Category Archives: deep time

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again: an introduction to How the Earth Works

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Chris Rowan

For a couple of years now, I’ve been telling a story at the beginning of the introductory geology course I teach, called How the Earth Works. I like to think it gives a flavour of the kinds of stories you can tell about the Earth, if you know how to look: stories of how the world slowly remakes itself over hundreds of millions of years, of how the very high was once the very low, and will be again. This is that story. Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, basics, deep time, geology, geomorphology, ice and glaciers, outcrops, past worlds, rocks & minerals, science education, tectonics

The making of an angular unconformity: Hutton’s unconformity at Siccar Point

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Chris Rowan

Photos and video from a geo-pilgrimage: an in-depth look at Hutton’s Unconformity, and the geological history that it represents. Continue reading →

Categories: deep time, geology, outcrops, Palaeozoic, photos, structures

Ten million feet upon the stair

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Chris Rowan

During my time in Edinburgh, I lived in an apartment in a nice old tenement building: several floors of individual flats, all connected by an internal communal staircase. The building is at least a century old, and because this was … Continue reading →

Categories: deep time, environment, geomorphology

Book Review: Written in Stone by Brian Switek

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Chris Rowan

Palaeoblogger extraordinaire Brian Switek has often expressed frustration at the fact that many recent popularisers of evolution have a habit of downplaying the importance of the fossil record in studies of evolution. However, when reading the opening chapters of Written … Continue reading →

Categories: deep time, fossils, public science, reviews