the.com/deep time
the geological realization that history did not start with you, or humans, or much of anything recognizable.
means the vast, almost incomprehensible scale of earth's 4.6-billion-year age, in which human existence is a rounding error.
from coined in the spirit of 18th-century geologist james hutton, who stared at scottish rock layers and concluded the earth showed no sign of a beginning; writer john mcphee popularized the term in 1981's basin and range.
hutton's realizationrock strata implied millions of years, not thousands
human spanhomo sapiens is 0.004 percent of earth's history
mcphee's trickcompress earth's age to one calendar year to grasp it
in that yearhumans show up december 31st, seconds before midnight