Preface, L Piccardi • Geomythology: geological origins of myths and legends, D B Vitaliano • Exploring the nature of myth and its role in science, W B Masse, E Wayland Barber, L Piccardi and P T Barber • Geo-mythology of India, D Chandrasekharam • Genesis Chapter 1 and geological time from Hugo Grotius and Marin Mersenne to William Conybeare and Thomas Chalmers (1620-1825), M B Roberts • Environment and natural hazards in Roman and Medieval texts: presentation of the CLEMENS database project, E Vittori, S Fulloni and L Piccardi • From myth to Earth education and science communication, T Lanza and A Negrete • Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan, R S Ludwin and G J Smits • The AD 60 Denizli Basin Earthquake and the apparition of Archangel Michael at Colossae (Aegean Turkey), L Piccardi • Writing on the walls: geological context and early American spiritual beliefs, S E Hough • The Fenris Wolf in the Nordic Asa creed in the light of palaeoseismics, N-A Mörner • Band-e-Amir lakes and Dragon valley (Bamiyan): myths and seismicity in Afghanistan, F G Bourrouilh-Le Jan, B Akram and M Schvoerer • The Bible and geology: destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, V G Trifonov • Geological histories and geohazard potential of Pacific Islands illuminated by myths, P D Nunn and R Pastorizo • Exploding lakes in myth and reality: an African case study, E Shanklin • Myth and catastrophic reality: using myth to identify cosmic impacts and massive Plinian eruptions in Holocene South America, W B Masse and M J Masse • Cosmogenic mega-tsunami in the Australia region: are they supported by Aboriginal and Maori legends? E Bryant, G Walsh and D Abbott • Meteorite records in the ancient Greek and Latin literature: between history and myth, M d'Orazio • Sooty sweat stains or tourmaline spots? The Argonauts on the Island of Elba (Tuscany) and the spread of Greek trading in the Mediterranean Sea, A Dini, A Corretti, F Innocenti, S Rocchi and D S Westerman • Place names describing fossils in oral traditions, A Mayor • Giants and elephants of Sicily, V Agnesi, C di Patti and B Truden • On the discovery of the ice age: science and myth, W H Berger • Shepherds' crowns, fairy loaves and thunderstones - the mythology of fossil echinoids in England, K J McNamara • Obsidian: sacred glass from the California sky, S Fox Hodgson • Erratic blocks: from protector beings to geosites to be protected, L Motta and M Motta • The contribution of the 'Sibilla Appenninica' legend to karst knowledge in the Sibillini Mountains (Central Apennines, Italy), D Aringoli, B Gentili, G Pambianchi and A M Piscitelli