tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post6287242908394393986..comments2024-03-28T12:17:44.126-05:00Comments on TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee"): "Deep Time" and "Deep Space" - part IMinnesotastanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01382888179579245181noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-52158669207597642852015-01-28T08:35:46.073-06:002015-01-28T08:35:46.073-06:00o.k. :.)o.k. :.)Minnesotastanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01382888179579245181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-81202722500419817912015-01-27T23:17:57.797-06:002015-01-27T23:17:57.797-06:00Oh, and you can just call me Aritê. Lady's the...Oh, and you can just call me Aritê. Lady's the title I was awarded in my living history group, but I really don't hold anyone to calling me that. :)Aritê gunê Akasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03619166885106439477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-62123216229926934252015-01-27T21:14:39.490-06:002015-01-27T21:14:39.490-06:00No problem! The Ediacaran fauna fascinate me. All ...No problem! The Ediacaran fauna fascinate me. All sorts of wacky critters.Aritê gunê Akasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03619166885106439477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-63514117519654618342015-01-22T21:13:14.895-06:002015-01-22T21:13:14.895-06:00"Ediacaran" -
The Ediacaran Period, nam..."Ediacaran" -<br /><br />The Ediacaran Period, named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia, is the last geological period of the Neoproterozoic Era and of the Proterozoic Eon, immediately preceding the Cambrian Period, the first period of the Paleozoic Era and of the Phanerozoic Eon.<br /><br />- new word for me. Thank you, dear Lady.Minnesotastanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01382888179579245181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-69579747575067606122015-01-22T19:41:10.551-06:002015-01-22T19:41:10.551-06:00The most effective method I've used teaching d...The most effective method I've used teaching deep time to intro geology labs is to map out the time scale on a roll of paper from one of those old-style calculators and have them unroll it down the hall outside the labroom. I put the boundaries between periods on there and make doodles for various major events (like a dead Tyrannosaurus with a small mammal sniffing it for the K-Pg extinction).<br />I think I do 1.5mm per 200,000 years? That leaves 1.5mm at the end for the emergence of modern humans (basically the width of the pen line).<br />It takes so incredibly long for them to get from single-celled creatures to the Ediacaran fauna (the first multicellular fauna). By the end of the exercise, when they see how short a time modern humans have been around and look back down the hall to see how far away I am, holding the Cambrian end, most of them have huge, astounded eyes, and repeatedly exclaim how much their minds have been blown by how deep deep time really is. That's when I bring up the relative size of the entire Precambrian to what they saw and blow their minds even more.Aritê gunê Akasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03619166885106439477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-5613149708475932482015-01-22T17:13:01.863-06:002015-01-22T17:13:01.863-06:00If you have children, one of the best teaching met...If you have children, one of the best teaching methods about deep time is to compress earth's history into one year. There are a variety of sources for the info on the web -<br /><br />http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/63215<br />http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/31/history_of_earth_video_of_earth_s_timeline_compressed_into_one_minute.html<br /><br />Each day at breakfast or dinner you talk about what happened to the earth. There's nothing to talk about for most of the years (not even any nucleated cells until July, none of the dinosaurs they expect until December.<br /><br />But you will be busy talking for the last hour of New Year's Eve.Minnesotastanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01382888179579245181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-84496855543811877652015-01-22T14:26:51.708-06:002015-01-22T14:26:51.708-06:00A few years ago, I realized I had no sense of deep...A few years ago, I realized I had no sense of deep time. Did homo sapiens leave Africa 6,000 years ago, 60,000 years ago, 600,000 years ago? I had no idea. When did humans and chimpanzees diverge in the family tree of life? No idea. <br /><br />I now have a reasonable map of deep time in my head, going back a couple hundred million years. If I learn something new, I can place it on that map and get a better understanding of, well, everything! This gives me a lot of pleasure. <br /><br />I can recommend Dawkins's book The Ancestor's Tale. Also the web site OneZoom is fantastic. It allow you to zoom in on the tree of life and see when various branches diverged. There are good books about human migration, say over the past 50-100 thousand years, but unfortunately I can't remember any titles.jbnoreply@blogger.com