-based knowledge. To them, rocks and landscapes are not inert. They are alive with meaning, story and spirit. These connections are maintained through oral histories, culture, and tradition—intangible heritage passed down across generations. As shared by Elder Mable Horton (Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation) and Elder Sherry Copenace (Ojibways of Onigaming First Nation), Indigenous stories remain deeply relevant today, showing us how to live, adapt, and find strength in times of challenge. Beyond connecting the past to the present, these stories offer guidance for the future.

Reconnecting with Rock

Dr Khatwa’s lecture centred on the idea of reconnecting with rock, not just as a material resource, but as something we can feel, honour, and tell stories about. She emphasised the importance of nurturing a sense of connection to landscapes, especially for future generations of Earth scientists and geologists.

Yet, Western science often relies on technical, emotionally detached language that struggles to resonate with Indigenous and global majority communities—or even with many within the Western world. This disconnect may help explain why conservation, despite its urgency, has not yet become a truly global movement.

Bridging Story and Science

Science is just one way of understanding the origins of our world. While Western science only formalised the theory of plate tectonics in 1967, Indigenous communities had long held stories that reflected a deep understanding of Earth’s processes, revealing that the knowledge science now claims was present in these communities all along. Below are three of such stories.

1. Where Our World Came From

According to the Inuit story titled Where Our World Came From (told by Peter Ross, Gwichya Gwich’in First Nation, Northwest Territories, Canada), the Earth was once entirely covered in water, with all animals living on a large raft. Raven, longing for dry land, promised to grow the Earth if even a small piece of it could be found. One by one, animals dove into the depths in search of earth but did not return—until Beaver, tied to a rope, brought back a clump of mud at the cost of his life. Raven used this mud to form a ball of earth, planted his walking stick in it, and the land began to grow, eventually becoming the world as we know it today.

Connection to Plate Tectonics:

• The story tells of an Earth completely covered by water, and the emergence of land through effort and sacrifice. This mirrors early scientific understandings of how Earth’s surface formed—starting with a molten interior, where heat from the core generated convection currents in the mantle. These currents drove the movement of tectonic plates, shaping Earth’s landforms over time. These changes took place over millions of years and involved immense pressure and friction, paralleling the story’s theme of persistence and creation.

• The mud retrieved by Beaver grows into the vast land we now know. In plate tectonics, landmasses are not static; they grow and shift over time through processes like subduction, seafloor spreading, and orogeny (mountain-building). The idea that land grows aligns with these geological dynamics.

2. The story of Pelehonuamea, Goddess of fire and volcanoes

According to moʻolelo (oral traditions), Pelehonuamea, commonly known as Pele, voyaged from her ancestral homeland in search of a place to call home. During her journey, she had a relationship with Aukelenuiaʻikū, who was married to her older sister, Nāmakaokaha‘i, the goddess of the sea. Enraged, Nāmaka chased Pele across the ocean, using her powers to flood and destroy the lands Pele tried to create.

Pele travelled eastward island by island, digging craters and causing volcanic eruptions in an effort to build new land. But each time, Nāmaka sent waves to wash the land away. Eventually, Pele reached the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, where her volcanic fires proved too powerful for even Nāmaka to extinguish. She made her home in Halemaʻumaʻu Crater at the summit of Kīlauea, which remains one of the most active volcanoes in the world today.

Connection to Plate Tectonics:

Each island in the Hawaiian chain is said to represent one of Pele’s attempts to create land, mirroring her eastward journey across the archipelago as she searched for a place where her fires could burn undisturbed. This movement across the islands mirrors the scientific explanation for how the Hawaiian Islands were formed.

Over millions of years, the Hawaiian Islands emerged through hotspot volcanism, as the Pacific Plate slowly moved northwest over a stationary plume of magma in the Earth’s mantle. As magma rose through the crust, it cooled and solidified, forming volcanic islands. This process created a chain of islands, with newer islands forming in the southeast and older ones gradually eroding as the plate continued to move.

3. The Story of Pounamu

According to Māori legend, Poutini is a river god who watches over his essence, Pounamu—the sacred New Zealand greenstone. One day, he came across a beautiful woman named Waitaiki and instantly fell in love. Although she was married to another man, a chief named Tamaahua, Poutini was so enchanted that he stole Waitaiki away to the South Island. Tamaahua pursued them, determined to rescue his wife.

Realising that Tamaahua would not rest until he reclaimed her, Poutini decided that the only way to keep Waitaiki forever was to turn her into his essence. He transformed her into Pounamu, laid her within the riverbeds of the Arahura River, and slipped downstream past the waiting Tamaahua. When the chief discovered that his wife had been turned to stone, he let out an enormous tangi (cry of grief), which some say can still be heard echoing through the mountains to this day.

It is believed that all the places where Pounamu is found today trace the path of Poutini’s journey with Waitaiki, with the richest sources located at her final resting place along the Arahura River.

Connection to Plate Tectonics:

Pounamu (a term encompassing both nephrite and bowenite) is an ophiolite—a type of metamorphic rock that originates in oceanic crust. Under typical tectonic conditions, oceanic crust subducts beneath continental crust during plate convergence.

However, in certain complex convergent settings—such as along the South Island’s Alpine Fault where the Australian Plate (continental) and Pacific Plate (oceanic) collide—parts of the oceanic crust are instead thrust onto the continental margin rather than sinking into the mantle. This process, known as obduction, results in the uplift and exposure of deep-sea rocks—including Pounamu—that would otherwise remain buried within the lithosphere.

The places associated with Poutini's escape route—such as the Arahura River, Lake Wānaka, and Lake Wakatipu—align closely with the geological zones where Pounamu forms.

Landscapes of Memory and Meaning

This short film tells the story of Keoni Kaholoʻaʻā, an Indigenous Hawaiian park ranger who rediscovers his cultural roots and spiritual connection to Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes. As a descendant of Pele, Kaholoʻaʻā finds renewed purpose in sharing Indigenous perspectives on volcanic activity—viewing eruptions not as destruction, but as sacred, life-giving renewal. This illustrates how Indigenous belief systems offer meaningful, emotionally rooted ways of connecting with and understanding Earth science.