As the days begin to slowly grow longer from the winter solstice and a new year commences, I have been thinking on the passing of time and our experience of it. It is easy to fall into feeling the years are passing quickly, accelerating even. That time is slipping past faster each year. However in geologic terms, a year is just a tiny snapshot of time. The average human lifetime still only a brief interlude. In reading Marcia Bjornerud's Timefulness, I have been awakened to the modern tendency of "chronophobia", a state of 'time-denial' and a general ignorance of planetary history. That we are living in a state of perpetual short-term thinking. Perhaps this is to be expected in the fast paced world of annual budget reviews, anti-aging creams and minute-by-minute news updates, but to instead adopt a poly-temporal way of seeing (by reading the geologic landscape as a text) is to recognise that there are other versions of this world that came before us, and there will be ones that come after.  I encourage you to find comfort in this continuum.

"To think geologically is to hold in the mind's eye not only what is visible at the surface, but also present in the subsurface, what has and will be." Marcia Bjorerud, Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist can Save the World.

To further encourage your engagement in deep time thinking here's what I've been absorbing on this theme (neatly packaged in a brief round-up for your time-denial convenience)

 READING

Jeanne Gang, Claire Chan and Sarah Kramer: Deep Mapping (The Avery Review)

This essay covers the history and complexities of deep sea ocean mapping; and draws attention to the brilliant Marie Tharp. Tharp was an American geologist and ocean cartographer who created the first scientific map of the ocean floor, leading to the acceptance of the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift. Upon further research, I found her ink drawings are particularly stunning.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey. Robert Macfarlane 

I read this book last year, but it has stuck with me since. It is an account of Macfarlane's various descents below ground, and the philosophical confrontations he experienced. It examines the subsurface through folklore, geology, archaeology, literature, myth and memory.

WATCHING

Super/Collider : Deep Time. Margate Science Festival

This online event hosted by Super/Collider considers how thinking on a "deep time" scale can alter our perception of our environment. Can long term thinking help us to make better decisions that allow us to value and care for our environment? Now available to watch online; you can hear from Robert Macfarlane, Timothy Morton and Flora Bowden as they weigh in on the notion of deep time.

Long Time Sessions

Hosted by The Serpentine and The Long Time Project, the Long Time Sessions is an online talk series on cultivating care for the world beyond our lifetimes. See "Timefulness and Deep Geologic Thinking" episode for an interview with Marcia Bjornerud. All talks are available online.

Marie Tharp with some of her drawings and maps.(Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the estate of Marie Tharp)

ONE MORE THING

In case you missed any of the major spaceflight events of the past year, the New York Times has curated this summary of 2020.

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