Deep Time

A 400 Day Year

layered rock

We walk the Gorge Trail surrounded by the remains of two mountain ranges (the Taconic and Acadian) as high or higher than the Himalayas. Humbled by the fullness of time the mountains persist, now as this layered, fractured, water and frost battered rock. When the first grains flowed here the Earth’s day was 22 hours, a year 400 days, the Moon’s relative closeness moved tides higher. Four billion years ago, the first formed Moon was only 3.8 Earth radii, 15,000 miles, away. Today, a half billion years after the Cambrian, the distance averages 30 Earth radii (250,000 miles) and increasing at the almighty’s pace through the daily round of tides.

notice the right angles of fracture…..

…the angles record the changing directions of pressure of the continent against Africa as tectonic plates shifted.

Fillmore Glen, Cayuga County, Moravia. In the Finger Lakes Region of New York State

Copyright 2022 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

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