THE 2012 APOCALYPSE HOAX: A GEOLOGICAL CALL TO ARMS

The general public is increasingly bombarded with misinformation concerning the Maya calendar and the possibility of a civilization-ending natural disaster occurring on December 21, 2012. From slick viral marketing campaigns for blockbuster movies to websites, YouTube videos, History Channel specials, and dozens of New Age books (some of which masquerading as popular-level science publications), the average citizen is in danger of drowning in a sea of pseudoscientific babble and mass hysteria the likes of which have not been seen since the 1910 apparition of Halley’s Comet. Perhaps the most alarming aspect of this comparison is the number of attempted and successful suicides and other tragic acts which accompanied the comet’s near-approach a century ago (as well as those associated with the more recent apparition of Comet Hale-Bopp). Scientists and science educators are increasingly faced with earnest and anxious questions from the general public (including young children) concerning 2012, and in response the archaeological and astronomical communities are beginning to respond proactively, through websites, publications, and press releases of their own. But astronomy and archeology are not the only sciences being hijacked by the 2012 apocalypse community for their own purposes; geological phenomena including supervolcanoes, plate tectonics, magnetic field reversals, true and apparent polar wander, and fossil evidence of mass extinctions are also being co-opted by these science fiction and pseudoscience practitioners as “evidence” of the supposed impending disaster. Therefore it is time for the geological community to join in the campaign to educate the general public on the difference between science and pseudoscience, especially in the case of the 2012 hoax. This presentation will summarize the basics of the 2012 scenario as well as concrete ways in which the geological community can aid in combating this blatant misuse of scientific concepts.