The Scale of Geologic Time

The concept of geologic time is one of the most important intellectual developments in scientific thought. Understanding geology and its processes is inextricably linked to time. And yet, geologic time is extremely difficult to grasp simply because of its vastness.

This video explains geologic time using three different approaches. The first portion shows two photographs of the Green River in Utah that were taken 97 years apart in the same position and orientation. The photos show very little change in the landscape, indicative of the extremely slow rates of geologic processes, i. e. longer than one human life.

The second approach uses a calendar and the third approach uses a yardstick to illustrate the length of geologic time by indicating where significant geologic events would occur respectively, by the month and date or within the length of the yard stick.

[Smile-zy]

This feels like a video from 2006 and i like it

[tammo]

32 million years in the future: the US finally changes to the metric system

[Jwinius]

Using the metric system instead, imagine geological time as a distance of 1 millimeter (mm) for every year. On this scale, every kilometer (km) represents 1 million years and every thousand kilometers a billion years. Thus, a distance of 4, 567 kilometers (according to the IUGS) -- roughly from the city center of Seattle WA to Guatemala -- represents Earth's entire geological timescale. Yet, the first visible lifeforms, the Ediacaran biota, appear at only 635 km (extreme southern Oregon) from today, the Cambrian explosion (of new lifeforms) is at 538.8 km (north of Kirk OR), the Paleozoic ends at 251.9 km (Mt. Hood OR), the dinosaurs go extinct at 66 km (north of Electron WA), humanoids first appear at 2.8 km (within Seattle), modern humans at 300 meters (m), the last Neanderthals die out at 40 m, the Gregorian calendar starts at 202.5 centimeters (cm), Columbus discovers the New World at 53.3 cm and WWII starts at 8, 5 cm.

[Mewhenifinalltgetallthebugs]

I'm putting those dates on my calendar

[noelvalenzarro]

I hope this helps a lot of people put some more thought into deep time

[robinhodgkinson]

Every time we have a major flood or landslide or earthquake in some area that reshapes the landscape and we say, wow that’s never happened in living memory, I like to think just how many thousands of times that’s actually happened there, before us newcomers arrived in that place, or indeed on this Earth. Go back a billion years and nothing would be recognisable. The earth’s surface is constantly being broken down and rebuilt.

[hellodean]

I really liked the calendar comparison, a very good way of visualizing it.

[jamesstrawn]

I grew up in western Nebraska where all sorts of fossils can be found around the base of the bluffs that rise from the prairie. When whole fossils are preserved, with some exceptions, you have to think of things happening quickly. Massive changes can be slow and gradual, but they can also happen in minutes, as we saw with Mt. St. Helen's. Circumspection about commonly repeated ages and periods is sensible. It seems more and more sensible as the story (narrative) repeatedly changes through the course of a person's life.

[prototropo]

For me the lesson is that momentous events, like the emergence of simplest life, are at first spaced very far from each other, but as complexity is compounded, the great developments beging to snowball. From eukaryotic to bilateral to tetrapodal to terrestrial anatomy, the potential for deep, technological intelligence gathers momentum, until today we risk rolling faster than our own potential can hold together. Time to learn self-control?

[EricLS]

Far and away the most striking example of geologic time for me was in a Myron Cook video. He is standing at a shale that is 4000 feet high, and then mentions that is built up at a rate of 1/4 century.*
My head about exploded when I realized it took 192, 000 CENTURIES to make a shale that large. Just boggles the mind.

[kevinwilson]

James, Paul, Veronica, Sammy………..Nice work. Truly. Thanks. Kevin

[tenfodaddy]

Excellent, excellent- thank you for making this available to all of us. Real science by real people and real specialists in the field. A breath of fresh air after all the junk AI science content channels.

[romanvarcolac]

Man, both the Roman Empire and the United States submitted their assignments at the last instant.

[humansustainability]

good assembly and description of this data.
geologic time should include geologic events not just biologic events :)

[detroitredwings]

At my desk job time passes at a geological pace.

[toughenupfluffy]

"65, 000, 000 years ago dinosaurs died out." Birds: "Excuse me?"

[edwardfindley]

This is an example of why you should live and not care what other people think. Our lives arent even measurable in the big picture.

[tonyfield]

A shame religious fundamentalists will never sit through this clip, or if they did, do so without throwing a shoe at the TV.

[arthurlevine]

Looking at the comments, perhaps I'm the only one who finds this scary. It feels like if I contemplate on it too deeply it could become a horror that could damage me. On the other hand, perhaps liberating.

[rene]

5:50 11.59.75 and 11.59.97 pm.
Of course the Imperial minutes where there are 100 seconds in 1 minute.