I've been thinking and conversing a lot, recently, on geology. In alternate universes, I imagine studying architecture or geology in college. In going into engineering, excitingly, I get to touch on both of these.
When I think about geologic timescales I return to thinking about scaling: from a lived-experience day-to-day, geology appears inert. And to objects and processes operating on geologic timescales, culture and biology are negligible perturbations at the surface. The scales do not match at all. Stewart Brand's famous diagram captures this:
When I think about geologic timescales I return to thinking about scaling: from a lived-experience day-to-day, geology appears inert. And to objects and processes operating on geologic timescales, culture and biology are negligible perturbations at the surface. The scales do not match at all. Stewart Brand's famous diagram captures this:
I love this diagram as a powerful metaphor for inherent timescales of different facets of the world, but some of what is getting weird in the 21st century is a blending of these layers. This is partly due to a growing understanding of natural systems (i.e. "nature" moving faster than anticipated), and some of it is due to other, human-driven layers trickling into the slower zone.
(N.B. when I say "geologic timescale" I mean something on the order of a million years, or longer, as per Allen 2008, which is an amazing paper that links land surface dynamics to tectonic timescales.)
In this brief interview (another kudos to Pierie!!), Liam Young discusses how product design today makes "geologic objects," through the long-lasting effects of landscape change through the construction of supply chains, resource extraction, and use of materials that degrade on geologic timescales. Other biota can do this, too—the Methuselah tree is so old that we can start to think of it as a geologic object, perhaps. Outside of product design in the prototypical sense, humans construct geologic objects whenever scale gets to the point of landscape, which then evolves on geologic time. Examples include huge earthmoving projects (lifting cities, land art) and long-lasting waste. (I highly recommend that last link, Making the Geologic Now.)
I've enjoyed spending time with geology-minded people because, as a generalization, they don't seem terribly stressed out about the loss of civilization. The end goal of human activity is to become just another (messy, object-strewn) sedimentary layer or two in the interior of the Earth. I don't mean to imply that climate action today isn't necessary, but we need to think realistically about long-term (geologic timescales) results of human civilization. It's going to end! Thank goodness! Anthropogenic climate change mitigation will help us stick around a little longer (another 10,000 years, perhaps?), and for that I think it's worthwhile; in framing geologic objects as a link between lived experience and geologic timescales (essentially through a really long-term life-cycle analysis) I think we can more gracefully navigate adaptation within rapid climate change.
I just picked up Jenny Odell's book, How To Do Nothing. I've only just started reading, but I am enjoying the sentiment so much. One way to "do nothing," for me, has been to give more attention to things that don't seem to be "doing" anything—looking at the winds, looking at rocks. This feels like a decoupling of my attention from capitalistic participation (consuming, producing). I'm interested in geologic objects but I'm also interested in not being stressed out all the time.
In some (related, I guess) news, I'll be working at the U.S. Geological Survey this summer, researching sediment flows in the SF Bay. I am hoping to re-read DeLanda's A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, and finally read Reisner's Cadillac Desert. Please let me know if you want to join.
Slowing down,
Lukas