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Not for “tl;dr” simpletons. This website rewards time and thought. Suckers seeking instant oversimplifications, scarcely skimming the surface, should retreat back to the rest of the Internet.
No “artificial intelligence” here — everything is by and for real humans.
Email: normsperling@gmail.com
Postal: 2625 Alcatraz Avenue #235, Berkeley, California 94705 USA.
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Touch Deep Time™
© 2024 Norman Sperling
I’m collecting the first Geological Column of rocks formed during every epoch in Earth’s history. Feel every layer!
THE CHALLENGE OF EARTH’S LAYERS
The layers of the “Geological Column” are pages of Earth’s diary, with the oldest on the bottom, newest on top. Epochs are somewhat like chapters.
Earth’s turbulent history leaves a jumbled collage. There isn’t a continuous story in any single place. Cross-sections skip most layers because conditions often erode rock rather than depositing it. You can see layers from some epochs, but nowhere near all, in a hike down the Grand Canyon. Its “Great Unconformity” skips 1,200,000,000 years: ¼ of the Earth’s age! Different layers eroded away in other places.
52 LAYERS
I collect specimens from each of the
38 epochs, Cambrian to Holocene,
Plus the unofficial Anthropocene,
Plus all 10 Precambrian periods in the Proterozoic Eon,
Plus all 3 accessible eras before that, in the Archean Eon.
That’s 4 times more layers than the Grand Canyon’s 13.
As of March 2024, 46 out of 52 reachable layers were already in hand. >90% of those specimens are pictured on The 4.5-Billion-Year-Long Page. Completion probably in 2024, 11 years after starting. (Other jobs and projects intrude, as did Covid and its recession.)
MY CRITERIA
Every epoch outcrops somewhere in the United States. Locating layers is this project’s biggest challenge. There’s no central source to look them up in. (Scholars: that’s a hint.)
Epoch boundaries, and ages determined for layers, change from time to time. Epochs get re-named. I painstakingly seek the best research available, to find where layers are exposed.
I drive throughout North America to the exposed rock layers.
I collect only where that is legal and proper — never in National Parks.
I walk and climb to the layer, though I’m no longer nimble. Road-cuts are great.
I collect 5 softballish-size specimens, and 5 golfballish-size specimens.
Specimens must be tough, not crumbly.
Specimens must not be intrinsically valuable — so I avoid fossils or gems.
These rocks don’t require any special security. The public can fondle them as much as they please. Seeing the whole sequence together turns ordinary rocks into an extraordinary experience.
THE 2 OLDEST LAYERS
Rocks over 3,600,000,000 years old are very rare because Earth’s crust was barely starting to solidify, and many events have intervened since then. Rare, valuable specimens have been recovered by researchers from remote non-US outcrops far beyond my driving range. They merit protection. The only 2 layers I can’t collect myself:
Eoarchean Era.
While I can’t collect Hadean Eon rocks from Earth, other planetesimals condensed at the same time, but not as parts of Earth. Pieces of those have since landed on Earth as chondrite meteorites. They’re scientifically important, but abundant and therefore affordable.
To complete those gaps, seek reputable dealers.
SEQUENCES FOR SALE
* * *
A cool, memorable, novel, and “few-nique” attraction
* * *
Handle Earth’s rocks in order of age. Feel a rock formed when Earth was a snowball. Hold another from just after an asteroid crash wiped out many species. Others formed when dominant life forms were algae … or Tyrannosaurus rex … or mastodons.
Museums usually don’t let you touch their specimens: look but don’t touch. You can handle my specimens without harming them.
Sequences are great for museums and universities and collectors. Long walls, aisles, or staircases make impressive settings. A spiral around a pillar could save space with the smaller specimens. At least 5 sets must go on public exhibit. This page will link to them.
• 5 sequences of 52 ~softballish-size specimens: $15,000 each.
• 5 sequences of 52 ~golfballish-size specimens: $10,000 each.
The buyer whose money arrives first gets to select first from each epoch’s picture on The 4.5-Billion-Year-Long Page, which show >90% of rocks in-hand as of March 2024. Next-paid, next-served.
Do you know who should buy a set? Please tell them!
I’m keeping the last set. I will not collect more, or in other places, or other variations.
Touch Deep Time Compared to its Big Competitor, The Grand Canyon
Touch
Grand Deep
Canyon Time
Scenic grandeur world class! indoors
Of 54 possible epochs, etc. 13 52; last 2 elsewhere
Convenient to get to no make it so
Specimen sizes awesomely enormous hand
Specimens in easy reach no yes
Array vertical only fit your space
Sets 1, in place 10
Price not for sale $10,000 or $15,000
Local hazards heat stroke, make yours safe
mule rash
MASS MEDIA
Books
The stories of the rocks, and of collecting them, will be published. A vertical scroll or accordion-fold book, stacked like the geological column, would be cool.
Please suggest who can manufacture a scroll or accordion-fold book, preferably in a Print-on-Demand system.
To be alerted when book versions go on sale, email normsperling@gmail.com . Paperback PoD 978-0913399-54-5; Accordion-fold or scroll 978-0913399-55-2; Ebook 978-0913399-53-8; audiobook 978-0913399-56-9.
Video/TV/articles/podcasts/etc.
The “Touch Deep Time” project would make splendid videos, articles, podcasts, etc. Who would be the right producer or the right author? Describe what you propose and offer, in an email to normsperling@gmail.com .
GRATITUDES
Special thanks to the most helpful geologist: Dr. James St. John, Ohio State University at Newark. https://www.jsjgeology.net/Home-page.html .
Thanks to the Earth Sciences Library at the University of California, Berkeley.
Still indispensable despite some aging: the 6 Centennial Field Guides of the Geological Society of America, Decade of North American Geology, 1980s.
Wikipedia has conscientiously improved its science entries. For this project, it seems to be almost always right, though very uneven. Please improve articles within your expertise and Wikipedia’s standards.