Page 39 - The Restless Earth Fossils

3

So Many Fossils,

So Little Time

▲ ▲ ▲

A CHINESE PROVERB SAYS, “A PICTURE’S MEANING CAN EXPRESS TEN
thousand words.” In 1787, geologist James Hutton (1726–1797)
saw a geological feature much like the one shown on the opposite
page. That feature, consisting of two rock layers lying at sharp
angles to each other and separated by an eroded surface, is known
in geological terms as an angular unconformity. It inspired
Hutton to write two massive books (Theory of the Earth, volumes
1 & 2). He was justified in exceeding the Chinese proverb’s
expectations, because the image of the rocks revealed something
profound: that the world was a very old place. Fossils implied the
same thing, but not always so graphically all in one place.
Nearly 200 years later, the writer John McPhee struggled, as
all of us must, to understand the vast stretches of time demon-
strated by Earth’s layered topography. He coined the term deep
time as a label. He states in his book Basin and Range, “Numbers
do not seem to work well with regard to deep time. Any number
above a couple of thousand years—fifty thousand, fifty mil-
lion—will with nearly equal effect awe the imagination to the
point of paralysis.”
The image deserves a closer look.

3

RE_Fossils2print.indd 38 3/17/09 8:59:25 AM