Grand Canyon

With a finger or two of single malt (as I am wont to do at this time of year), I often ruminate about time... upon eternity and man's place in it.  For example, Christmastide is, of course, a mixture of pagan winter solstice rituals (dating from time immemorial) jumbled up with the Nativity's Christmas star.  Mortality meets the infinite, as it were.

December 24, 2024--Grand Canyon South Rim

But there is a certain longing, for lack of a better.  "For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."  Matthew 13:17  Many prophets and righteous people--generations upon generations before the advent of the Christ child--all longing for a heavenly future foretold.  

Or, generations who long to go back, to go back and modify what has passed, to correct sins perhaps.  Discounting the possibility of time travel, the problem is we can't go back.  Time is a river.  Rivers flow downstream.  We are in the moment.  We fish in the stream of time, to borrow from Henry David Thoreau..."It's thin current slides away, but eternity remains."

Speaking of Christmas, it was a slightly different affair this year.  Our youngest daughter and her husband have made their home in Arizona.  Time we visited.  So we did.  Weather was exquisite by north central Idaho's standards (until the day after Christmas at least).  On Christmas Eve day, we were treated to a "bucket list" item.  Our gracious hosts drove us out to see the Grand Canyon.  It was that which prompts my pensive reflection upon time.

December 24, 2024  Grand Canyon South Rim

It is not possible to view the Grand Canyon without at least a bit of awe and wonder at its vastness.  More, the chasm that opens before you exposes an inexpressible age.  The oldest rock at the basement of the Grand Canyon is said to be the Elves Chasm, over 1.84 billion years old (Ga), only a small part of which is exposed.  Being intrusive igneous rock, the Elves Chasm is plutonic; meaning, its shape, extent and in some cases composition are in doubt.  Further, "intrusive" is the operable word.  For it stands to reason the Elves Chasm intruded into even older rock which has yet to be identified. 

Elves Chasm aside, the canyon's basement of crystalline rocks is comprised of what are informally called the Vishnu Basement Rocks.  Nominally, these rocks span some 1.8 to 1.75 Ga.  The Colorado River's Grand Canyon exposure profile slices through it all, all the way down to this Precambrian rock.  It has exposed the earliest geological period in Earth's history.

December 24, 2024  Elves Chasm Gneiss example

The Precambrian spans the formation of the planet (about 4.5 billion years ago, give or take) to the beginning of the Cambrian Period (about 542 million years ago (Ma)).  During the Precambrian the continents formed and, more importantly, the atmosphere developed into an oxygen-based one.  (Prior to the Precambrian, the atmosphere was one of methane, and quite toxic to most life as we know it.) 

Early life did begin to evolve.  While the earliest bacteria micro-fossils are found to occur at 3.5 Ga (Archaean Eon) about a billion years after the planet formed, it was during the late Precambrian (Paleoproterozoic Eon) that eukaryotes (animals, plants, fungi, seaweed, and unicellular organisms) began to develop as methane gave way to oxygen.  The earliest animal fossils are found at the Precambrian/Cambrian interface, roughly around 542 Ma, when the various species of life began to explode in complexity.  

December 24, 2024 Grand Canyon

Again, the Grand Canyon is indescribable in age.  But I should say the rock strata in it are of indescribable age.  As opposed to the upper layers of rocks (the youngest being about 300 million years old), the age of the Grand Canyon itself is much more recent--dating to about six million years ago.  Under continuous hydraulic force to this day, the Colorado River has cut its course ever downward.  Given time (which humanity likely does not have), it may yet expose even more. 

Looking into the chasm of the Grand Canyon was quite a treat.  It has given me something to think about...the ultimate insignificance of mankind.  Transient and temporary.  Hubris saturated.  Chauvinistic both in time and self-assumed importance.

As for creationism, the origin of life is debatable.  ^"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas”. And God saw that it was good," according to Genesis 1:9-13. 

"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.  And it was so.  The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day."   

The crux of the matter turns on the length of a day in God time, I suppose.  What is beyond debate is that the Colorado and its tributaries have exposed nearly two billion years of strata, layer upon layer.  A truly remarkable view. 

December 24, 2024  Grand Canyon pinyon

December 24, 2024

I should interject that recently, based on South Australia finds, the earliest animal fossil to date (~555 Ma) is Quaestio simpsonorum, possibly one of the earliest animals known that was capable of movement.  Not that it matters whether we push the Precambrian/Cambrian interface 13 million years one way or the other.  Even showing up in the fossil record as early as 555 Ma, animal life is still a relative newcomer.  Further, research into the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is emerging to suggest that life can be dated (in models) to about 4.2 Ga--a relatively young age when Earth was still in the process of forming. 

I leave the "Why here of all places?  Why now?" to others to solve.  I am satisfied to call it "the intricate and intelligent design" of life, and leave it at that.  Though doubtless, with a good single malt and a little time on my hands, I am certain the mysteries of the universe will unfold, if not page by page then layer by layer perhaps.