Deep time is a term introduced and applied by John McPhee to the concept of

geologic time The geologic time scale, or geological time scale, (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochrono ...

in his book ''Basin and Range'' (1981), parts of which originally appeared in the '' New Yorker'' magazine. The philosophical concept of geological time was developed in the 18th century by

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

geologist

James Hutton James Hutton (; 3 June O.S.172614 June 1726 New Style. – 26 March 1797) was a Scottish geologist, agriculturalist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist and physician. Often referred to as the father of modern geology, he played a key role i ...

(1726–1797); his "system of the habitable Earth" was a deistic mechanism keeping the world eternally suitable for humans. The modern concept entails huge changes over the

age of the Earth The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years This age may represent the age of Earth's accretion, or core formation, or of the material from which Earth formed. This dating is based on evidence from radiometric age-dating of ...

which has been determined to be, after a long and complex history of developments, around 4.55 billion years.

Scientific concept

Hutton based his view of deep time on a form of geochemistry that had developed in Scotland and Scandinavia from the 1750s onward. As mathematician John Playfair, one of Hutton's friends and colleagues in the

Scottish Enlightenment The Scottish Enlightenment ( sco, Scots Enlichtenment, gd, Soillseachadh na h-Alba) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century ...

, remarked upon seeing the

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...

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". Early geologists such as Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) and Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740–1799) had developed ideas of geological strata forming from water through chemical processes, which Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817) developed into a theory known as Neptunism, envisaging the slow crystallisation of minerals in the ancient oceans of the Earth to form rock. Hutton's innovative 1785 theory, based on

Plutonism Plutonism is the geologic theory that the igneous rocks forming the Earth originated from intrusive magmatic activity, with a continuing gradual process of weathering and erosion wearing away rocks, which were then deposited on the sea bed, re- ...

, visualised an endless cyclical 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 is a name given to various notable geological sites in Scotland identified by the 18th-century Scottish geologist James Hutton as places where the junction between two types of rock formations can be seen. This geological ph ...

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 Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier ...

(1769–1832) put forward ideas of past ages, and geologists such as

Adam Sedgwick Adam Sedgwick (; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on W ...

(1785–1873) incorporated Werner's ideas into concepts of

catastrophism In geology, catastrophism theorises that the Earth has largely been shaped by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope. This contrasts with uniformitarianism (sometimes called gradualism), according to which slow increment ...

; Sedgwick inspired his university student Charles Darwin to exclaim "What a capital hand is Sedgewick icfor drawing large cheques upon the Bank of Time!". In a competing theory,

Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He is best known as the author of ''Principles of Geolo ...

in his ''Principles of Geology'' (1830–1833) developed Hutton's comprehension of endless deep time as a crucial scientific concept into uniformitarianism. 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'' (1999), as does paleontologist and '' Nature'' editor

Henry Gee Henry Ernest Gee (born 24 April 1962 in London, England) is a British people, British Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist and senior editor of the scientific journal ''Nature (journal), Nature''. Early ...

in ''In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life'' (2001)

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...

's '' Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle'' (1987) also deals in large part with the evolution of the concept. In ''Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle'', Gould cited one of the metaphors McPhee used in explaining the concept of deep time:

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 and polymath

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic G ...

(Ibn Sina, 973–1037), and by the Chinese naturalist and polymath

Shen Kuo Shen Kuo (; 1031–1095) or Shen Gua, courtesy name Cunzhong (存中) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (夢溪翁),Yao (2003), 544. was a Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Shen wa ...

(1031–1095). The Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Berry (1914–2009) explored spiritual implications of the concept of deep time. Berry proposes that a deep understanding of the history and functioning of the evolving universe is a necessary inspiration and guide for our own effective functioning as individuals and as a species. This view has greatly influenced the development of

deep ecology Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas. Deep ecolo ...

and

ecophilosophy Ecosophy or ecophilosophy (a portmanteau of ecological philosophy) is a philosophy of ecological harmony or equilibrium. The term was coined by the French post-structuralist philosopher and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari and the Norwegian father ...

. The experiential nature of the experience of deep time has also greatly influenced the work of Joanna Macy. H. G. Wells and

Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. ...

regarded the difficulties of coping with the concept of deep time as exaggerated:

"The use of different scales is simply a matter of practice," they said in ''
The Science of Life ''The Science of Life'' is a book written by H. G. Wells, Julian Huxley and G. P. Wells, published in three volumes by The Waverley Publishing Company Ltd in 1929–30, giving a popular account of all major aspects of biology as known in the 19 ...
'' (1929). "We very soon get used to maps, though they are constructed on scales down to a hundred-millionth of natural size ... to grasp geological time all that is needed is to stick tight to some magnitude which shall be the unit on the new and magnified scale—a million years is probably the most convenient—to grasp its meaning once and for all by an effort of imagination, and then to think of all passage of geological time in terms of this unit."H. G. Wells, Julian S. Huxley, and G. P. Wells, ''The Science of Life'' (New York: The Literary Guild, 1934; orig. publ. 1929), p. 326.

Footnotes

General references

Web

* * * * * *

Books

* * * * Rossi, Paolo (1984). ''The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth and the History of Nations from Hooke to Vico'', tr. by Lydia Cochrane, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 338, . * * * *

Journals

* * *

External links

"The benefits of embracing 'deep time' in a year like 2020" (Vincent Ialenti)
BBC Future.
ChronoZoom
is a timeline for Big History being developed for the

International Big History Association International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * International (Kevin Michael album), ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * International (New Order album), ' ...

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

and University of California, Berkeley
Deep Time
in ''Evolution'' (TV series). Note: This PBS/

WGBH WGBH may refer to: * WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States ** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation ** WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...

website advises Flash Player and Shockwave Player installation.
Deep Time – A History of the Earth: Interactive Infographic

Deep Time Walk App – A new story of the living Earth: Interactive Walking Experience

"Embracing 'Deep Time' Thinking" (Vincent Ialenti)
NPR Cosmos & Culture.
"Pondering 'Deep Time' Could Inspire New Ways to View Climate Change" (Vincent Ialenti)
NPR Cosmos & Culture. {{Chronology Evolution Geochronology Historical geology History of Earth science Time