What Does Our Perspective on Deep Time Have to Offer in a New Millennium?

Abstract

As you read this article it is the year 2000. The advent of this New Year's Day piqued the kind of anticipation (running the gamut from hope to dread) that always accompanies such milestones on the scale that we use to measure the passage of time;lf those of us following the Gregorian calendar, that is. In the Jewish calendar, for instance, it was 23 Tevet, 5760—not nearly as ominous-sounding. The awareness of the passage of time, the ability to record the present, learn from the past, and anticipate the future, are important aspects of human consciousness—they separate us from all other organisms on this planet. This awareness and fascination is evident in the words of our storytellers (“Once upon a time…”, “Long, long ago…”) as well as in religious scripture (“In the beginning…”- Genesis , “To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven;lf”- Ecclesiastes , set to music by the Byrds ). Paleontologists, of course, have a different perspective of time than most humans—we tend to think of what a historian friend of mine refers to as “deep time.” Even those of us who primarily study the Quaternary routinely consider spans around a hundred times that of recorded history, and our planet is one million times older than the oldest written records. The record of life extends back roughly 3.5 billion years, a span of time almost impossible to grasp, even for those of us accustomed to talking about “deep time.” Human historical records only subdivide the most recent, …