Marcia Bjornerud shows how geologists chart the planet's past, explaining how we can determine the pace of solid Earth processes such as mountain building and erosion and comparing them with the more unstable rhythms of the oceans and atmosphere. Timefulness reveals how knowing the rhythms of Earth's deep past and conceiving of time as a geologist does can give us the perspective we need for a more sustainable future. Our everyday lives are shaped by processes that vastly predate us, and our habits will in turn have consequences that will outlast us by generations. But spans of hundreds of years-the time a molecule of carbon dioxide resides in the atmosphere-approach the limits of our comprehension.

The passage of nine days, which is how long a drop of water typically stays in Earth's atmosphere, is something we can easily grasp. 'Why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to our planetary survival: Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales in our planet's long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating for ourselves. Environmental crises in earth's history : causes and consequences Summary Explains why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to planetary survival and offers suggestions for how to create a more time-literate society. Durations and rates of earth phenomena 3.

Object Details author Bjornerud, Marcia Contents Prologue: The allure of timelessness - A call for timefulness - An atlas of time - The pace of the earth - Changes in the air - Great accelerations - Timefulness, utopian and scientific - Epilogue - Appendixes.

Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, African Art.

Thinking like a geologist