The individual who chanced on the ‘abyss of time’ – BBC Files

In 1788 three men set off to search a stretch of coast in Scotland they were looking for a very special arrangement of rocks which would reveal that Earth was Far older than anybody thought what they discovered would transform science challenge long-held beliefs and as one eminent scientist later put it would burst the boundaries of time.

my name is Richard Fisher and over the past few years I've been researching and writing about what it takes to embrace a longer-term view it's why I was drawn to the story of James Hutton the father of geology in the 18th century Hutton and two companions scoured Scotland's East Coast.

In search of a unique formation of rocks with gigantic time scales visibly written into their layers I decided to retrace Hunt's steps to the place he found called sicker point but also maybe there are ways to you know learn from nature to build cities that are better for all living things I was joined by Edinburgh University's.

David farrier an expert on deep time and author of the book footprints on our hike I would learn why sicker point is one of the best places in the world to understand the Deep geological past but to my surprise I would also discover a coastline that Harbors signatures of the deep future too.

So we're looking out over Cove Harbor where I think James Hutton may have left and then we got to One S nuclear power station in the distance it's quite a contrast in the late 1700s James Hutton a farmer and Keen geologist noticed something curious about the Rocks near his home it was simply impossible for them to.

Have formed if the biblical account of time was true and the remarkable thing about hunting is I think he arrived at an understanding of Eternity through evidence through what he could point to particularly on his farm he was able to get the first gleanings of the processes that form mountains and valleys that move continents and of.

Course it was you know these first inklings that then led him to look at rock formations and and try to connect what he saw on his farm to what he saw in places like second point Hutton had spotted an arrangement of rocks called an unconformity a line separating two radically different rock formations and within which tens of.

Millions of years of time had passed in 1788 he took two other researchers John play fair and James Hall to show them what he had found by this point I think Hudson had already established many of his theories but he was setting out to actually show people to take the people out into the landscape and say like look look at these rocks here this.

This makes my point seemed eager to get that David you're rocketing ahead oh no yeah I'm just thinking about my picnic yeah yeah you can you can't just see it right staring into the abyss here are we going down so David we made it after a two three.

Hour walk and a very steep uh slope clinging to a rope we are finally here at one of the most if not the most important location for geologists uh second point I said extraordinarily charismatic place I mean you you look at it and you know that if you walk down there you can put your finger on the Gap where you know 60 million years.

Or so past that you know without any Trace being recorded you know where the two rock formations meet and it's an astonishing thought and and there's definitely that sense of the sublime there or something that overwhelms and far exceeds you know the human scale so how did hotter know that.

His unconformity was special he realized that there's only one way this particular arrangement of rocks could exist more than 400 million years ago the region was covered by an ancient ocean in these Waters alternating layers of mudstone and gray wacky were laid down over time these rocks were then buried.

Squished and folded into vertical layers that's the lower part of the formation then there was an epic pause tens of millions of years passed when little happened apart from slow steady erosion eventually around 370 million years ago after the ocean had long gone the environment was Far drier it was only.

Then that the red Sandstone of the upper layers began to be laid down the line that separated these two rock types that's hot and Zone conformity 65 million year Gap where it's not recorded it's just gone like all the creatures and and all the processes you know the many times around the Sun all that happened and that's not recorded in.

The rocks it's a huge huge gap what I love about geology is that every Rock tells a story story about an ancient environment and process quiet ocean punctuated by sudden surges of sediment a desert with dry sang grains blown.

Along by the wind a tropical rainforest chock full of verdant life but what the unconformity represents is an absence there is no environment or process to describe her however there is a story and it was a story that would change Humanity's place in time.

Hudson's Discovery would prove to be more than a geological Oddity before the 18th century the biblical account of time was dominant by one Christine calculation the Earth was only a few thousand years old Hutton transformed that view it wasn't an easy idea to swallow was it no it was it was radically challenging.

Um for some of the fundamentals of how many people would have viewed the world all of human history is just scratching the surface of planetary history writing about the visit to sicker Point afterwards Playfair wrote the mines seemed to grow giddy by looking so far back into the abyss of.

Time Hutton's words time had no Vestige of a beginning and no Prospect of an end and although Hutton didn't give a full account of the processes that he he had an insight into he opened the door Darwin would not have been able to formulate his theory of natural selection without.

The affordance of deep time that Hutton allowed him James and James and John wrote East along the coast from dunlasbarn to sicker point as well as geologists and scientists like Charles Darwin Hutton's deep time Discovery has also inspired many artists writers and musicians over the years I.

Think what I do in my work is I connect things that appear to be disparate I can see the motifs and threads that connect things and I'm trying to make one really difficult specialist thing connect with something that's really um tangible and completely accessible later I traveled West to the home of Karine poet a singer and songwriter who.

Joined the pandemic lockdowns was inspired to compose a song about Hutton and his unconformity long I wrote a piece called sticker point with my friend and neighbor Dave Milligan he lives just five minutes up the road actually across the football.

Park so the pieces that is part spoken word and part in part song and it sort of imagines James Hutton and um James Hall and John Playfair going out in their boat to see to see the point and that that moment of epiphany the three men find no trace of a beginning.

No Prospect of an end only one thing is sure everything dissolves and disappears peers and diatoms walls and bones and oceans the Earth is never still it's never still and this one line even Rock smell in the Sun and that's a reference to Robert Burns because one of his best loved songs is.

Um my love's like a red red rose How does it go tell all the Seas can dry my dear and the Rocks melt away the Sun oh I will love thee still my dear though the sons of time have run and it's just like a little bee part for one of the verses for my love is like a red red rose but.

Almost certainly um linked to the fact that he was aware of Fort Hutton was developing at the time if he was still alive what would Hudson have to say about deep time today well if you return to sicker point you may well remark on the Striking changes to the coastline there's a there's a Viewpoint that you get and then you can.

See North Berwick law which is an old volcanic plug you can see the cement works at Dunbar you can see tornes nuclear power station and you can see the bass rock out in the fourth or fourth all from essentially from where sicker point is and there's something about that that horizon line that I just found really is such a massive story.

Because you've got a clear sense of the deep time geology of it all it's like really palpable the two most obvious landmarks in that flat landscape and then these two massive human meds and points of Industry that are have such consequences for you know like a vast number of generations into the future.

The very last line of the piece is till this time to The Ether tell this time to the ones who are still to come this part of Scotland is famous for its deep time Coast but as I discovered there are also signatures of our trouble present and long-term future carbon intensive cement works and a.

Power station producing nuclear waste that will stay radioactive for thousands of years farrier calls it an anthropocene Coast striking to to think that you know the world we inhabit has not always been the same that there have been many different versions it's worn many different guises which you know inevitably makes me at.

Least think about the world to come the one we're making um through climate change by 2030 2040 there's gonna be more concrete on Earth than all the fish trees all the human beings if you added up and put them on the scales yeah yeah I think is a extraordinary statistic isn't it it is extraordinary and and sobering I think.

And all of the cement that we've produced in in the past and spread over the landscape creates another kind of unconformity we have so many you know just you know human Generations but species have not you know left any Trace in you know in the book of the Earth but we've begun to write our names in the densest most durable Inc in this book.

Um and I think that's what sets us apart in our relationship with the time is that we are a part of it in a way that no other generation ever has been only one thing is sure

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