Vineyards and the Mists of Geological Time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Maltman
Keyword(s):  
Physical World ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Geological Age ◽  
History Of

Geological time is much mentioned in the wine world. Many a label proclaims the geological age of the rocks and soils in which the vines were growing; many a vineyard description enthuses about just how old its bedrock is. The age may be expressed as a fine-sounding technical term or as a quantity, typically, some unimaginably large number of millions of years: “The area’s best vineyards are on Turonian soils”; “Cretaceous limestone is best for our vines”; “the wine’s secret is the Devonian slate”; “our Shiraz grows in soils 500 million years old.” It’s almost as though the older the geology can be made to appear, somehow the finer the wine. I must declare my own position in all this: surely the geological age of the bed­rock has little to do with viticulture? The age of the soil is certainly relevant, as it is continually changing on a human timescale, but these geological time words almost always are referring to the age of the vineyard bedrock. And almost invariably the age of the soil will be unrelated and vastly younger than the bedrock. Surely the vine doesn’t care, so to speak, how long ago the bedrock happened to form. Nevertheless, the fact is that geological time pervades wine literature, so this chapter explains how geologists work with the ages of rocks. The thinking is nicely explained by outlining how geological time was “discovered.” Modern geology began two or three centuries ago, essentially when it dawned that answers to questions about the physical world were better answered by going out and observing nature rather than poring over ancient scriptures. We saw in Chapter 1 how James Hutton peered into the “abyss of time.” Soon after, other founders of the science began to compare features preserved in rocks with processes they could see happening all around them, and they were able to establish rules (see the accompanying box) that enabled them to disentangle past geological time and to work out the geological history of a particular place. Using these kinds of principles, the early geologists were soon able to recognize past intervals of geological time and give them names.

scholarly journals A geological history of reflecting optics

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Richard Parker
Keyword(s):  
Photonic Crystals ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Selection Pressure ◽  
New Records ◽  
Optical Devices ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Optical Reflectors

Optical reflectors in animals are diverse and ancient. The first image-forming eye appeared around 543 million years ago. This introduced vision as a selection pressure in the evolution of animals, and consequently the evolution of adapted optical devices. The earliest known optical reflectors—diffraction gratings—are 515 Myr old. The subsequent fossil record preserves multilayer reflectors, including liquid crystals and mirrors, ‘white’ and ‘blue’ scattering structures, antireflective surfaces and the very latest addition to optical physics—photonic crystals. The aim of this article is to reveal the diversity of reflecting optics in nature, introducing the first appearance of some reflector types as they appear in the fossil record as it stands (which includes many new records) and backdating others in geological time through evolutionary analyses. This article also reveals the commercial potential for these optical devices, in terms of lessons from their nano-level designs and the possible emulation of their engineering processes—molecular self-assembly.

scholarly journals On the Devonian age of the World

The Geologist ◽  
1861 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 332-347
Author(s):  
W. Pengelly
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Conditions ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Astronomical Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Time Required ◽  
Devonian Age

The rooks composing the earth's crust contain a history and represent time—a history of changes numerous, varied, and important: changes in the distribution of land and water; in the thermal conditions of the world; and in the character of the organic tribes which have successively peopled it. The time required for these mutations must have been vast beyond human comprehension, requiring, for its expression, units of a higher order than years or centuries. In the existing state of our knowledge it is impossible to convert geological into astronomical time: it is at present, and perhaps always will be, beyond our power to determine how many rotations on its axis, or how many revolutions round the sun the earth made between any two recognised and well-marked events in its geological history. Nevertheless it is possible, and eminently convenient, to break up geological time into great periods: it must not be supposed, however, that such periods are necessarily equal in chronological, organic, or lithological value; or separated from one another by broadly marked lines of demarcation; or that either their commencements or terminations in different and widely separated districts were strictly synchronous.One of the terms in the chronological series of the geologist is known as the Devonian, that which preceeded it the Silurian, and the succeeding one the Carboniferous period; and these, with some others of less importance, belong to the Palæozoic or ancient-life epoch, or group of periods.

Geology and Evolution

2019 ◽  
pp. 75-106
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Directional Model ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Evolution Of Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Life On Earth

The dominant school of geology in Edinburgh in the early nineteenth century was that of the followers of the German mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner. His most important disciple in the English-speaking world was Edinburgh’s professor of natural history, Robert Jameson. The Wernerians believed that the history of the earth was fundamentally directional; they believed the earth started out as a ball of hot fluid from which the different rocks that now form the crust of the planet gradually precipitated out over geological time. It is argued in this chapter that this directional model of the geological history of the earth was peculiarly compatible with a progressive model of the history of life on earth. The changes in the physical condition of the earth over geological time were seen by some Wernerian geologists as driving the evolution of life.

V. Limestone as an index of geological time

1879 ◽  
Vol 28 (190-195) ◽  
pp. 281-283
Keyword(s):  
Geological History ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
History Of

The geological history of the globe is written only in its sedilentary strata, but if we trace its history backwards, unless we assume absolute uniformity, we arrive at a time when the first sediments resulted from the degradation of the original crust of the lobe.

scholarly journals V.—The Extent of Geological Time

1878 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. 450-455
Author(s):  
Maxwell H. Close
Keyword(s):  
Geological Time ◽  
Geological Investigation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Geological Age ◽  
History Of

The question of the geological age of the earth has been of late very prominently before the minds both of geologists and physicists. There is no occasion to take up time by giving a sketch of the late history of the discussion. I beg leave simply to point out some considerations which seem to lessen considerably the weight of the physical objections to the great extent of geological time. Let us observe before proceeding further that we do not wish to avoid wholesome restriction of geological time. It seems to me that it adds greatly to the interest of geological investigation to know that we have not a wilderness of possibility before us as to the length of time and the consequent deliberateness of geological operations.

REFERENCE POINT OF GEOLOGICAL TIME

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-184
Author(s):  
Gennady Aksenov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Biological Time ◽  
Mineral Complex ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Absolute Age ◽  
The Universe

In the earth sciences, there is a persistent contradiction between modern ideas about the age of the planet and the concept of V.I. Vernadsky about the geological eternity of life. According to Vernadsky, the absolute age of the rock indicates only the time of its last metamorphism, but not the age of the Earth. It is no coincidence that the pregeological substance of a cosmic formation of the planet has not been found. Such substance does not exist because any mineral complex and rock begins to form in the hypergenesis zone. Vernadsky argued that geological history was equal in duration to the existence of the biosphere and its duration was measured by biological time. His concept is confirmed by current biogeochemistry. The history of the biosphere practically coincided with the "canonical" age of the Earth. In a cosmological sense, the picture of the universe cannot be built without the concept of the geological eternity of the biosphere.

I. On Professor Haughton's estimate of geological time

1878 ◽  
Vol 27 (185-189) ◽  
pp. 179-183 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Principal Axis ◽  
Present Note ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Axis Of Rotation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Instantaneous Axis

In a paper recently read before the Royal Society, Professor Haughton has endeavoured by an ingenious line of argument to give an estimate of the time which may have elapsed in the geological history of the earth. The results attained by him are, if generally accepted, of the very greatest interest to geologists, and on that account his method merits a rigorous examination. The object, therefore, of the present note is to criticise the applicability of his results to the case of the earth; and I conceive that my principal criticism is either incorrect, and will meet its just fate of refutation, or else is destructive of the estimate of geological time. Professor Haughton’s argument may be summarised as follows:— The impulsive elevation of a continent would produce a sudden displacement of the earth’s principal axis of greatest moment of inertia. Immediately after the earthquake, the axis of rotation being no longer coincident with the principal axis, will, according to dynamical principles, begin describing a cone round the principal axis, and the complete circle of the cone will be described in about 306 days. Now, the ocean not being rigidly connected with the nucleus, a 306-day tide will be established, which by its friction with the ocean bed will tend to diminish the angle of the cone described by the instantaneous axis round the principal axis: in other words, the “wabble” set up by the earthquake will gradually die away.

LATE QUATERNARY GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF RIO GRANGE DO SUL COASTAL PLAIN, SOUTHERN BRAZIL

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 474-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
LUIZ JOSÉ TOMAZELLI ◽  
SÉRGIO REBELLO DILLENBURG ◽  
JORGE ALBERTO VILLWOCK
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Southern Brazil ◽  
History Of

The Theological Dialogue Between the Orthodox and the Non-Chalcedonians (Past - Present - Future): An Athonite Critique. Part 1: Prologue. Introduction, ch. 1, nn. 1-3

2019 ◽  
pp. 109-144
Author(s):  
Михаил Андреевич Вишняк
Keyword(s):  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

Вниманию русскоязычного читателя предлагается первая часть перевода с новогреческого на русский язык книги Ὁ Θεολογικός Διάλογος Ὀρθοδόξων καί Ἀντιχαλκηδονίων (παρελθόν - παρόν - μέλλον): Μία ἁγιορειτική συμβολή. Ἅγιον Ὄρος: Ἱερά Μονή Ὁσίου Γρηγορίου, 2018 (841 σ.). Это издание посвящено богословскому диалогу между Православной Церковью и антихалкидонитами и включает в себя все тексты соответствующей тематики, составленные на Святой Горе Афон в период 1991-2015 гг. Настоящая публикация включает перевод предисловия архим. Христофора, игумена монастыря Григориат, и части введения (гл. 1, пп. 1-3). Перевод снабжён также предисловием переводчика, в котором кратко изложена история богословского диалога, цель издания и его перевода на русский язык, которая заключается в содействии плодотворному и согласному со Священным Преданием воссоединению антихалкидонитов с Церковью. The Russian-speaking reader is presented with the first part of the translation into Russian from the modern Greek of the book Ὁ Θεολογικός Διάλογος Ὀρθοδόξων καί Ἀντιχαλκηδονίων (παρελθόν - παρόν - μέλλον): Μία ἁγιορειτική συμβολή. Ἅγιον Ὄρος: Ἱερά Μονή Ὁσίου Γρηγορίου, 2018 (841 p.). This edition is devoted to the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the non-Chalcedonians and includes all texts of the relevant topics, published on the Holy Mount Athos in the period 1991-2015. This publication includes a translation of the Prologue of archim. Christophoros, the abbot of the monastery of St. Gregory, and of a part of the Introduction (Chapter 1, paragraphs 1-3). The translation is also provided with a preface of the translator, which summarizes the history of the Theological Dialogue, the purpose of the publication and its translation into Russian, which is to contribute to the fruitful and consistent with the Holy Tradition reunification of the non-Chalcedonians with the Church.

Perfection Makes Practice

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 98-100
Author(s):  
Muhamad Ali
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Psychological Dimension ◽  
South Sulawesi ◽  
Complex Dimensions ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of

Studies of Islam in Southeast Asia have sought to better understand its multifacetedand complex dimensions, although one may make a generalizedcategorization of Muslim beliefs and practices based on a fundamental differencein ideologies and strategies, such as cultural and political Islam.Anna M. Gade’s Perfection Makes Practice stresses the cultural aspect ofIndonesian Muslim practices by analyzing the practices of reciting andmemorizing the Qur’an, as well as the annual competition.Muslim engagement with the Qur’an has tended to emphasize the cognitiveover the psychological dimension. Perfection Makes Practice analyzesthe role of emotion in these undertakings through a combination ofapproaches, particularly the history of religions, ethnography, psychology,and anthropology. By investigating Qur’anic practitioners in Makassar,South Sulawesi, during the 1990s, Gade argues that the perfection of theQur’an as a perceived, learned, and performed text has made and remade thepractitioners, as well as other members of the Muslim community, to renewor increase their engagement with the holy text. In this process, she suggests,moods and motivation are crucial to preserving the recited Qur’an and revitalizingthe Muslim community.In chapter 1, Gade begins with a theoretical consideration for her casestudy. Drawing from concepts that emphasize the importance of feeling andemotion in ritual and religious experience, she develops a conceptualizationof this engagement. In chapter 2, Gade explains memorization within thecontext of the self and social relations. She argues that Qur’anic memorizershave a special relationship with its style and structure, as well as with thesocial milieu. Although Qur’anic memorization is a normal practice for mostMuslims, its practitioners have learned how to memorize and recite beautifullysome or all of the Qur’an’s verses, a process that requires emotion ...

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