For 12,000 years, the Hayli Gubbi volcano has slept silently beneath the Ethiopian landscape, a geological giant dormant since the end of the last Ice Age. Its sudden and violent awakening this week has done more than just spew ash across the Red Sea; it has ignited a firestorm of speculation that we are standing on the precipice of a monumental planetary shift.
As plumes of smoke rise 9 miles (14km) into the atmosphere, a growing chorus of voices is looking past the geological data and toward ancient texts, suggesting this eruption is the harbinger of a new Earth cycle.
