The man who discovered the 'abyss of time' - BBC News

[@daveallen5065]

These two men are IDENTICAL

[@DouglasLambert]

That's what you get when you live in an island... 😂

[@ulalaFrugilega]

Imagine meeting the twin you never knew about in this fashion 😂

[@muddwhistle7833]

They are cousins if you read their bio

[@mt.shasta6097]

Those 1950s glasses frames make even men and women look alike. Wish we could go back to aviators or rimless glasses. Guess Buddy Holly lives on.

[@thunkstream]

@@muddwhistle7833 THANK YOU

[@FluffyKittenofMordor]

Time is so unfathomably big. To be able to physically touch something that existed when humanity was not even at its infancy is sublime.

[@admiralbenbow5083]

What is special about that? We do that practically every day.

[@rnedlo9909]

I live where gray shale is the base. I was working with stone dug up from a hill and moved a block of shale just within my ability to lift. I put it down kind of hard which caused the slat to split. When I picked up the top, on the lower part was a chunk of wood, all turned to carbon, but I could see the grain in the wood. It was windy, so in just a few moments the carbon blew away. For those few moments, I was looking at something hidden for many millions of years.

[@kpacubo.]

​@@admiralbenbow5083 Exactly what makes it special!

[@treborrelluf]

anatomical humans date no more than 200,000 years ago.

[@felice9907]

at least that is what we have learned so far. ancient asia knows that time is just a concept, among countless others. not to mention that our western "scientific" dating methods are outdated since long ... .

[@BrokenBellyBeat]

These two men could be brothers

[@bettyledesma937]

ABSOLUTELY....NO.WORDS...🤔

[@JohnnyAngel8]

They could almost be twins!

[@jwatson9732]

Didn't they sing that 500 miles song?

[@YourDads.Boyfriend]

Lovers

[@causewaykayak]

​@YourDadsTopBoyfriend ? maybe, or just sensitive to what they were reporting on ??

[@stevie-ray2020]

Scotland is such an amazing place geologically, with some parts once attached to the rocks east of Manhattan Island, New York!

[@williammacdiarmid6395]

Scotland is such a ancient special place . Along with it native people.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿✊

[@Kelmire1]

@@williammacdiarmid6395A shame our homeland is flooded with migrants and traitors.

[@McConnachy]

@@williammacdiarmid6395we’re still here! Despite the hard history. I was recently visiting on old friend, a MacLeod, in Assynt, an area that was nearly wiped out of people during the clearances. They could make a film about him. The last of the MacLeods.

[@elementgypsy]

I want to visit one day. I need a companion or a pen pal there to show me around.

[@WildWoodsGirl65]

​​@@elementgypsy Just stay at a B&B instead of hotel & the people there will tell you all you'd want to know instead of pointing you to tourist traps. There are good ones especially in Drumcondra, Inverness & Skye from which you can see all you'd ever want & those are beautiful areas. Also local pubs aren't like US bars as much as they're almost a community center. They're also where to eat at odd hours bc restaurants may close between mealtimes. You can talk to locals & hear what's most worth visiting. People we met when I was a kid wrote back & forth with Mom all her life based on a weekend stay at several. If you're a good guest, you're treated warmly. Loch Lomond is great, by Drumcondra. Skye is amazing. You'll want a sweater in June in Inverness but can get a beautiful one there. And quite inexpensive rainwear is available compared to the States. But it was mostly fine weather I'm told is common & that's why I mention a cheap but good raincoat. You'll barely need it. But seriously, you don't need to already know someone. You'll meet the people. They'll steer you right. It's good for them too. Visitors return and speak well of their visit that way but the number of genuinely nice people is great anyway, that's how they know to be that way.

[@scientifico]

I've been trying to come to terms with big time, the changing of things on geological scales. Its helped me to frame my life, to put myself and my wants and desires, my ideas of legacy and impermanence on a new scale of importance... and ultimately we are all unimportant. This great civilization is a blink, and we are like falling leaves, one shell on the beach. So love when you can, laugh when you can, do what you can... or sit quietly and watch the clouds roll by. All we have is this humble moment.

[@exmohobobonobo]

Beautiful observation. And the video was beautifully done as well. There’s a time to act, to react, but there’s also a time to ponder and reflect.

[@joanespicha4605]

Well said. I had been trying to put that idea into words. You far exceeded my attempts.

[@FacheChanteDeux]

We are a blip.

[@jeanjaz]

Yes, a human being’s days are like grass, he sprouts like a flower in the countryside - but when the wind sweeps over, it’s gone; and its place knows it no more. Tehillim (Psa) 103:15‭-‬16 CJB

[@annamarielewis7078]

I so appreciate this viewpoint. We think we are so important,, but we are just a blip in time.

[@harrietharlow9929]

I'm a huge James Hutton fan and geology buff so this is very enjoyable. I love his 'no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end'. What a beautiful description of the immensity of time. It's mind-blowing if you think about it for a bit.

[@Ch0senJuan]

How come when people relate to videos they are urged to make it about themselves.

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

I fell in love with geology in the first intro course I took to fulfill the general physical science requirement. I immediately switched my academic course to geology and went on to become an environmental geologist. What a wonderful career I had, I am now retired. This career offers the two things all workers most want: autonomy and variety I was never bored once in my career. The salary and benefits are very good, and there is lots of opportunity for travel, too. There is math through calculus, chemistry and physics to get through, but if I can do it, anyone can. I encourage any person who loves the environment and working outdoors to consider it as a career, geologists consistently report the highest job satisfaction over workers of every other career.

[@jamiebill2664]

Going to investigate. Thanks Kim

[@WildWoodsGirl65]

This is great! People really don't speak enough of actual job experiences & work environment before youth are choosing a path.

[@randomcomputer7248]

You sucked the tutor off to get your grades !

[@jamiebill2664]

@randomcomputer7248 what a 🔔

[@blusideup2699]

Though I’m now just starting a really late, completely different career in music, geology has always fascinated me since I was child. The idea of field work all over the world, toting back interesting specimens to examine in a lab was and is just lovely. There is just something about learning about the earth itself on which we live on, which has been here since before us, and would continue to be after us. I suppose though, like most other careers, geology is difficult as a mid-life career change, especially so, when your physics/chem/math knowledge has literally rotted since graduating high school. And practically impossible if you’re living mostly paycheck to paycheck by working nearly full time… Still, I’m curious, which branches of geology might be the most lenient as a career change (that involve some field work), would you think?

[@Steamforger]

That's the wrong James Hutton at 0:41 - that's another James Hutton who was a minister/bookseller who died in 1795. The National Portrait Gallery you licensed the image from literally has the details in the description.

[@thunkstream]

Wow, you're right

[@paulbailey7641]

BBC is full of amateurs these days

[@ericaltmann5711]

@@paulbailey7641 notice that the BBC has not responded to a single comment?

[@drewparry2574]

@@paulbailey7641 your tax dollars m8

[@joe.oneill]

Fascinating how Hutton was able to calculate such a huge difference in the age of the Earth from what was commonly accepted.

[@cartoonraccoon2078]

Also facinating that he wasn't immediatly condemed as a heretic, with the church apologizing three hundred years later...

[@samuelculper4231]

How are our Phils gonna pull it together without Rhys Hoskins?

[@anthonyfrederick3214]

@Lisa Chambers Not a guess. A fact backed up by scientific evidence.

[@bonysminiatures3123]

@Lisa Chambers biblical writings are just guess work

[@noorshaikh5118]

😅😊😅😅

[@marthajackson4865]

wow he managed to clone himself and talk a lot about rocks all in the same video

[@katri-annmalina2097]

Exactly my thoughts

[@mozdickson]

bingo!

[@pixelfrenzy]

It is rather confusing when the presenter and the scientist look like twins!

[@atomictraveller]

just because your mum doesn't go down to the mason hall on the first wednesday of each month.

[@crystaledwards8854]

Where’s Wally x 2! 😊

[@ObviousTroll2016]

Siccar point is the most sacred place in the world for geologists. The Bethlehem and Mecca of Geology

[@ObviousTroll2016]

@@ballsackery thats not what makes it important

[@kellydalstok8900]

Science doesn’t have holy sites or holy men. Those are for people who believe in fairytales.

[@sjain8111]

@@ObviousTroll2016 no but interesting anyway

[@donnadamelio5890]

Loved the photography. Scotland is such a unique country, not just the shoreline but the highlands as well. So much history written in its various layers of rock and sediments over billions of years, it is truly an environment worth exploring.

[@IgnisInvicta]

Defintly. I wish to go there someday.

[@jacobbrumbaugh6928]

I’d love to move there. Great hunting and fishing. Not many people. Lots of space and little people

[@donnadamelio5890]

Me too. I think the city or town is called Elgin. It is the farthest city at the northern border. I'd love to go there and the Cortney Isles.

[@martinphilip8998]

My sister lives in Inveresk House, Musselburg. All we’ve ever had here in central Illinois were a few periods of glaciation and maybe a few million years as a shallow sea. How dull, by comparison. Lol. Gotta love geology. I once amazed a geologist by telling him what a great fan I was. Scott Elrick and his research partner were the only ones to visit a magnificent chamber in a coal mine about to be flooded. Whole tree trunks in fossil form. My niece, Daisy Chute sings the wealth of Scottish folk songs.

[@robertthebruce-geniusofban647]

Indeed!

[@drewcampbell8555]

Hutton is my favourite scientific figure from history. Thrawn, often unkempt and (some say) quite uncouth, his leap of imagination is simply one of the most staggering insights ever made by a human. And that thrawnness was essential too; essential to stand up to received wisdom in the more learned scientific community and defy the political power of dogmatic religious belief. What a man!

[@dielaughing73]

I had to look up "thrawn". What a marvellous Scottish word!

[@MissNArismendezX]

😂❤

[@serendipidus8482]

Never heard the word thrawn before in my life of 44 years! Thank you for a new word. I read many dictionaries too as theyre great books for sitting on the loo ...and never saw thrawn in any of them... nor in any old english books or anywhere. Delighted to find a new one..now need to find out what it means! 😂

[@serendipidus8482]

​@@dielaughing73ah no wonder i never came across it in English dictionaries or books!

[@jamiebill2664]

What an absolutely beautiful voice on the bonnie lass. Both talking and then when she started singing 🤯🔥🥰

[@adhoc9647]

One can only imagine how Leonardo da Vinci must have felt when he found seashells high up in the Alps . .

[@brentjamescollins9731]

Could it have been a real worldwide flood that caused them to be deposited there?! Brent Collins.

[@andrew30m]

@@brentjamescollins9731Very funny

[@jono1457-qd9ft]

​@@brentjamescollins9731🤔 It would have to rain for a lot more than forty days and forty nights to make a worldwide flood 2 miles deep.

[@Spearca]

​@Broskisnowski In real life yes, but not in a Biblical-literalist time frame of creation.

[@jimralston4789]

@@brentjamescollins9731 Animals can live past 20,000 ft and easily there are tons of species including humans that can live 10-15000 ft.. Imagine the volume of water it would take to flood the earth so that no land animals could survive. There is not enough water in the air for that much rain and it would take years to accummulate even there was. A flood like that would have left inescapable evidence. There would not be a spot on Earth where you wouldn't see the destructive effect of that much water especially since it would have been so recent in geologic time. Yet there is no evidence of of a flood of that scale.

[@ufosrus]

It's been ages since I took college geology courses, so thanks for reminding me about Hutton. Science aside, these two men sure look alike and could pass for siblings. 😊

[@IWILSONMCF]

I’m sure they are they live on an island

[@WildWoodsGirl65]

They're cousins, people keep saying on here.

[@ronitennant5253]

This was so much more poetic and romantic than I expected. Very nice!

[@mikekolokowsky]

It’s really hard to break out of your own self importance and realize how big time is, how vast space is, then get walloped by the realization that time and space are kind of the same thing. Most people get uncomfortable for a moment before scurrying back to their little burrows of the the all important, everlasting familiar daily routine. I try to keep my mind swimming in the thought of endlessness before the real world comes to drag me back to its trifle.

[@hitsugatatsuro9978]

I wouldn't call it real life at that poiint. Tis an engineered life by humanity. The real world is out there. I wish we could more often see, especially the children.

[@charelldrivessocal953]

These two guys look so much alike they could be brothers.

[@samuelculper4231]

She has a great voice

[@MatthewHarrold]

There is a beautiful structure to this 13 minutes of truth ... from observation and hypothesis to science and music/culture, to eventually present/future threats. The BBC is truly a world treasure that needs a modern funding model that doesn't include an antiquated TV tax. Excellent reporting. $0.02

[@pjmlegrande]

It is fascinating to me as well and makes me appreciate the power of human imagination in contemplating and attempting to understand deep time, because it is so foreign to human experience, limited as it is to a very short life span. It is still very difficult for many apparently well educated intelligent people to accept the hypotheses of science that is deep-historical in nature and which depends on an imaginative synthesis of quite disparate collections of evidence. It is a special type of intelligence that is capable of such synthesis and imaginative leaps, I think.

[@rhmendelson]

This was PHENOMENAL! A treat for the eye, and the heart. ❤ Thank you for a lovely production BBC!

[@hodgesgravely3648]

It’s so humbling to behold long time. I went to Luray Caverns today and walked through a cave huge that formed over millions of years! Helpful perspective to human day to day life

[@DjangoWineHeart]

Imagine how much Hutton's mind was blown when he realised what he was looking at.🤯

[@hellyripphin8357]

What a beautiful piece. Congratulations to the authors/ creators for a wonderfully assembled vignette.

[@odiii1966]

Wow, magnificent! Thank you. You kept me scratching my head when mentioning "a sudden surge of sediments about 65 million years ago when the 2 formation rocks met". 65M years ago - everything is relative in this time scale - coincides with the Chicxulub asteroid which hit the Earth during the Cretaceous-Paleogene era causing the large fauna to disappear and a mega tsunami to reach far away lands. May such an impact have caused the gap (edited, thanks Hugh) in Sicca Point? I live in the Mayan Riviera, several miles away from the underwater crater in a region surrounded by sinkholes or cenotes. That makes me often question about the Icaiche formation (today's Yucatan Peninsula), prior and after the impact and how it impacted farther lands.

[@ufosrus]

Besides appreciating your comment, I'd like to say how much I enjoyed the cenotes.

[@odiii1966]

Merci @@ufosrus So far, my preferred cenotes (I don't know them all yet): Cristalino and Casa Cenote (open cenotes) and Kan Tun Chi (closed cenotes or in a cave). And in matters of geological formations Ik Kil is a wonder. I stayed in the water for hours to "read" the strata and differences in the colors and sizes of the boulders. This is the one that triggered my curiosity on Chicxulub event.

[@lewisyuu]

@@odiii1966 if japans 2011 earthquake was able to be measured from the other side of the world. i wouldnt suprise me if the impact of the astroid shifted something elsewhere. you have now peaked my interest...

[@odiii1966]

@@lewisyuu Indeed, imagine an 10 to 19km (numbers vary) asteroid hitting the sea with causing the explosion with the power of hundreds of atomic bombs. What would be the amount of debris and the size of the tsunami, etc.

[@hughwilson6955]

These rocks are a fair bit older than Chicxulub, greywacke is silurian (435mya) then old red sandstone is devonian (370mya). It's the gap that is 65 million years. But i'm sure you're right elsewhere.

[@louis-philippearnhem6959]

Two planets meet: “You’re looking bad earth, what’s up?” “I have Homo sapiens!” “Had it once, will be over soon!”

[@DennisMoore664]

So... Six: "All of this has happened before..." Baltar: But the question remains: does all of this have to happen again? ...?

[@moinuddinkhan593]

Today it seems quite easy, but it's extremely difficult if everybody except you believes in a certain way & you say something opposite to them.

[@atomictraveller]

you might think that, but if you live in southern arizona you can just fill your palm. i used to be from wales, i was nice in the seventies. please be imbued with some of the murderous spirit i've learned in arizona and go to the mason lodge in your community. your entire society is rotten with tavistock and personalised heterodyned microwave MK. but you can still punch a mfer in the face. as long as you have IR LEDS on your hat for all the security cams. and here's a special word nobody can have: epistemology. it roots science and scientific authority up the shithole.

[@janegardener1662]

We have the same problem now but with different subjects.

[@RandomnessTube.]

It just puts into perspective how short life actually is.

[@Moodboard39]

How meaningless it is...

[@EduardoOliveira-e8c]

This highlander is a genius.

[@memofromessex]

He was from Edinburgh, so he was a lowlander

[@alexandermuller950]

​@@memofromessex But how from Edinburgh is lowlander? I'm genuinely confused

[@briangoodwin6547]

@@alexandermuller950 It’s a long way from the highlands to Edinborough ,ergo low lander

[@alexandermuller950]

@@briangoodwin6547 ok thanks for the info mate!

[@johnnysmith863]

There can be only one!

[@heatrayzvideo3007]

It's cool that the proclaimers are now doing science. Jokes aside it was genuinely fascinating.

[@kellydalstok8900]

They had to walk a long way to get there.

[@wazz1154]

@@kellydalstok8900500 actually, lol!

[@CL-vz6ch]

They look nothing like the Proclaimers

[@WildWoodsGirl65]

So you're really saying you've only ever heard of one Scottish thing & associate all else with it? Spare us. And yourself. Js

[@hmu05366]

@@WildWoodsGirl65classic English humour isn’t it. Dreadful patter

[@kerbal666]

Not to take away how interesting how these chaps are but they are definitely related

[@MetastaticMaladies]

Thinking about time, reminds me of the fossil I dug up from my backyard. It’s around 200 million years old, and holding it in my hand just thinking about that time span, that this “rock” had been there for so long and was once something living and alive, went extinct never to be seen again for hundreds of millions of years. Until that moment I pulled it out of the ground, a vestige of its existence in my hand. It’s a very difficult feeling to explain or describe but one thing that it most certainly is, is intensely momentous.

[@trekkingalbertosaur8870]

You should have defined the 3 types of Hutton's unconformities and then show this as the 'angular type unconformity'... also you should state clearly the tectonic uplift and compression (orogen) caused the deformation and erosion of Hutton's unconformity, and loss of 60Ma of Geological record: (1) 435Ma Silurian deep marine deposits laid down in the Iapetus Ocean --> (2) these sediments were then folded, uplifted, and rotated as the ancient Iapetus Ocean was destroyed during the Caledonian Orogeny (mountain building collision) where North America + Scotland (aka Laurentia) collided with Western Europe/England (Avalonia/Baltica) --> (3) Later during an extension phase following this Iapetus Suture, the Hutton's angular unconformity was capped by 375Ma Upper Devonian age desert deposits of the Old Red Sandstone rift basins. Lastly, (4) the entire section was tilted again and re-eroded, forming what we see today...

[@trekkingalbertosaur8870]

'Ma' = Millon years ago

[@judewarner1536]

Really! Why not complain that he didn't cover the history of the universe, leading to the birth of the Earth and the geological processes that have transformed our planet? Perhaps because it would take more than a quarter of an hour to do it justice!

[@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156]

That place looks like a piece of primeval asteroid-landscape that somehow managed to stick around well beyond its supposed timeframe and just happened to poke through our world's fabric.

[@generalhades4518]

i stood on the unconformitty on the isle of arran where he first validated his presumptions. was crazy to be standing at the starting point of modern geology

[@segurosincero4057]

What a lovely voice she has.

[@ushalexa]

Kudos to the cinematographer!

[@joshadams8761]

The audio is also great!

[@andreassumerauer5028]

Thank you for this wonderful story about the man who was the first to teach us to recognize the mutability of geological formations that we perceive as so permanent. And who was the first to read them and envision those amazing periods of time over which these formations were shaped. I have always been a great admirer of Friedrich Rückert's poem Chidher, which he wrote in the early eighteen hundreds. It has always been a mystery to me from what source Rückert draws the very modern idea of the world changing in geological periods of time, and in his poem he so masterfully places the archetypal figure of the eternally young wanderer Chidher into this steadily reshaping world. I am afraid I haven't been able to find an english translation of the poem. So here at least is the German original: Chidher Chidher, der ewig junge, sprach: Ich fuhr an einer Stadt vorbei, Ein Mann im Garten Früchte brach; Ich fragte, seit wann die Stadt hier sei? Er sprach, und pflückte die Früchte fort: Die Stadt steht ewig an diesem Ort, Und wird so stehen ewig fort. Und aber nach fünfhundert Jahren Kam ich desselbigen Wegs gefahren. Da fand ich keine Spur der Stadt; Ein einsamer Schäfer blies die Schalmei, Die Herde weidete Laub und Blatt; Ich fragte: wie lang ist die Stadt vorbei? Er sprach, und blies auf dem Rohre fort: Das eine wächst, wenn das andre dorrt; Das ist mein ewiger Weideort. Und aber nach fünfhundert Jahren Kam ich desselbigen Wegs gefahren. Da fand ich ein Meer, das Wellen schlug, Ein Schiffer warf die Netze frei, Und als er ruhte vom schweren Zug, Fragt ich, seit wann das Meer hier sei? Er sprach, und lachte meinem Wort: Solang als schäumen die Wellen dort, Fischt man und fischt man in diesem Port. Und aber nach fünfhundert Jahren Kam ich desselbigen Wegs gefahren. Da fand ich einen waldigen Raum, Und einen Mann in der Siedelei, Er fällte mit der Axt den Baum; Ich fragte, wie alt der Wald hier sei? Er sprach: der Wald ist ein ewiger Hort; Schon ewig wohn ich an diesem Ort, Und ewig wachsen die Bäum hier fort. Und aber nach fünfhundert Jahren Kam ich desselbigen Wegs gefahren. Da fand ich eine Stadt, und laut Erschallte der Markt vom Volksgeschrei. Ich fragte: seit wann ist die Stadt erbaut? Wohin ist Wald und Meer und Schalmei? Sie schrien, und hörten nicht mein Wort: So ging es ewig an diesem Ort, Und wird so gehen ewig fort. Und aber nach fünfhundert Jahren Will ich desselbigen Weges fahren.

[@beccabbea2511]

Hi, I looked up the poem in German and Google did a fair job of translating it. A cycle of time and life. Thanks.

[@lynby6231]

Listen to “the circle game” by Joni Mitchell if you like that sort of stuff

[@pegasus5287]

I am not sure why, but I get tickled when I hear "firth of forth". I would love to visit Scotland one day, it looks so beautiful.

[@krashd]

Oddly enough we don't do that for any of our other rivers, you never hear firth of Tay or firth of Clyde, etc

[@Remnants100]

​@@krashd- perhaps "Firth" was almost lost forever in an Unconformity.

[@hmu05366]

@@krashdyes you do. There are both firth of clyde and firth of tay lol. It’s basically just like the Scots equivalent of the Norwegian fjord.

[@hmu05366]

@@Remnants100nope! Not lost at all, still very much in use

[@PoshLifeforME]

I found this not only interesting but quite calming.

[@zoofeather]

James Hutton father of geology

[@kozykat6092]

I really appreciate the reflective nature of this video and her poetry. Science and art are meant to intertwine like this. Gorgeous video

[@SuziSellsSound]

Even rocks melt in the sun. I keep replaying her singing that part of Robert Burns - Love Is Like A Red Rose!! So beautiful. Science + Art belong together.

[@jaymac7203]

There's still people today who think the earth is 6000 years old. Lol

[@hmu05366]

😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@LunaSmithArt]

An amazing part of History - thank you for the wonderful news of the 'abyss of time'.

[@1amybean]

“My love is like a red, red rose”…her unexpected singing just transformed my day 🌞❤️

[@AdamGordon1]

Lovely voice, eh?

[@ekojar3047]

That is why I try to live it up every day. Life is a gift. Human life has only just begun, and is currently a tiny piece of time, but we can change that as long we continue to live it upwards and onwards. Into billions of years into the future.

[@homofloridensis]

There’s a hymn, “God Folds the Mountains Out of Rock” by Thomas Troeger, based on Job 28

[@SactownOwen]

This moved me in a way that I was not expecting. Beautifully done, all.

[@saladboss649]

these two guys look so alike!

[@LaLadybug2011]

As a 61 year old Christian, who was born into a Baptist family grew up in that religion, went to a Pentecostal church when visiting my great- grandmother in the summers, and was baptized a second time while attending a charismatic non-denominational church for 13 years. Finally, came home to the religion I will be when I die Catholicism. Never, have I ever in ANY of those religion's churches did anyone ever say the earth is two thousand years old. The Catholic Church today embraces science and as a college student I never heard anyone say the earth is 2000 years old. Jesus was on earth and died approx 2023 years ago. The earth was ancient at that point! We have no inkling of God's time other than a scripture in Genesis I believe that talks about what a day (in God's time) would be like for us. This video is the coolest thing alive learned in a while---can't wait to find out more.

[@xoxohonna]

So you support the lies of this video?? They are discrediting the bible and so, the existence of God. They understand less than nothing.

[@frisco61]

@@xoxohonnaThey’re not discrediting the Bible. The Bible is actually a collection of books written over a couple thousand years. In fact Genesis (?) says that a thousand years is like a day to God and vice versa. When Genesis speaks of a “day” it is not speaking of a 24 hour day as we have it. Especially since the sun hadn’t been created yet. Genesis is not a science book, it’s a spiritual book that blends perfectly with science when we quit trying to force it into something that it was never intended to be. I suggest watching Bishop Robert Barron on Genesis, it’s very helpful.

[@frisco61]

As a fellow Catholic I completely agree. Take the “why are we here” and “how am I to live” to the Scriptures. Leave the science to the scientists. After all, God created science, and everything scientists, many of whom are Christian, seek to understand.

[@xoxohonna]

@@frisco61 Yes, I know. my family is catholic but I am not. None of my catholic people ever told me that Almighty God would interact with me, but when I was crying out to God, he answered me and gave me the true baptism which is a supernatural event wherein he literally places his spirit within your physical body and since then, back in the 90's, I speak to Jesus, ask questions and hear His voice everyday. It's crucial to having a proper walk with God. Catholics pray to Mary whilst the bible is clear the only way to God the father is through Jesus. Mary, blessed though she is among women is not the go between. I was mad when I became born again that nobody ever told me about it. I don't attend any church building, it's just me and God through Jesus. Most don't have a clue that the end of time is here and the apocalypse is beginning. Its the blind leading the blind.

[@nancyo6342]

@@frisco61 It's not a spiritual book; it's a history book.

[@ef5686]

exceptional report. genius in its ability to give it philosophical depth, rooted in science, culturally inspiring and sadly humancentric.

[@jenb6412]

That womans voice is incredible!

[@TheOtherGuys2]

Fascinating location. I think it's on the West side of Scotland, maybe farther to the North, where there's a similarly angled formation of rock layers dating back to the Carboniferous period. They're one side of what was once a large bowl-shaped valley, which split down the middle when the continents broke apart. The other side of it, as luck would have it, is in Nova Scotia, Canada. A couple notes I want to make though: One is that this notion the video is trying to give that a nuclear power plant and a cement factory are as equivalent to the 'deep future' as sedimentary rocks are to the deep past is ridiculous. Sure, nuclear waste is radioactive for a long time, what, 60'000 years? A: That's a pittance compared to the time scale you're looking at in those layers. There was literally a gap of 100 times that long between layers. B: In the course of human development, it is almost inevitable that we'll discover some way to more efficiently deal with radioactivity and mitigate that problem. So much of this lamenting for human activity is incredibly short-sighted and ignorant. C: If the Human race is the result of natural evolution, then Human activity is completely natural. It's natural for termites to build a city by gluing dirt together, it's natural for elephants to push trees over, and everything humans do is a part of nature. Starting fires, smelting steel, refining Plutonium, detonating atomic bombs, paving cities with cement... By definition, unless the reason we're able to do those things is something supernatural, all of that is completely natural. The other thing is that the video made a point about how the discovery challenged the Biblical concepts, but it.. really doesn't. Maybe it challenges the understanding of the Biblical account, but that too is kinda short sighted and ignorant. If you're familiar with the Bible's account of creation, and you think that means the Earth is 6000 years old, you're missing a step in the logic. First off, it's probably closer to 8 or 9000 years, because the 6000 year figure is based on tracing the lineage, but there are almost definitely steps missing from that, but that's beside the point. Let me ask this: When God created Adam, was Adam a newborn? Of course not; he'd have died without a mother. He wasn't a child, he wasn't a fertilized egg, he was a man. When God created the whales, the chickens, the bees, the dogs... Were they babies/hatchlings/larvae/puppies? No, again, they wouldn't have been able to survive. They were created in the state of life. When the Andromeda galaxy was created 2.5 million light years away, did the light from it begin travelling to Earth starting then? You can look up in the sky and see it today, so no, its light was also created in action. And so the rocks were created with millions of years of history written in them, in geological layers and Cambrian fossils and dinosaur bones, with eons of erosion and tectonic movement already in their history. If God creates a man, you don't look at him and say "That is a baby." If God creates a bird, you don't look at it and say "That is a hatchling." When God creates a fully formed planet covered in life and history, why would you look at it and say it's young?

[@zuzuspetals9281]

And reread the first verses of Genesis as it says the world was without form and void. The earth was here a long time before God moved upon it to prepare it for Adam and the animals or “creation “. The millions of years we see in geological history and fossils could well be prior times when the earth was not habitable for mankind.

[@TheOtherGuys2]

​@@zuzuspetals9281 A neat thing about that. In the Hebrew text, the word translated to 'void' is the same word that's later used to describe the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah after they were annihilated by fire. In Hebrew, the word can have different meanings, it can mean "empty because nothing's been put there yet" or "empty because what used to be there has been removed". (Those aren't exact definitions of course.)

[@elizabethmarshall2990]

Yes, very good points

[@badgerboyboogie]

South East. Just south of Edinburgh.😊

[@JK_Clark]

Not only will the nuclear waste become inert within thousands and not million of years; I'm sure we'll come up with a way to use or neutralise it within decades or maybe centuries. I think the pertinent points about humanity buggering up our planet are a) no other creatures do that and b) we know we're doing it and yet continue. You say "the 6000 year figure is based on tracing the lineage" - I'm not at all familiar with the bible, being a lapsed catholic, but are you saying the time span was worked out by the authors' known forefathers? Interesting if so.

[@S-T-E-V-E]

The Geology of the Coastline from Edinburgh To Berwick is absolutely stunning!

[@janetmcdonald2572]

Beautiful and engaging, perfect editing and story telling. Thank you

[@Dishfire101]

what a great Scotsman was Hutton.

[@paulpenfold867]

I would have much preferred it if the narrator didn't keep referring to the "Biblical account of time", as the Bible does not actually state how old the earth is, and the traditional calculations of the earth's age are based on interpretations of the text rather than explicit statements. It would have been more accurate to have called it "the traditional account".

[@AndyCutright]

There is no traditional account. No other religion produces an estimate of the age of the earth based on the Christian bible. To claim the earth is only thousands of years old is absolutely a proclaim a "biblical account of time."

[@Taketimeout3]

The biblical account is exactly what people were basing their belief of how old the Earth is. And it is what Creationists still believe and use the Bible to prove their opinion not just true but factually accurate. There was no "traditional account" other than that given by Christian authorities as they also believed the Sun, and all creation, rotates around the Earth. It was understandable, I'm not condemning them, but they did, and still do, condemn those who thought differently to Biblical interpretation. It was called Heresy and punishable.

[@paulpenfold867]

@@Taketimeout3 nobody is denying that people based their beliefs about the earth's age on interpretations of the Bible, but the key word here is *interpretations*.

[@paulpenfold867]

@@AndyCutright Jews would also have believed in a 'young' earth, as all the relevant passages cited in support of this idea are found in the Old Testament. 'Traditional account' in this case would mean "that account of things which had become a tradition throughout the western world". This tradition was based on an interpretation of the Bible, which does not itself make a definitive statement on the subject.

[@kw8757]

"The traditional account"....also known as "bullshit".

[@dundeedolphin]

It was more the abyss of history than of time.

[@prototropo]

Most lyrical, evocative short film . . . works in multiple dimensions very effectively. As inspiration of geology, and meditation of epistemology, and admonition of moral philosophy, all wrapped into an omen of tragedy, like Siccar's Point compressed a story of mystery, and we're drafting our page for the future of history.

[@peterlauder7821]

Bohm’s theory is the “unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing movement without borders.”

[@DarylSolis]

It's so weird how you both look alike...

[@williebeamish5879]

It's the "geological look".

[@request_lift]

This is why I pay for the BBC. More of this please!

[@joebloggs-el3gv]

Don't post this comment ever again. Lol 🤙🏿

[@Sunny_Blue_]

@@joebloggs-el3gv why not?

[@Sunny_Blue_]

You have a sick point!

[@davidkennedy8929]

If it wasn’t for the “politically correct and diversity inclusive” crap they produce then I would agree with you!

[@andrew30m]

@@davidkennedy8929such as?

[@jasonparrish8670]

Excellent integration of Karine Polwart into the news piece, thank you!

[@ricknico2577]

Those two must be brothers.

[@Airith0]

Calm down BBC, I don't need to tear up watching a geology video 🤣

[@andrewkeesays]

Idk why but her music brought tears to my eyes

[@seahorse5689]

Fascinating and what a gorgeous place!

[@kw8757]

Yeah, the view of the cement works was especially moving, and the nuclear power plant...wow...blew me away.

[@pooroldpedro]

some pretty pictures, some soundbites, a song. Nothing to actually explain how he knew how long it took the rocks to be laid down, nor how long the disconformity took to form. I don't suppose he counted 35 million layers?

[@yan.weather]

Loved this. Humbling... earth's sophistication is beyond human comprehension. Fills me with curiosity and wonderment.

[@MrShuttz]

It's individuals like this man who put the Great into Great Britain. Makes ya proud.

[@OursForTheMaking]

Fascinating how this one observation transformed our understanding of time and upended the prevailing wisdom of a six-thousand year-old Earth, replacing it in the blink of an eye to one that must be millions (and later found to be billions) of years old. Great video and a superb book, The Long View, from Richard Fisher.

[@trebleboost7]

@phillydisco Indeed - this does not logically discount the Biblical text although I would like to see the original language to confrim the translation but the text states the earth was 'without form and void' which curiously seems to fit in my opinion and explains a lot of the geological timeframe.

[@mikered1974]

​@@trebleboost7more likely Biblical text are Exageration of Climatic Disaster in the Past like : Noah Flood which according to Archelogical Discovery there is indeed widespread Flooding in Ancient South Mesopotamia ie: Modern Southern Iraq that Force Ancient Mesopotamian People 's to migrate Northward & to Levant which is very similar to Biblical Story of Noah Flood , Babylon Fall & Abraham Migration to Canaan.

[@sonofculloden2]

Who believes the earth is only 6000 years old 😂

[@LeadSalad99]

Everyone looks exactly like each other in this. The lady too

[@christinecarter6836]

Karine, what a beautiful song performed in an ethereal way, the poetry you added to the content was perfectly in tune with the vastness portrayed

[@witherow777]

Incredible rock formation. Unfortunate that so many brilliant people have been misled by the presumption that these events were laid down gradually over millions of years, other than what the evidence suggests about cataclysmic circumstances. Modern science is finally beginning to embrace this reality. The longer we hang on to our presumptions, the longer it will be before we move into the next explosion of scientific discovery.

[@curtisdaniel9294]

Fascinating science history lesson. We have several unconformities where I live here in Colorado. Even took my students to study them, mentioning Hutton in the process. Thanks for a great lesson in geology! ❤🎉

[@janoginski5557]

A very Old Story, no pun intended. Nevertheless it’s an amazing history.

[@purplejellygem]

What the video failed to capture is that while Siccar Point is a fascinating place, on a sunny day it's also stunningly beautiful.

[@augusthavince8909]

This stuff can a person feel small sometimes.

[@petertalbot7183]

Phenomenal !

[@jaymac7203]

What stunning scenery 😍 It really is a beautiful place.

[@whitneymacdonald4396]

This short film is such a lovely convergence of wonder, awe, history, art, science, philosophy and spirt. Well done!!

[@ramirosabatini]

This was remarkable

[@hikerJohn]

This was not really about "The man who discovered the 'abyss of time'" but more about what the narrator and the musician thought about all this time . . .

[@Elsieoneal]

This is so interesting but all I can think is these two blokes look like twins!

[@Meowmeowmeowing1]

Religious thinking holds humanity back

[@stevengill1736]

I learned unconformity theory in Geology 101 in 1971-72, and that insignificant time ago (50 + years) it's still being discussed.... Anthropocene eras aside, geologic time requires an entirely different view of things than our everyday consciousnes...

[@kiyacosan5591]

Ohhh the musician's singing voice is absolutely beautiful! ❤

[@airrfourr2400]

Omg!! I’m impressed not by the rocks, but by the soft, delicate and amazing voice of Karine Polwart!! Marry me! Omg she is amazing! So beautiful lyrics! Kudos! Following you on Apple Music!.. also amazing documentary, thanks

[@NerdyGamerGirI]

9:00 Their voice was unexpectedly sweet.

[@hellokittykitty737]

these guys can pass as twins

[@darthknight1]

Good lord, these two guys look like identical twins.

[@petersmith1190]

such a lovely report, well put together

[@fallstar130]

I see he was able to find his doppelganger.

[@johncarr2333]

Touching our own face, it is good to be alive.

[@brinistaco1970]

"the densest most terrible ink". Thank you for your video.

[@exmohobobonobo]

As an American, I had to pause, rewind, and enable subtitles at that point, because what I heard was “dentist.” 😂 The writing here is profoundly beautiful.

[@glensmillie5101]

Beautiful 😮 captivating, I'm seated here on a train from Brisbane, northbound for the Sunshine coast, I am grateful and deeply moved by your video, I was, rather too briefly, transported into Scotland and history, the sounds of ocean against land, crow upon wind, poetry in song was an enchanting gift, thankyou 🙏.

[@ibeetellingya5683]

What a fascinating and charming piece!

[@lukekitchen7153]

"We have begun to write our name in the densest most terrible ink in the sands of time compared to our ancestors" -damn that was deep

[@Vera511]

" He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has even put eternity in their heart; yet mankind will never find out the work that the true God has made from start to finish." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

[@alexandergalitevstudentfvh8696]

god is a lie.

[@user-tq2wz2tx2u]

Amen🙏