by Buphalo of Bellingham, WA

Long, long ago, when Lake Lahontan still held water, Fire-Pod, a seed of flame cast into space from a distant galaxy, plunged into the lake, sunk to the bottom in a dormant state, and was subsequently buried in sediment over a period of several thousand years. As evident today, Lake Lahontan has dried up and the process of Eolian Erosion, the removal of loose, fine-grained particles by the turbulent eddy action of the wind, is exhuming Fire-Pod from the playa. In the late summer of 2004, almost completely liberated from its earthly restraints, Fire-Pod showed its first signs of activity after an estimated 12 thousand years of dormancy. The world's leading pyrotechnic scientists have been studying Fire-Pod since the time of its discovery and predict that it will develop from this infantile pyrotechnic display of pilot lights into a full-blown maelstrom of flame if appropriate environmental conditions permit. Scientists hypothesize that Fire-Pod, if allowed to fully mature, will cast its legacy into space once again spreading flame to other parts of the universe.