deep time – The Contemplative Mammoth

Thinking in mammoth time

I told a group of students a while ago that we had red pandas in North America until “relatively recently.” Big mistake. “Wait,” one stopped me. “What do you mean by ‘relatively recently?’” Oh, you know. 4.5 million years. I don’t know if paleo cultivates the temporal mind, or if the temporal […]

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

The many scales of climate change, part 1: Tectonic timescales

When you study the climate of the deep past, time is relative. What one scientist may consider a long time — say, a decade — is only a short span of time to someone who routinely thinks in millions of years. Climate change is affected by processes operating at hours, […]

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes