scholarly journals “Deep” Time in Times of Precarity. Comics and Anthropocene Poetics

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aarnoud Rommens
Keyword(s):  
Geological Time ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Thematic Layers ◽  
Politics Of Form

This essay focuses on comics that show a sensitivity to “deep time” and the conception of our current epoch as the so-called “Anthropocene”. Through comics by Diniz Conefrey, Alberto Breccia and the WREK collective, this text explores how the bodily temporality of reading and drawing stands in productive counterpoint to some of the themes of these comics. These thematic layers are informed by the interpretive horizon of geological time and pose a politics of form to negotiate this contradiction.

Scale, Deep Time, and the Politics of Representation in Derek Mahon's Life on Earth

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-298
Author(s):  
Eoin Flannery
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Politics Of Representation ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Environmental Destruction ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Work Centre

This essay reads Derek Mahon's 2008 collection, Life on Earth, in broadly ecocritical terms, arguing that the ecological concentrations of Mahon's recent work centre on the representational relationships between human and non-human ecologies; on matters of ecological belonging and placelessness, in local and international contexts; as well as probing the ethics of anthropocentric historical narration in terms of geological time and the ‘deep’ past. Furthermore, the argument focuses on the poet's attention to scalar relations in time and space and how they relate to anthropogenic climate change. It also highlights Mahon's recourse to ekphrasis in his meditation upon the politics and ethics of aesthetic representation in the context of global environmental destruction.

scholarly journals Ecological constraints coupled with deep-time habitat dynamics predict the latitudinal diversity gradient in reef fishes

2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1911) ◽  
pp. 20191506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Théo Gaboriau ◽  
Camille Albouy ◽  
Patrice Descombes ◽  
David Mouillot ◽  
Loïc Pellissier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fish Fauna ◽  
Reef Fishes ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Ecological Constraints ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Latitudinal Diversity Gradient ◽  
Spatial Understanding ◽  
Habitat Dynamics ◽  
Diversity Gradient ◽  
Evolutionary Speed

We develop a spatially explicit model of diversification based on palaeohabitat to explore the predictions of four major hypotheses potentially explaining the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), namely, the ‘time-area’, ‘tropical niche conservatism’, ‘ecological limits’ and ‘evolutionary speed’ hypotheses. We compare simulation outputs to observed diversity gradients in the global reef fish fauna. Our simulations show that these hypotheses are non-mutually exclusive and that their relative influence depends on the time scale considered. Simulations suggest that reef habitat dynamics produced the LDG during deep geological time, while ecological constraints shaped the modern LDG, with a strong influence of the reduction in the latitudinal extent of tropical reefs during the Neogene. Overall, this study illustrates how mechanistic models in ecology and evolution can provide a temporal and spatial understanding of the role of speciation, extinction and dispersal in generating biodiversity patterns.

scholarly journals Species at War? The Animal and the Anthropocene

Paragraph ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-130
Author(s):  
Florian Mussgnug
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Biological Species ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Unique Specificity ◽  
Cultural Force ◽  
Geopolitical Context

Environmental politics has become inextricably entwined with planetary deep time. This article calls for a reconceptualization of the relation between humans and nonhuman nature. It rejects the ontological singularity of the human, either as a biological species (Homo) or as a planetary super-agent (Anthropos) and argues for a perspective centred on companionship and shared vulnerability. Animal philosophy serves here to counter a growing tendency to generalize and address the human species at large, in the singular. The cultural force of the animal, it is suggested, stems from a productive tension between the abstract singular (‘the Animal’) and the unique specificity of each particular nonhuman other. In the context of Anthropocene Studies, references to Anthropos follow a similar logic. The planetary future of humans cannot be deduced from any specific geopolitical context or expressed through universalizing categories. It must be understood, against the vertiginous backdrop of geological time, as a process of becoming: a complex set of material and semiotic practices shaping open-ended, transformative trajectories

scholarly journals Middle Ordovician astrochronology decouples asteroid breakup from glacially-induced biotic radiations

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Audun Rasmussen ◽  
Nicolas Thibault ◽  
Christian Mac Ørum Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Energy Transfer ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Middle Ordovician ◽  
Orbital Control

AbstractMeso-Cenozoic evidence suggests links between changes in the expression of orbital changes and millennia-scale climatic- and biotic variations, but proof for such shifts in orbital cyclicity farther back in geological time is lacking. Here, we report a 469-million-year-old Palaeozoic energy transfer from precession to 405 kyr eccentricity cycles that coincides with the start of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE). Based on an early Middle Ordovician astronomically calibrated cyclostratigraphic framework we find this orbital change to succeed the onset of icehouse conditions by 200,000 years, suggesting a climatic origin. Recently, this icehouse was postulated to be facilitated by extra-terrestrial dust associated with an asteroid breakup. Our timescale, however, shows the meteor bombardment to post-date the icehouse by 800,000 years, instead pausing the GOBE 600,000 years after its initiation. Resolving Milankovitch cyclicity in deep time thus suggests universal orbital control in modulating climate, and maybe even biodiversity accumulation, through geological time.

scholarly journals Deep Geological Disposal and Radioactive Time: Beckett, Bowen, Nirex and Onkalo

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Piette
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Nuclear Waste ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Rock Formations ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal ◽  
Ancient Rock ◽  
Deep Boreholes ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter considers nuclear futurity and long-term radioactive half-life and decay as timescales of continuity that are figured in eerie and apocalyptic ways not only in fictions that engage with nuclear anxiety during the Cold War (Elizabeth Bowen and Samuel Beckett) but also in the engineering projects that deal with the inconceivably long aftermath risks in deep underground nuclear waste disposal. Gunther Anders’ 1962 ‘Theses for an Atomic Age’ is compared with late 1980s Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive (Nirex) reports into the suitability of storing highly radioactive waste in deep boreholes, and pairs literary/cultural speculation with actual storage facility technologies to explore the deep time of nuclear waste continuities beyond the Cold War. The bunker mentality of the high Cold War is addressed through the relation between family nuclear shelters and the underground systems of the nuclear state. Geologist J. Laurence Kulp, who developed radioactive isotope dating of ancient rock formations, inadvertently stumbled on the radioactive effect of nuclear tests. Kulp's discovery led to the test ban treaty of 1963 and consolidated in the public imagination the link between deep geological time, radioactivity, and underground secret tomb/refuge systems. The article ends with a meditation on the contemporary nuclear repository.

Fire, Flowers, and Dinosaurs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Atmospheric Oxygen ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Ecosystem Recovery ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
The World ◽  
The University ◽  
Lateral Thinking

The Mesozoic Era is the geological interval comprising the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods, and it is best known for the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. The Mesozoic began around 250 million years ago and continued to around 66 million years ago—a not inconsiderable chunk of geological time, and framed by mass extinctions at its beginning and end. Fifty years ago there were very few published papers on fire in deep time, but the most important one, which I’ve touched on before, was ‘Forest fire in the Mesozoic’, by Tom Harris of the University of Reading. Tom was an important scientist, one of the leading palaeobotanists in the world. Energetic and passionate about his fossil plants, he was a scientist with broad interests, and given to experimentation and lateral thinking. The evidence that Tom used in his paper on fires in the Mesozoic was limited to only a couple of charcoal occurrences in these rocks. The Permian Period ended with the biggest known mass extinction in Earth history, when life was almost wiped out. Whole ecosystems collapsed. So what would the world have looked like at the start of the Triassic? Among whole groups of plants that had become extinct were the giant club mosses that had been the major coal-forming plants of the late Paleozoic, and the glossopterids that had dominated southern continental vegetation. In the first few million years after the extinctions, plant diversity appears to have been low, but some new plants became prominent, including the pole-like spore-bearing lycopod called Pleuromeia, and the scrambling seedplant called Dicroidium, which had fern-like foliage. The first 10 million years of the Triassic are thought to have been a time of ecosystem recovery. According to Berner’s model, the Triassic started with very low levels of oxygen in the atmosphere. Researchers had noticed that there were no coals found at the beginning of the Triassic, and this interval was called the ‘coal gap’. The problem, therefore, was that charcoal in coal could not be used as a proxy for atmospheric oxygen for this time interval.

scholarly journals Paleolatitudinal distribution of lithologic indicators of climate in a paleogeographic framework

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenchao Cao ◽  
Simon Williams ◽  
Nicolas Flament ◽  
Sabin Zahirovic ◽  
Christopher Scotese ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Carboniferous ◽  
Bimodal Distribution ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Plate Motion ◽  
Oceanic Circulation ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Plate Reconstructions ◽  
Continental Area ◽  
Poleward Shift

Whether the latitudinal distribution of climate-sensitive lithologies are stable through greenhouse and icehouse regimes remains unclear. Previous studies suggest that the paleolatitudinal distribution of paleoclimate indicators, including coals, evaporites, reefs and carbonates, have remained broadly similar since Permian times, leading to the conclusion that atmospheric and oceanic circulation control their distribution rather than the latitudinal temperature gradient. Here we revisit a global-scale compilation of lithologic indicators of climate, including coals, evaporites and glacial deposits, back to the Devonian period. We test the sensitivity of their latitudinal distributions to the uneven distribution of continental areas through time and to global tectonic models, correct the latitudinal distributions of lithologies for sampling- and continental area-bias, and use statistical methods to fit these distributions with probability density functions and estimate their high-density latitudinal ranges with 50% and 95% confidence intervals. The results suggest that the paleolatitudinal distributions of lithologies have changed through deep geological time, notably a pronounced poleward shift in the distribution of coals at the beginning of the Permian. The distribution of evaporites indicate a clearly bimodal distribution over the past ~400 Ma, except for Early Devonian, Early Carboniferous (Serpukhovian), the earliest Permian (Asselian-Sakmarian) and Middle and Late Jurassic times. We discuss how the patterns indicated from these lithologies change through time in response to plate motion, orography, evolution, and greenhouse/icehouse conditions. This study highlights that plate reconstructions, combined with a comprehensive lithologic database, and novel data analysis provide insights on the shifting climatic zones through deep time.

scholarly journals Palaeolatitudinal distribution of lithologic indicators of climate in a palaeogeographic framework

2018 ◽  
Vol 156 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
WENCHAO CAO ◽  
SIMON WILLIAMS ◽  
NICOLAS FLAMENT ◽  
SABIN ZAHIROVIC ◽  
CHRISTOPHER SCOTESE ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Carboniferous ◽  
Bimodal Distribution ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Plate Motion ◽  
Oceanic Circulation ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Climatic Zones ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Continental Area ◽  
Poleward Shift

AbstractWhether the latitudinal distribution of climate-sensitive lithologies is stable through greenhouse and icehouse regimes remains unclear. Previous studies suggest that the palaeolatitudinal distribution of palaeoclimate indicators, including coals, evaporites, reefs and carbonates, has remained broadly similar since the Permian period, leading to the conclusion that atmospheric and oceanic circulation control their distribution rather than the latitudinal temperature gradient. Here we revisit a global-scale compilation of lithologic indicators of climate, including coals, evaporites and glacial deposits, back to the Devonian period. We test the sensitivity of their latitudinal distributions to the uneven distribution of continental areas through time and to global tectonic models, correct the latitudinal distributions of lithologies for sampling- and continental area-bias, and use statistical methods to fit these distributions with probability density functions and estimate their high-density latitudinal ranges with 50% and 95% confidence intervals. The results suggest that the palaeolatitudinal distributions of lithologies have changed through deep geological time, notably a pronounced poleward shift in the distribution of coals at the beginning of the Permian. The distribution of evaporites indicates a clearly bimodal distribution over the past ~400 Ma, except for Early Devonian, Early Carboniferous, the earliest Permian and Middle and Late Jurassic times. We discuss how the patterns indicated by these lithologies change through time in response to plate motion, orography, evolution and greenhouse/icehouse conditions. This study highlights that combining tectonic reconstructions with a comprehensive lithologic database and novel data analysis approaches provide insights into the nature and causes of shifting climatic zones through deep time.

scholarly journals The spatial structure of Phanerozoic marine animal diversity

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 368 (6489) ◽  
pp. 420-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Close ◽  
R. B. J. Benson ◽  
E. E. Saupe ◽  
M. E. Clapham ◽  
R. J. Butler
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Structure ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Marine Animal ◽  
Power Modeling ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Marine Animals ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Animal Diversity

The global fossil record of marine animals has fueled long-standing debates about diversity change through time and the drivers of this change. However, the fossil record is not truly global. It varies considerably in geographic scope and in the sampling of environments among intervals of geological time. We account for this variability using a spatially explicit approach to quantify regional-scale diversity through the Phanerozoic. Among-region variation in diversity is comparable to variation through time, and much of this is explained by environmental factors, particularly the extent of reefs. By contrast, influential hypotheses of diversity change through time, including sustained long-term increases, have little explanatory power. Modeling the spatial structure of the fossil record transforms interpretations of Phanerozoic diversity patterns and their macroevolutionary explanations. This necessitates a refocus of deep-time diversification studies.

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