PDF: Designing For Deep Time: How Art History Is Used To Mark Nuclear Waste

The Arrogance of the Anthropocene - The Atlantic

If, in the final 7,000 years of their reign, dinosaurs became hyperintelligent, built a civilization, started asteroid mining, and did so for centuries before forgetting to carry the one on an orbital calculation, thereby sending that famous valedictory six-mile space rock hurtling senselessly toward the Earth themselves—it would be virtually impossible to tell.

A nice steaming cup of perspective.

If there were a nuclear holocaust in the Triassic, among warring prosauropods, we wouldn’t know about it.

The Future Will Have to Wait — Blog of the Long Now

As installation begins, it feels like a good time to revisit this twelve year old essay by Michael Chabon on The Clock Of The Long Now. It’s a remarkable piece of writing about our relationship to the very idea of The Future, and how that relationship has changed in just one lifetime.

Ten thousand years from now: can you imagine that day? Okay, but do you? Do you believe “the Future” is going to happen? If the Clock works the way that it’s supposed to do—if it lasts—do you believe there will be a human being around to witness, let alone mourn its passing, to appreciate its accomplishment, its faithfulness, its immense antiquity? What about five thousand years from now, or even five hundred? Can you extend the horizon of your expectations for our world, for our complex of civilizations and cultures, beyond the lifetime of your own children, of the next two or three generations? Can you even imagine the survival of the world beyond the present presidential administration?

Deep Time : A History of the Earth

This infographic offers a visual way to explore the various stages of the Earth’s history using a 12 hour clock analogy.

The Hiding Place: Inside the World’s First Long-Term Storage Facility for Highly Radioactive Nuclear Waste - Pacific Standard

Robert McFarlane’s new book is an exploration of deep time. In this extract, he visits the Onkalo nuclear waste storage facility in Finland.

Sometimes we bury materials in order that they may be preserved for the future. Sometimes we bury materials in order to preserve the future from them.

Forget New Year’s resolutions. This art prompts thinking in ‘deep time.’ - CSMonitor.com

Projects for the long now:

• A 100 year book publication,
• A 693 year piece of music,
• A 1,000 year photograph,
• A 10,000 year clock, and
• The pitch drop experiment.