Die Fossa Magna
作品について：
東京という大都市の下に「大きな溝」が横たわっている。
その「大きな溝」とは、日本列島の中央部分に横たわる地溝帯のことで、「フォッサマグナ（ドイツ語でFossa=溝、Magna=大きな）」という。 深さは約６０００メートルにも及び、日本の中心を太平洋から日本海にかけて横断している。但し、上空から見下ろしても、視覚的にはこの「溝」の地形的な現れは確認できない。地帯に在る山々の地層や岩石を調査して初めて分かる「地質学的な溝」であるからだ。
この「溝」は視覚的に確認できないと先に書いたが、唯一「見ること」で、その存在を発見し、「フォッサマグナ」と名付けた人物がいた。明治初期来日し、日本の地質研究を行った若きドイツ人地質学者ナウマン博士（Edmund Naumann, 1854-1927）である。彼は調査の途中立ち寄った長野県・野辺山で、目の前に広がる景色に驚き、この巨大な地溝帯の存在に気がついた。 野辺山に到着した前日の夜、右手には月明かりに照らされた八ヶ岳とその裾野はなだらかに見えていた。宿屋で一夜を過ごした翌朝、旅を続けるため外に出た時、彼の目に飛び込んできたのは、立ちはばかる大壁のような南アルプスだった。そしてその壁の下の幅広い低地の縁に立つ自分。フォッサマグナの存在に気が付いた瞬間であった。
『朝になって驚いたことに、あたりの景色は全く一変していた。まるで別世界に置かれたような感じであった。私は幅広い低地に面する縁に立っていた。対岸側には３０００メートルあるいはそれ以上の巨大な山々が重畳してそびえ立っていた。その斜面は鋭くはっきりした直線をなして低地へ落ち込んでいた。
その山麓に沿って、一筋の流れが北西から南東へ走っているに違うないことは、疑いないところであった。左の方には、我々が越えてきた山地から低地へ向かって、枝尾根と横尾根が突き出ていた。南南東の彼方には、巨大な富士山が空高くそびえていた。
その時、私は自分が著しく奇妙な地形を眼前にしていることを十分に意識していた』
Edmund Naumann （論文より引用）
ナウマンがフォッサマグナの構想を得たこの時のエピソードに強く惹かれた。人々が漫然と見ていた光景が、ナウマンの目には違う意味を持つモノに映った。なぜ彼には他の人には見えなかったものが見えたのだろう。私にも何か見えるだろうかと。そうしてフォッサマグナについてのリサーチと関係する露頭の撮影を始めた。4年前のことである。
リサーチと撮影を続けるうちに「私たちは『見ている』と思っているものの多くを本当には見ていないのだ」と幾度となく思った。けれども見えないものの存在が「理解」や「感覚」によって見えてくる。フォッサマグナの露頭を通じて「見え」やその「差」について考察するようになった。私たちはそれでもやはり 「見ること」で何かに繋がってゆけるのだと。
あの日ナウマンが野辺山で見たように。気付いたように。
更に見付ける。
23年前の１月17日、神戸で体験したあの途轍もなく激しい揺れが、未だ私の中で行き場もなく深い場所で沈み込んでいたことを。緑色に光る石を見て、折り重なる地層のレイヤーを見て、万年雪をいだいた山肌を見て、固まった黒いマグマを見て、あの日、自分の家を、故郷の街を、人を、生活を破壊したのはこのエネルギーなのかと問いかけずにはいられない自分を。
そして私は今フォッサマグナの上で生活している。日々立ち現れてくるイメージは露頭のように、積み上がっていくものは堆積物のように感じられ、そのように見え始めた。電車や車が行き交い、ビルが立ち並ぶこの新しい土地の表層は人間の手によって更に刻々と作り変えられてゆく。これからも私たちの生活は続き、同時に足元のもっと下の地中では地殻活動も続いてゆく。今、この時も動いているプレートについて考える。それは、いつかまた跳ね、大きく揺れ、破壊し、作り変える。時間とともに積み重なるもの全ては、地層や地質学的事件の中に内包されてゆくのだ。
「フォッサマグナに比較できるような現象は、地球上の他のどこにも認められない」
Edmund Naumann（「日本地質の探求 ナウマン論文集」山下昇訳より）
「Die Fossa Magna」について
アバロス村野敦子
2017年12月
About "Die Fossa Magna":
There is a "Great ditch" found under Tokyo city.
That "Great ditch" is a geological zone that separates East and West Japan lying in the central part of the Japanese archipelago, called “The Fossa Magna (Great ditch in German)". Its depth is about 6000 meters and crosses the center of Japan stretching from the Pacific coast to the Sea of Japan. Even if we look down from the sky, the Fossa Magna is not visible to the eye. It is a "geological ditch" buried by layer upon layer of volcanic ash and lava. The west edge of the Fossa Magna is a line running from Itoigawa-shi, Niigata prefecture to Shizuoka prefecture Shizuoka city called the Itoigawa-Shizuoka tectonic line, and the eastern edge still has many unknown points, but the line formed from Chiba to Niigata (Shibata- Koide and Kashiwazaki - Chiba tectonic line) is a strong theory.
Although I wrote that this "ditch" can not be visually confirmed, actually there was a person who discovered its existence and named this ditch “The Fossa Magna" by only “seeing". It was Dr. Edmund Naumann (1854-1927), a young German geologist who helped establish the modern study of Japanese geology in the early Meiji era. He noticed the existence of the Fossa Magna when he traveled in Nagano during one of his field trips. On the night before his arrival at Nobeyama, Mt. Yatsugatake lit by moonlight on his right side, with a gently sloping appearance. The next morning, when he opened the door of the Inn he was staying in, to go out and continue his journey, he saw the Southern Alps like a gigantic wall, and found himself standing at the edge of a wide lowland ridge beneath the wall. It was at that moment when he noticed the existence of the the geological phenomenon known as “The Fossa Magna”. His professional instinct and experiences whispered to his heart that there was something unseen that lies beneath.
Dr. Naumann described it as...
" When morning came, I found myself awed at the transformed scene before me, and I felt the sensation of being in a different world. I stood at the edge, facing the wide expanse of the lowlands. Beyond that, I saw the mountains like imposing and towering 3000 meter giants. At the foot of the giants formed a sharp edge, as they met the lowlands.
I have no doubt that there exists a line following the edge of the mountains extending from the Northwest all the way to the Southeast.
On my left, I see the branching and transverse ridges from the mountains we have traversed, and in the South-Southeast, Mt. Fuji rises as if reaching for the sky.
It was at that time that I became conscious of the remarkable and strange geological phenomenon before me."
Heinrich Edmund Naumann
Dr. Naumann’s episode of when the idea of the Fossa Magna came to him, captured my interest. At that time, my thoughts revolved around the idea of the “essence of photography”, “seeing things in its true form", and "seeing itself “ over and over. I thought about the different meaning of the sights that people were looking at, but not noticing anything as reflected in the eyes of Dr. Naumann. I wondered how and why he was able to see what other people could not see. I wondered if I too, could see something he saw. I felt it was a “door” that I should open next to explore.
I began visiting and shooting crop-outs related to the Fossa Magna, and at the same time was researching about it. It has been 4 years, and my little geology study has steadily changed how I look at the flat map that I knew before inside of me.
Firstly, the Fossa Magna was formed from the tectonic plates covering the surface of the earth. The Earth’s crust is about 30 kilometers thick and with the high temperature mantle underneath, always in motion due to its heat. The tectonic plates of the Earth’s crust slowly moves in response to the movement of the mantle.
In the place where the tectonic plates meet (The Tectonic line), one plate sinks under the other. The Itoigawa-Shizuoka Tectonic line at the western edge of Fossa Magna is said to be the boundary between North American plate and Eurasian plate. A part of the North American plate and the Eurasian plate meet at the center of Japan’s main island. There are actually four tectonic plates meeting at the Japanese archipelago. The North American plate and the Eurasian plate are continental plates, and the Pacific plate and the Philippine plate are oceanic plates, forming a complex intersection of plates in and around Japan, ultimately shaping Japan’s geological structure.
In ancient times, the primitive Japanese archipelago was part of the east coast of the ancient Eurasian Plate, the subducting plate rose as magma and the heat from beneath caused the Japan islands to separate from the continent about 20 million years ago. Because the trench in the waters around Japan was from the Nankai Trough and the Nippon Trench with different orientations, the Japanese archipelago separated from the continent and broke into two parts. Between the broken Japanese archipelago, the sea connecting the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean (Fossa Magna), sand, mud and so on accumulated, connecting the two islands. In other words, the Fossa Magna region was a sea a few million years ago, with sediments from volcanoes accumulating on the ocean floor, the plates moving, rising up, forming grooves, and became the land as Japan’s present form. Tokyo is part of this “new land” over the Fossa Magna where sediments have been deposited over millions of years.
While continuing my research and photographing the sites, I wondered many times about one’s attitude when “seeing” things — versus just “looking”. When I looked at the sites for the crop-out, I felt uneasy about the fragility and fleeting nature of “seeing;” however, I believe that through thoughtful observation and understanding, it can help teach us ways to “see” things differently. It is through “seeing” that we can be led to somewhere and something great.
Just like as Nauman saw and discovered the Fossa Magna at Nobeyama that day….
And I was finding and discovering more…
The tremendous shake caused by the earthquake that I experienced in Kobe on January 17, 23 years ago is still subsiding deep inside of me. As I was looking at the stone that shines green in a dark, the layers, the mountain with perpetual snow, and the solid black magma that stuck by the shore, I could not help but wonder and ask myself whether this was the same energy that destroyed my own house, home town, people, and their lives on that day.
And today, I live on the Fossa Magna. Images that appear to me every day, appear like the Fossa Magna crop-outs, and everything in my life that continues to pile up begins to look like layers of sediments on the Fossa Magna. On the surface of this new land, where trains and cars come and go around the buildings, is continually being transformed further by human hands. Our daily lives will continue, at the same time the geological activity will continue deep beneath our feet. I sometimes take a moment and think about the tectonic plates moving beneath me as well. It will someday jump up again, shake, destroy, and change our lives. Everything that accumulates over time will be included in the layers and geological events.
"A phenomenon comparable to Fossa Magna can not be found anywhere else on the earth"
Die Fossa Magna
Neue Beitrage zur Geologie und Geographie Japans
Heinrich Edmund Naumann
Atsuko Murano Abalos
December. 2017