4 ms·

The Geological Sublime

75 points by prismatic 1y ago

alexpotato 1y ago
One of the wildest parts of geology from a "meta" level is that plate tectonics as a theory wasn't fully accepted until the 1960s! "Plate tectonics came to be accepted by geoscientists after seafloor spreading was validated in the mid-to-late 1960s." (from the Plate Tectonics Wikipedia page) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
- BitwiseFool 1y ago
  Plate tectonics created a serious rift in the Geology community, with both supporters and detractors citing serious faults.
  - griffzhowl 1y ago
    Yes, it was ground-breaking (too easy)
  - EdwardDiego 1y ago
    Well that was anticline-matic.
  - wpollock 1y ago
    Geology jokes are beneath me.
    - BitwiseFool 1y ago
      That's a strike against your character but I'll let it slip.
- msisk6 1y ago
  The idea that the surface of the earth consists of a bunch of rock "rafts" floating around on a hidden mantle, occasionally running into each other -- with some falling and others rising -- seems rather crazy. It took a lot of data to convince folks it was real.
  - griffzhowl 1y ago
    Still, the 1960s feels very late for something that has become so foundational to our understanding of geology. One obvious analogy is the Copernican revolution where the crazy idea that the entire Earth is spinning on a daily basis was recognized centuries ago. With plate tectonics there was the major clue with how the outline of South America fits so neatly into Africa, and I assume that it was known that the rocks were similar on each side of the ocean. Nevertheless, if the idea remained speculative till the sea-floor spreading was observed then I suppose it had to wait till we had robust enough subs to get down there to see it.
    - Pet_Ant 1y ago
      > Still, the 1960s feels very late for something that has become so foundational to our understanding of geology. One obvious analogy is the Copernican revolution where the crazy idea that the entire Earth is spinning on a daily basis was recognized centuries ago. The Gregorian calendar is really the problem because it amplifies relative numbers. The agricultural evolution that started modern humans as a culture was 10,000 years ago. If we think of the current year as 12,025 ME and Copperncian revolution as 11,514 ME I think it puts in a proper scope as all relatively recent and contemporary event. Gregorian calendar is like standing too close to a Monet or pointillist painting, you lose the scope of the big picture.
- aaroninsf 1y ago
  John McPhee's wonderful and Pulitzer-winning non-fiction natural history The Annals of the Former World about geology—specifically North American geology as exposed in highway road cuts! This title which was collects a series of books originally published in series and only collected in a single volume subsequently, happened to have been written over the years during which plate tectonic theory was still being fiercely debated, indeed some of the characters contested it. By that happy accident the book is thus simultaneously several things: - a marvelous natural history of the United States revealed through characteristically engaging and evocative personal narratives - a look at North American geology which over the course of the books collected is increasingly revealed - a very effective communication of what geological _deep time_ really means, and - a fascinating look into the inner workings of scientific inquiry and discourse: messy, passionate, exquisite, invaluable Of particular local interest is the must-read Assembling California, the final book collected, which contains a duly famous second by second account of how the Loma Prieta earthquake went down. A nice introduction: https://californiacurated.com/2024/09/06/looking-back-john-mcphees-assembling-california-a-journey-through-geology-and-time/ https://californiacurated.com/2024/09/06/looking-back-john-m...
  - alexpotato 1y ago
    Love John McPhee and have read a lot of his books so will have to check out your recommendation. His book The Survival of the Bark Canoe led directly to me learning about crooked knives and then starting https://crookedknives.com https://crookedknives.com All of his books are phenomenal.
- booleandilemma 1y ago
  And yet the continents look like a jigsaw puzzle to any schoolchild.
turnsout 1y ago
> As for the amber stream pouring into my gas tank as I stand at the self-service pump on my way to Walden, I now take it and all the other plant-based fossil fuels to be an infinity of petrified sunlight, best understood through the compound lens of the Lyell-Darwin eye. This is the most nihilistic essay I've read in a long time. It contemplates climate change and the extinction of humanity with a lyrical nonchalance that is misanthropic at best. Keep pumping that liquid sunshine, Lewis. Every single one of us needs to wake the fuck up. The author is right that the planet itself will be fine without us. If we want to survive as a species, we can't bask in decadence and romanticize the decline.
- patcon 1y ago
  I think humans have a coping mechanism to find some beauty in things they're forced to participate in, good or bad. Maybe there's some small edge of anti-fragility in that -- we seem more willing to confront beauty and inspect its contours
- CalRobert 1y ago
  “Wine is sunlight, held together by water” - and a renewable resource too if we don’t screw things up. I share your worries though.
- MarkusQ 1y ago
  There is also a sort of blindness to the same sort of processes Hyde is quite reasonably (and evocatively) gobsmacked by: if Darwin could be said to have invented a sort of integral Calculus to grapple with deep time, a differential version is just as needed to look at changes in the rate at which the rate at which changes are changing, and perhaps on to even higher derivatives. Too many of these melancholy (or as you say, nihilistic) takes are rooted in a model of the form "we are here, now, and if things go on as they have been will inevitably wind up there, by then" and fail to acknowledge that things are not going to "go on like they have been". Things are changing, but the rate, manner and even direction of changes are also changing, and we need to recognize that as well.
- tuyiown 1y ago
  > Every single one of us needs to wake the fuck up. And how do you plan to achieve that ? The denial of reality of human psychology and politics is one of the reasons denial of climate change is still rampant. Yelling at people with urgency only works that much, and it also amplifies resistance. In the end, everyone needs to wake the fuck up implies a sheer resolution of the need for change, and you won't bring that by schooling people, yelling at them or even violence. The inevitable is there, do what you think is best, tell what you think is best and you'll probably have maximized your contribution already. Contemplating how things plays out in the end is not nihilistic, it's a form of acceptance of the real hard truth about the grip we have, as individuals, on the mater.
rriley 1y ago
This reminded me of The Overstory by Richard Powers, once you start seeing the world on the time and spatial scales of trees, everything shifts. Human timelines feel like flickers. It’s not just a change in perspective; it’s a change in what even counts as meaningful.
- rriley 1y ago
  Google Earth Timelapse is a great tool to visualize our world in different scales of space and time: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/ https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/
- patcon 1y ago
  This story was so unexpectedly emotional. I'd never read a book where I so palpably felt that the main characters were in fact the non-conscious ones.
- griffzhowl 1y ago
  Somebody told me that in the Tibetan culture, partly because of the centrality of belief in reincarnation, they often think on timescales of thousands of years
- njarboe 1y ago
  And then there is the timescales of mountains, rivers, and oceans.

75 points by prismatic 1y ago

One of the wildest parts of geology from a "meta" level is that plate tectonics as a theory wasn't fully accepted until the 1960s! "Plate tectonics came to be accepted by geoscientists after seafloor spreading was validated in the mid-to-late 1960s." (from the Plate Tectonics Wikipedia page) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics

BitwiseFool 1y ago
Plate tectonics created a serious rift in the Geology community, with both supporters and detractors citing serious faults.
- griffzhowl 1y ago
  Yes, it was ground-breaking (too easy)
- EdwardDiego 1y ago
  Well that was anticline-matic.
- wpollock 1y ago
  Geology jokes are beneath me.
  - BitwiseFool 1y ago
    That's a strike against your character but I'll let it slip.
msisk6 1y ago
The idea that the surface of the earth consists of a bunch of rock "rafts" floating around on a hidden mantle, occasionally running into each other -- with some falling and others rising -- seems rather crazy. It took a lot of data to convince folks it was real.
- griffzhowl 1y ago
  Still, the 1960s feels very late for something that has become so foundational to our understanding of geology. One obvious analogy is the Copernican revolution where the crazy idea that the entire Earth is spinning on a daily basis was recognized centuries ago. With plate tectonics there was the major clue with how the outline of South America fits so neatly into Africa, and I assume that it was known that the rocks were similar on each side of the ocean. Nevertheless, if the idea remained speculative till the sea-floor spreading was observed then I suppose it had to wait till we had robust enough subs to get down there to see it.
  - Pet_Ant 1y ago
    > Still, the 1960s feels very late for something that has become so foundational to our understanding of geology. One obvious analogy is the Copernican revolution where the crazy idea that the entire Earth is spinning on a daily basis was recognized centuries ago. The Gregorian calendar is really the problem because it amplifies relative numbers. The agricultural evolution that started modern humans as a culture was 10,000 years ago. If we think of the current year as 12,025 ME and Copperncian revolution as 11,514 ME I think it puts in a proper scope as all relatively recent and contemporary event. Gregorian calendar is like standing too close to a Monet or pointillist painting, you lose the scope of the big picture.
aaroninsf 1y ago
John McPhee's wonderful and Pulitzer-winning non-fiction natural history The Annals of the Former World about geology—specifically North American geology as exposed in highway road cuts! This title which was collects a series of books originally published in series and only collected in a single volume subsequently, happened to have been written over the years during which plate tectonic theory was still being fiercely debated, indeed some of the characters contested it. By that happy accident the book is thus simultaneously several things: - a marvelous natural history of the United States revealed through characteristically engaging and evocative personal narratives - a look at North American geology which over the course of the books collected is increasingly revealed - a very effective communication of what geological _deep time_ really means, and - a fascinating look into the inner workings of scientific inquiry and discourse: messy, passionate, exquisite, invaluable Of particular local interest is the must-read Assembling California, the final book collected, which contains a duly famous second by second account of how the Loma Prieta earthquake went down. A nice introduction: https://californiacurated.com/2024/09/06/looking-back-john-mcphees-assembling-california-a-journey-through-geology-and-time/ https://californiacurated.com/2024/09/06/looking-back-john-m...
- alexpotato 1y ago
  Love John McPhee and have read a lot of his books so will have to check out your recommendation. His book The Survival of the Bark Canoe led directly to me learning about crooked knives and then starting https://crookedknives.com https://crookedknives.com All of his books are phenomenal.
booleandilemma 1y ago
And yet the continents look like a jigsaw puzzle to any schoolchild.

turnsout 1y ago

> As for the amber stream pouring into my gas tank as I stand at the self-service pump on my way to Walden, I now take it and all the other plant-based fossil fuels to be an infinity of petrified sunlight, best understood through the compound lens of the Lyell-Darwin eye. This is the most nihilistic essay I've read in a long time. It contemplates climate change and the extinction of humanity with a lyrical nonchalance that is misanthropic at best. Keep pumping that liquid sunshine, Lewis. Every single one of us needs to wake the fuck up. The author is right that the planet itself will be fine without us. If we want to survive as a species, we can't bask in decadence and romanticize the decline.

patcon 1y ago
I think humans have a coping mechanism to find some beauty in things they're forced to participate in, good or bad. Maybe there's some small edge of anti-fragility in that -- we seem more willing to confront beauty and inspect its contours
CalRobert 1y ago
“Wine is sunlight, held together by water” - and a renewable resource too if we don’t screw things up. I share your worries though.
MarkusQ 1y ago
There is also a sort of blindness to the same sort of processes Hyde is quite reasonably (and evocatively) gobsmacked by: if Darwin could be said to have invented a sort of integral Calculus to grapple with deep time, a differential version is just as needed to look at changes in the rate at which the rate at which changes are changing, and perhaps on to even higher derivatives. Too many of these melancholy (or as you say, nihilistic) takes are rooted in a model of the form "we are here, now, and if things go on as they have been will inevitably wind up there, by then" and fail to acknowledge that things are not going to "go on like they have been". Things are changing, but the rate, manner and even direction of changes are also changing, and we need to recognize that as well.
tuyiown 1y ago
> Every single one of us needs to wake the fuck up. And how do you plan to achieve that ? The denial of reality of human psychology and politics is one of the reasons denial of climate change is still rampant. Yelling at people with urgency only works that much, and it also amplifies resistance. In the end, everyone needs to wake the fuck up implies a sheer resolution of the need for change, and you won't bring that by schooling people, yelling at them or even violence. The inevitable is there, do what you think is best, tell what you think is best and you'll probably have maximized your contribution already. Contemplating how things plays out in the end is not nihilistic, it's a form of acceptance of the real hard truth about the grip we have, as individuals, on the mater.

rriley 1y ago

This reminded me of The Overstory by Richard Powers, once you start seeing the world on the time and spatial scales of trees, everything shifts. Human timelines feel like flickers. It’s not just a change in perspective; it’s a change in what even counts as meaningful.

rriley 1y ago
Google Earth Timelapse is a great tool to visualize our world in different scales of space and time: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/ https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/
patcon 1y ago
This story was so unexpectedly emotional. I'd never read a book where I so palpably felt that the main characters were in fact the non-conscious ones.
griffzhowl 1y ago
Somebody told me that in the Tibetan culture, partly because of the centrality of belief in reincarnation, they often think on timescales of thousands of years
njarboe 1y ago
And then there is the timescales of mountains, rivers, and oceans.