In the summer of 2002, record rainfall in the Texas Hill Country overfilled Canyon Lake. Water coursed over the top of its dam and carved huge, steep-walled canyons through the limestone bedrock downstream. The scoured riverbed, now called Canyon Lake Gorge, is over a mile long and has been cordoned off for scientific study.

Earth's surface shows features that clearly testify to some kind of catastrophic event, or series of events, that operated on a vastly larger scale than today's geologic processes. Whatever happened had a devastating impact on living creatures large and small, terrestrial and marine.

The blindsnake, a small subsurface burrower, is not often seen, but when it is many mistake it for a worm.¹ Researchers have constructed an evolutionary history for these creatures, partly from biological data and partly from evolutionary assumptions.

On February 27, Chile experienced an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, the fifth-largest recorded quake since seismographs were implemented. Charles Darwin experienced a similar quake in the same area on February 20, 1835. The conclusions he drew then provide an interesting contrast to what is now known about earth’s geologic activity.