Timescales

Humanists, scientists, and artists collaborate to address the disjunctive temporalities of ecological crisis In 2016, Antarctica’s Totten Glacier, formed some 34 million years ago, detached from its bedrock, melted from the bottom by warming ocean waters. For the editors of Timescales, this event captures the disjunctive temporalities of our era’s—the Anthropocene’s—ecological crises: the rapid and accelerating degradation of our planet’s life-supporting environment established slowly over millennia. They contend that, to represent and respond to these crises (i.e., climate change, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, species extinction, and biodiversity loss) requires reframing time itself, making more visible the relationship between past, present, and future, and between a human life span and the planet’s. Timescales’ collection of lively and thought-provoking essays puts oceanographers, geophysicists, geologists, and anthropologists into conversation with literary scholars, art historians, and archaeologists. Together forging new intellectual spaces, they explore the relationship between geological deep time and historical particularity, between ecological crises and cultural expression, between environmental policy and social constructions, between restoration ecology and future imaginaries, and between constructive pessimism and radical (and actionable) hope. Interspersed among these essays are three complementary “etudes,” in which artists describe experimental works that explore the various timescales of ecological crisis. Contributors: Jason Bell, Harvard Law School; Iemanjá Brown, College of Wooster; Beatriz Cortez, California State U, Northridge; Wai Chee Dimock, Yale U; Jane E. Dmochowski, U of Pennsylvania; David A. D. Evans, Yale U; Kate Farquhar; Marcia Ferguson, U of Pennsylvania; Ömür Harmanşah, U of Illinois at Chicago; Troy Herion; Mimi Lien; Mary Mattingly; Paul Mitchell, U of Pennsylvania; Frank Pavia, California Institute of Technology; Dan Rothenberg; Jennifer E. Telesca, Pratt Institute; Charles M. Tung, Seattle U.

Quantifying the timescales of current geological processes is critical for constraining the physical mechanisms operating on the Earth today. Since the Earth’s origin 4.55 billion years ago magmatic processes have continued to shape the Earth, producing the major reservoirs that exist today (core, mantle, crust, oceans and atmosphere) and promoting their continued evolution. But key questions remain. When did the core form and how quickly? How are magmas produced in the mantle, and how rapidly do they travel towards the surface? How long do magmas reside in the crust, differentiating and interacting with the host rocks to yield the diverse set of igneous rocks we see today? How fast are volcanic gases such as carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere? This book addresses these and other questions by reviewing the latest advances in a wide range of Earth Science disciplines: from the measurement of short-lived radionuclides to the study of element diffusion in crystals and numerical modelling of magma behaviour. It will be invaluable reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as igneous petrologists, mineralogists and geochemists involved in the study of igneous rocks and processes.

Leading experts from a diverse range of disciplines encourage the reader, from whatever perspective to think about change and environmental issues in a new light through different time-scales.

With a Foreword writer Steven Weinberg In this richly illustrated book, Nobel Laureate Gerard 't Hooft and Theoretical Physicist Stefan Vandoren describe the enormous diversity of natural phenomena that take place at different time scales. In the tradition of the bestseller Powers of Ten, the authors zoom in and out in time, each step with a factor of ten. Starting from one second, time scales are enlarged until processes are reached that take much longer than the age of the universe. After the largest possible eternities, the reader is treated to the shortest and fastest phenomena known. Then the authors increase with powers of ten, until again the second is reached at the end of the book. At each time scale, interesting natural phenomena occur, spread over all scientific disciplines: orbital and rotation periods of planets and stars, decay times of elementary particles and atoms, biological rhythms and evolution processes, but also the different geological time scales. Contents:Part I:100 Seconds = 1 Second101 Seconds = 10 Seconds102 Seconds = 100 Seconds = 1 Minute, 40 Seconds103 Seconds = 1,000 Seconds = 16 Minutes, 40 Seconds104 Seconds = 10,000 Seconds = 2.78 Hours105 Seconds = 100,000 Seconds = 1.16 Days = 27.78 Hours106 Seconds = 1,000,000 = 1 Million Seconds = 11.57 Days = 1.65 Weeks106.41 Seconds = 2,592,000 Seconds = 30 Days ≈ 1 Month107 Seconds = 10 Million Seconds = 115.74 Days = 3.86 Months108 Seconds = 100 Million Seconds = 3.17 Years109 Seconds = 1 Billion Seconds = 31.7 Years1010 Seconds = 10 Billion Seconds = 317 Years1011 Seconds = 100 Billion Seconds = 3,171 Years1012 Seconds = 1 Trillion Seconds = 31,710 Years1013 Seconds = 10 Trillion Seconds = 317,098 Years1014 Seconds = 100 Trillion Seconds = 3.17 Million Years1015 Seconds = 1 Quadrillion Seconds = 31.7 Million Years1016 Seconds = 10 Quadrillion Seconds = 317 Million Years1017 Seconds = 100 Quadrillion Seconds = 3.17 Billion Years1018 Seconds = 1 Quintillion Seconds = 31.7 Billion years: The Large Timescales1021 seconds = 1 Sextillion Seconds = 3.17 × 1013 Years: The Large Timescales1028 Seconds = 3.17 × 1020 Years: The Large Timescales1032 Seconds: To Infinity and Beyond: The Dark EternitiesPart II:10-44 to 10-26 Seconds: Small Timescales10-25 Seconds10-24 Seconds = 1 Yoctosecond10-23 Seconds = 10 Yoctoseconds10-22 Seconds = 100 Yoctoseconds10-21 Seconds = 1 Zeptosecond10-20 Seconds = 10 Zeptoseconds10-19 Seconds = 100 Zeptoseconds10-18 Seconds = 1 Attosecond10-17 Seconds = 10 Attoseconds10-16 Seconds = 100 Attoseconds10-15 Seconds = 1 Femtosecond10-14 Seconds = 10 Femtoseconds10-13 Seconds = 100 Femtoseconds10-12 Seconds = 1 Picosecond10-11 Seconds = 10 Picoseconds10-10 Seconds = 100 Picoseconds10-9 Seconds = 1 Nanosecond10-8 Seconds = 10 Nanoseconds10-7 Seconds = 100 Nanoseconds10-6 Seconds = 1 Microsecond10-5 Seconds = 10 Microseconds10-4 Seconds = 100 Microseconds = 0.0001 Seconds10-3 Seconds = 1 Millisecond = 0.001 Seconds10-2 Seconds = 10 Milliseconds = 0.01 Seconds10-1 Seconds = 100 Milliseconds = 0.1 Seconds100 Seconds = 1 Second -->Readership: Science enthusiasts and students. Keywords:Time;natural Phenomena;Time Scales;Age of the Universe;Powers of TenReviews: “The somewhat facetious narrating style and the abundance of illustrations are so inviting and rather addictive once you picked up the book.” European Mathematical Society “Pleasingly accessible volume that will give pleasure to academics, students, connoisseurs of coffee-table books and even the people who compile questions for Trivial Pursuit … Can be enjoyed as a source of scientific stories and images, as an unusual perspective on history, as a popular account of modern physics, and so on. Underneath them all is a wealth of serious science that will give readers insights into abstract fundamental ideas via concrete realities … Every science teacher would benefit from reading Time in Powers of Ten, but I hope it will have an even wider reach.” Times Higher Education “The authors have compiled a refreshing mix of historical anecdotes and examples from music to sport and biology to astronomy to lighten up the heavier taste of particle physics and cosmology… It is both an enjoyable read and very pleasant to browse at leisure… It fully conveys the authors' amazement at — as Feynman put it — our fantastically marvellous universe.” Nature Physics “The authors introduce the reader to the diversity of nature in a novel way by describing typical and interesting phenomena that occur or have occurred on many different time scales. The time scales considered differ by powers of ten, as the title of the book says, from the shortest times of which we have knowledge to the longest. I am sure many readers will enjoy the book as I have.” Edward Witten, Fields Medalist “Time is an essential dimension of life. Indeed, its remarkable and awesome variation of scale shapes the natural world. This book by Gerard 't Hooft and Stefan Vandoren gives us an exposé of a wide range of natural phenomena and their associated time scales, spanning the very small, the very large, and the life events of our universe. The book is elegantly illustrated and should be an enjoyable read for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the fourth dimension, time, and how it shapes our lives.” Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry “Like the original Powers of Ten, it is a wonderful book for flipping through and thinking about puzzles and is a good introduction to basics like how to tell a quark from a lepton.” The Dispatch “The book reveals the extraordinary complexity of our universe — it is a fascinating journey.” CERN Courier “This is a fascinating coffee-table book ranging from the unimaginably huge to the unimaginably tiny.” Ultramicroscopy “You can read the book in any direction. Delving into the index takes you on a mystery tour of the time domain. Helpfully, all the major phenomena are gathered together on an illustrated time line. This book is definitely one for your reading list.” Physics Education

Stratigraphy and Timescales covers current research across a wide range of stratigraphic disciplines, providing information on recent developments for the geoscientific research community. This fully commissioned review publication aims to foster and convey progress in stratigraphy, including geochronology, magnetostratigraphy, lithostratigraphy, event-stratigraphy, isotope stratigraphy, astrochronology, climatostratigraphy, seismic stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, ice core chronology, cyclostratigraphy, palaeoceanography, sequence stratigraphy, and more. Contains contributions from leading authorities in the field Informs and updates on all the latest developments in the field Aims to foster and convey progress in stratigraphy, including geochronology, magnetostratigraphy, lithostratigraphy, event-stratigraphy, and more