deep time
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Do you ever stop to think how amazing it is that a burning gas and plasma ball emits heat and light 93 million miles from Earth, sediments and magma turn into rock, and continent-sized tectonic plates move around causing uplift at rates of centimeters per year for millions of years until mountains are formed.
Then mountains erode. Rocks become soil. Plant and animal life clings tenaciously generation after generation.
The majestic dance unfolds and we're able to observe, capture it through our lenses, store it as quantum electrical states in the crystalline structure of silicon chips, move the numerical grid of numbers from the camera to the computer with little bits of electricity, save it on magnetized particles deposited on storage media spinning thousands of times per second in our computers, then manipulate, contemplate, and finally transmit the image out into the whole flickr world.
It's pretty amazing! I think about that kind of stuff all the time. I think too much.
But what I'm trying to get at here is the idea of what geologists call "deep time". Not yesterday, today, and tomorrow, or even this generation, the two preceding, and the two following (with heavy emphasis on this one), but MILLIONS of years. The kind of time it took for this mountain to form. In this scale of time, the human lifetime is too inhibiting to even consider.
There are many discussions of this kind of geological time scale - "deep time", but one of the best is John McPhee's "Basin and Range". Here's a passage from the book (p. 129 in my copy):
"If you free yourself from the conventional reaction to a quantity like a million years, you free yourself a bit from the boundaries of human time. And then in a way you do not live at all, but in another way you live forever."
There is an intersection of science and spirituality in this mode of thought.
Comments
Very dramatic!
Posted 31 months ago.
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annabellafranc [deleted] says:
fantastic sky !!!
Posted 31 months ago.
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awsome colors, makes me feel warm and cozy,
but i think if the sun would just be popping
out of the bottom left it would really set
this picture on fire.
Posted 31 months ago.
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Nice effect...even without the explication.
Posted 31 months ago.
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very nice indeed!
Posted 31 months ago.
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Lovely Clouds and colours
SRL
You are invited to I LOVE CLOUDS(Only My
Choice & By Invitation)Group with this
your photo.
BUT FIRST PLEASE READ RULES.
www.flickr.com/groups/75086161@N00/
Posted 31 months ago.
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Beautiful
Posted 31 months ago.
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Yes, you are right--this photo is like the
strata of deep time. I enjoyed the
scientifically philosophical interlude! And I
agree totally with the quote. Maybe that's
why I love New Mexico--both its landscape and
its culture are conducive to that POV.
Posted 31 months ago.
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Dramatic sky - excellent photo! (The quote
from John McPhee is remarkable - for me
especially in view to to the future.)
Posted 31 months ago.
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Fantastic shot! Great quotes too!
Posted 31 months ago.
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this gorgeous shot encourages deep thoughts.
fabulous!
Posted 31 months ago.
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Er no! more often I'm thinking about what
we're going to have for dinner or some other
such mundane thing
Posted 31 months ago.
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:-) Mmmm dinnner.
Posted 31 months ago.
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LOL!!!! =)
Posted 31 months ago.
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dmorris [deleted] says:
WOW! Too "deep" for me. :-)
I just like looking at the pictures! :-)
Great one btw.
Posted 31 months ago.
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Your new name is "Father Nature".
Tis the only proper name for a man that takes
photos like this....
His old name was DJ Magic Mike....LOL
Posted 31 months ago.
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Fantastic!!
Posted 21 months ago.
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