Taking the long view

Twenty years ago I read James Lovelock’s book “Gaia” and my world view shifted. I start to have a different view of how long was long, and how this planet worked.

The sand that formed the rocks that lie along the Simonside ridge are thought to have been washed down the giant rivers of Avalonia over 400 million years ago. At that point, in the Cretaceous era, what was to become the Simonside lay roughly on the equator. The CO2 levels were about 2,000 ppm, about five times higher than today and the seas were about at least 50m higher.

Only 22 thousand years ago, there was a mile of ice that lay above those same rocks.

We are living in a most surprising place.