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And in between there's everything you could possibly imagine. I've never been any place where geology is more evident—or prettier."
介于二者之間的東西應有盡有，只要你想得出來。我從來沒有見過哪個地方，地質情況是如此明顯，或者說如此美麗。”
So you like it? I say.
“因此你喜歡這個地方？”我說。
Oh, no, I love it, he answers with profound sincerity. "I mean I really love it here. The winters are tough and the pay's not too hot, but when it's good, it's just—"
“哦，不是喜歡，而是熱愛這個地方。”他的回答是極其誠懇的，“我的意思是，我確實熱愛這個地方。冬天很冷，工資不太高，但在情況好的時候，簡直……”
He interrupted himself to point out a distant gap in a range of mountains to the west, which had just come into view over a rise. The mountains, he told me, were known as the Gallatins. "That gap is sixty or maybe seventy miles across. For a long time nobody could understand why that gap was there, and then Bob Christiansen realized that it had to be because the mountains were just blown away. When you've got sixty miles of mountains just obliterated, you know you're dealing with something pretty potent. It took Christiansen six years to figure it all out."
他沒有說下去，而是把手往西一指。遠處的山里有個豁口，它剛剛探出一片高地，映入我們的眼簾。他對我說，那座山脈名叫加拉丁山脈。“那個豁口約100公里寬。在很長時間里，誰也不清楚為什么那里有個豁口。后來，鮑勃·克里斯琴森認為，這肯定是從山里炸出來的。要在山里炸出個約100公里寬的地方，你知道這會與一個威力巨大的事件有關。克里斯琴森花了6年時間才琢磨出來。”
I asked him what caused Yellowstone to blow when it did.
我問他，究竟是什么原因引起了黃石火山的噴發(fā)。
Don't know. Nobody knows. Volcanoes are strange things. We really don't understand them at all. Vesuvius, in Italy, was active for three hundred years until an eruption in 1944 and then it just stopped. It's been silent ever since. Some volcanologists think that it is recharging in a big way, which is a little worrying because two million people live on or around it. But nobody knows.
“不知道。誰也不知道。火山是很古怪的東西。我們對它們確實不了解。意大利的維蘇威火山在300多年里一直很活躍，1944年爆發(fā)過一次，然后就停了下來。自那以來，維蘇威火山一直很平靜。有的火山學家認為，它是在大規(guī)模地重新積聚能量。這有點兒令人擔心，因為維蘇威火山及周圍地區(qū)生活著200萬人。不過，誰也說不準。”
And how much warning would you get if Yellowstone was going to go?
“要是黃石火山快要爆發(fā)，會有多長的警報時間？”
He shrugged. "Nobody was around the last time it blew, so nobody knows what the warning signs are.
他聳了聳肩：“上次爆發(fā)的時候我們都不在場，因此誰也說不準什么是警報信號。
