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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."
介于二者之间的东西应有尽有，只要你想得出来。我从来没有见过哪个地方，地质情况是如此明显，或者说如此美丽。”
So you like it? I say.
“因此你喜欢这个地方？”我说。
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，不是喜欢，而是热爱这个地方。”他的回答是极其诚恳的，“我的意思是，我确实热爱这个地方。冬天很冷，工资不太高，但在情况好的时候，简直……”
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."
他没有说下去，而是把手往西一指。远处的山里有个豁口，它刚刚探出一片高地，映入我们的眼帘。他对我说，那座山脉名叫加拉丁山脉。“那个豁口约100公里宽。在很长时间里，谁也不清楚为什么那里有个豁口。后来，鲍勃·克里斯琴森认为，这肯定是从山里炸出来的。要在山里炸出个约100公里宽的地方，你知道这会与一个威力巨大的事件有关。克里斯琴森花了6年时间才琢磨出来。”
I asked him what caused Yellowstone to blow when it did.
我问他，究竟是什么原因引起了黄石火山的喷发。
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。谁也不知道。火山是很古怪的东西。我们对它们确实不了解。意大利的维苏威火山在300多年里一直很活跃，1944年爆发过一次，然后就停了下来。自那以来，维苏威火山一直很平静。有的火山学家认为，它是在大规模地重新积聚能量。这有点儿令人担心，因为维苏威火山及周围地区生活着200万人。不过，谁也说不准。”
And how much warning would you get if Yellowstone was going to go?
“要是黄石火山快要爆发，会有多长的警报时间？”
He shrugged. "Nobody was around the last time it blew, so nobody knows what the warning signs are.
他耸了耸肩：“上次爆发的时候我们都不在场，因此谁也说不准什么是警报信号。
