Deep time
Encyclopedia
Deep time is the concept that the Geologic time scale
is vast because the Earth is very old. The modern philosophical concept was developed in the 18th century by Scottish
geologist James Hutton
(1726–1797).
Modern science has since established, after a long and complex history of developments, the age of the Earth
at around 4.54 billion years.
history and the concomitant history of life requires a comprehension of time which initially may be disconcerting. As mathematician
John Playfair
, one of Hutton's friends and colleagues in the Scottish Enlightenment
, later remarked upon seeing the strata
of the angular unconformity
at Siccar Point
with Hutton and James Hall in June 1788, "the mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time."
Particularly following the Protestant Reformation
, the Genesis creation stories were interpreted as holding that the Earth has existed for only a few thousand years. Proponents of scientific theories which contradicted scriptural interpretations could not only lose their academic appointments but were legally answerable to charges of heresy
and blasphemy
, charges which, even as late as the 18th century in Great Britain, sometimes resulted in a death sentence.
Early geologists such as Nicolas Steno
and Horace-Bénédict de Saussure
developed ideas of geological strata
forming from water through chemical processes, which Abraham Gottlob Werner
developed into a theory known as Neptunism
. Hutton's innovative 1785 theory based on Plutonism
visualised an endless process of rocks forming under the sea, being uplifted and tilted, then eroded to form new strata under the sea. In 1788 the sight of Hutton's Unconformity
at Siccar Point convinced Playfair and Hall of this extremely slow cycle, and in that same year Hutton memorably wrote "we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end".
Other scientists such as Georges Cuvier
put forward ideas of past ages, and Werner's ideas were incorporated into concepts of catastrophism
by geologists such as Adam Sedgwick
who inspired his university student Charles Darwin
to exclaim "What a capital hand is Sedgewick for drawing large cheques upon the Bank of Time!". In a competing theory, Hutton's comprehension of endless deep time as a crucial scientific
concept was developed into uniformitarianism
by Charles Lyell
in his Principles of Geology (1830–33). As a young naturalist
and geological theorist, Darwin studied the successive volumes of Lyell's book exhaustively during the Beagle survey voyage
in the 1830s, before beginning to theorise about evolution
.
Physicist
Gregory Benford
addresses the concept, in Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia, as does paleontologist
and Nature
editor Henry Gee
in In Search of Deep Time. Stephen Jay Gould
's Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle
(1987) also deals in large part with the concept.
One of the first uses of "deep time" in a general interest publication may have been by John McPhee
in his 1981 book, Basin and Range, parts of which originally appeared in The New Yorker
magazine. One of the metaphors McPhee used in explaining the concept of deep time was cited in Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle by Gould:
Concepts similar to geologic time were recognized in the 11th century by the Persian geologist
and polymath
, Avicenna
(Ibn Sina, 973–1037), and the Chinese naturalist
and polymath Shen Kuo
(1031–1095).
Geologic time scale
The geologic time scale provides a system of chronologic measurement relating stratigraphy to time that is used by geologists, paleontologists and other earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of the Earth...
is vast because the Earth is very old. The modern philosophical concept was developed in the 18th century by Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
geologist James Hutton
James Hutton
James Hutton was a Scottish physician, geologist, naturalist, chemical manufacturer and experimental agriculturalist. He is considered the father of modern geology...
(1726–1797).
Modern science has since established, after a long and complex history of developments, the age of the Earth
Age of the Earth
The age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples...
at around 4.54 billion years.
Scientific concept
An understanding of geologicGeology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
history and the concomitant history of life requires a comprehension of time which initially may be disconcerting. As mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
John Playfair
John Playfair
John Playfair FRSE, FRS was a Scottish scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is perhaps best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth , which summarized the work of James Hutton...
, one of Hutton's friends and colleagues in the Scottish Enlightenment
Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy...
, later remarked upon seeing the strata
Stratum
In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...
of the angular unconformity
Unconformity
An unconformity is a buried erosion surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger, but the term is used to describe...
at Siccar Point
Siccar Point
Siccar Point is a rocky promontory in the county of Berwickshire on the east coast of Scotland.It is famous in the history of geology for Hutton's Unconformity found in 1788, which James Hutton regarded as conclusive proof of his uniformitarian theory of geological development.-History:Siccar...
with Hutton and James Hall in June 1788, "the mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time."
Particularly following the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, the Genesis creation stories were interpreted as holding that the Earth has existed for only a few thousand years. Proponents of scientific theories which contradicted scriptural interpretations could not only lose their academic appointments but were legally answerable to charges of heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
and blasphemy
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...
, charges which, even as late as the 18th century in Great Britain, sometimes resulted in a death sentence.
Early geologists such as Nicolas Steno
Nicolas Steno
Nicolas Steno |Latinized]] to Nicolaus Steno -gen. Nicolai Stenonis-, Italian Niccolo' Stenone) was a Danish pioneer in both anatomy and geology. Already in 1659 he decided not to accept anything simply written in a book, instead resolving to do research himself. He is considered the father of...
and Horace-Bénédict de Saussure
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure
200px|thumb|Portrait of Horace-Bénédict de Saussure Horace-Bénédict de Saussure was a Genevan aristocrat, physicist and Alpine traveller, often considered the founder of alpinism, and considered to be the first person to build a successful solar oven.-Life and work:Saussure was born in Conches,...
developed ideas of geological strata
Stratum
In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...
forming from water through chemical processes, which Abraham Gottlob Werner
Abraham Gottlob Werner
Abraham Gottlob Werner , was a German geologist who set out an early theory about the stratification of the Earth's crust and coined the word Neptunism...
developed into a theory known as Neptunism
Neptunism
Neptunism is a discredited and obsolete scientific theory of geology proposed by Abraham Gottlob Werner in the late 18th century that proposed rocks formed from the crystallisation of minerals in the early Earth's oceans....
. Hutton's innovative 1785 theory based on Plutonism
Plutonism
Plutonism is the geologic theory that the rocks forming the Earth were formed in fire by volcanic activity, with a continuing gradual process of weathering and erosion wearing away rocks, which were then deposited on the sea bed, re-formed into layers of sedimentary rock by heat and pressure, and...
visualised an endless process of rocks forming under the sea, being uplifted and tilted, then eroded to form new strata under the sea. In 1788 the sight of Hutton's Unconformity
Hutton's Unconformity
Hutton's Unconformity is any of various famous geological sites in Scotland. These are places identified by 18th-century Scottish geologist James Hutton as an unconformity, which provided evidence for his Plutonist theories of uniformitarianism and about the age of the Earth.-Theory of rock...
at Siccar Point convinced Playfair and Hall of this extremely slow cycle, and in that same year Hutton memorably wrote "we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end".
Other scientists such as Georges Cuvier
Georges Cuvier
Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...
put forward ideas of past ages, and Werner's ideas were incorporated into concepts of catastrophism
Catastrophism
Catastrophism is the theory that the Earth has been affected in the past by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope. The dominant paradigm of modern geology is uniformitarianism , in which slow incremental changes, such as erosion, create the Earth's appearance...
by geologists such as Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...
who inspired his university student Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
to exclaim "What a capital hand is Sedgewick for drawing large cheques upon the Bank of Time!". In a competing theory, Hutton's comprehension of endless deep time as a crucial scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
concept was developed into uniformitarianism
Uniformitarianism
In the philosophy of naturalism, the uniformitarianism assumption is that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the...
by Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
in his Principles of Geology (1830–33). As a young naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
and geological theorist, Darwin studied the successive volumes of Lyell's book exhaustively during the Beagle survey voyage
Second voyage of HMS Beagle
The second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, under captain Robert FitzRoy who had taken over command of the ship on its first voyage after her previous captain committed suicide...
in the 1830s, before beginning to theorise about evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
.
Physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...
addresses the concept, in Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia, as does paleontologist
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
and Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
editor Henry Gee
Henry Gee
Dr Henry Gee is a British paleontologist, and evolutionary biologist. He is a senior editor of Nature, the scientific journal....
in In Search of Deep Time. Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
's Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle
Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle
Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle is a history of geology by Stephen Jay Gould offering a historical account of the conceptualization of Deep Time and uniformitarianism using the works of Thomas Burnet, James Hutton, and Charles Lyell.-Deep Time:...
(1987) also deals in large part with the concept.
One of the first uses of "deep time" in a general interest publication may have been by John McPhee
John McPhee
John Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....
in his 1981 book, Basin and Range, parts of which originally appeared in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine. One of the metaphors McPhee used in explaining the concept of deep time was cited in Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle by Gould:
Consider the Earth's history as the old measure of the English yard, the distance from the King's nose to the tip of his outstretched hand. One stroke of a nail file on his middle finger erases human history.
Concepts similar to geologic time were recognized in the 11th century by the Persian geologist
Islamic geography
Geography and cartography in medieval Islam refers to the advancement of geography, cartography and the earth sciences in the medieval Islamic civilization....
and polymath
Polymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
, Avicenna
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
(Ibn Sina, 973–1037), and the Chinese naturalist
History of science and technology in China
The history of science and technology in China is both long and rich with many contributions to science and technology. In antiquity, independently of other civilizations, ancient Chinese philosophers made significant advances in science, technology, mathematics, and astronomy...
and polymath Shen Kuo
Shen Kuo
Shen Kuo or Shen Gua , style name Cunzhong and pseudonym Mengqi Weng , was a polymathic Chinese scientist and statesman of the Song Dynasty...
(1031–1095).
See also
- Big HistoryBig HistoryBig History is a field of historical study that examines history on large scales across long time frames through a multidisciplinary approach, focusing on both the history of the non-human world and on major adaptations and alterations in the human experience...
- Deep historyDeep historyDeep history is a term for the distant past of the human species. Proponents of deep history argue for a definition of history that rests not upon the invention of writing, but upon the evolution of anatomically modern humans...
- Clock of the Long NowClock of the Long NowThe Clock of the Long Now, also called the 10,000-year clock, is a proposed mechanical clock designed to keep time for 10,000 years. The project to build it is part of the Long Now Foundation....
- GeomorphologyGeomorphologyGeomorphology is the scientific study of landforms and the processes that shape them...
- The World Without UsThe World Without UsThe World Without Us is a non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover...
, a non-fiction book by Alan WeismanAlan WeismanAlan H. Weisman is an American author, professor, and journalist.- Education and career :Weisman holds both a bachelor's and master's degree in literature from Northwestern University...
. - Orders of magnitude (time)Orders of magnitude (time)-Seconds:- See also :* Heat Death* Second law of thermodynamics* Big Rip* Big Crunch* Big Bounce* Big Bang* Cyclic model* Dyson's eternal intelligence* Final anthropic principle* Ultimate fate of the Universe* Timeline of the Big Bang...
- PalaeoarchaeologyPalaeoarchaeologyPalaeoarchaeology is the archaeology of deep time.Interest in the field of study began in the late 1850s and early 1860s, with a shift in interest caused by the discoveries made by Boucher de Perthes, after Joseph Prestwich, Hugh Falconer, and John Evans had visited Boucher de Perthes's site in...
- General RelativityGeneral relativityGeneral relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
External links
- ChronoZoom is a timeline for Big History being developed for the International Big History Association by Microsoft ResearchMicrosoft ResearchMicrosoft Research is the research division of Microsoft created in 1991 for developing various computer science ideas and integrating them into Microsoft products. It currently employs Turing Award winners C.A.R. Hoare, Butler Lampson, and Charles P...
and University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA... - Deep Time in Evolution (TV series). Note: this PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
/WGBHWGBH-TVWGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...
website advises “shockwave required.” - Deep Time - A History of the Earth : Interactive Infographic