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The topic my partner and I chose to explore and inform others about is the geological

timeline. More specifically, we wanted to show it in a way that people could comprehend.

While the real timeline spans over 4.8 billion years, we decided to show how the Earths

geological timeline would look if it spanned 24 hours instead. What we found was almost mind-

blowing. What normally took millions of years was broken down into a matter of hours. It really

put things into perspective. For example, in real time, it took 1 billion years for life to be

created, however if the timeline was condensed into a year, life would have been created

around 4 AM. By life I mean simple celled organisms, so, it is really amazing how fast that has

come about in the grand scheme of things. Another example is fossils. The first fossil was

probably created around 3.4 billion years ago, .4 billion years after life was created, and they

were mostly of different types of bacteria. If the timeline were condensed into one 24-hour

day, the first fossil was created at 5:36 AM, on one hour and 36 minutes after life had begun.

Its amazing to me how fast this process occurred. A person wouldnt think fast is the word

for this situation, but put into a format that humans can understand better, fast is exactly what

it is. When the time came for the dinosaurs to stop roaming the earth, it was already 10:56 PM.

Thats only an hour and 4 minutes before our geological day ended, however it was a whole 65

billion years ago. The fact the number 64 billion can be reduced into a little over an hour is

impactful to me. It really puts into perspective how fast time can fly. The final example I have,

and the most incredible example in my opinion, is the time that modern humans have been

around. Modern humans date back some 200,000 years, however, if that time was condensed

into 24 hours it would one cover one second of the day. So, in one second, humans have made

the biggest impact that this world has ever seen. We have made so much progress with the
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things we have invented or learned, but weve also had the most to do with the negative parts

of the world. For example, in one second, humans have changed the climate for the worse,

created a garbage patch the size of two Texas in the middle of the ocean impacting every single

species of everything thats living out there, and were even killing off the bees, which without

them, we would literally have nothing. Humans arent all bad, but when its put into

perspective, it really shows how little weve cared about the only place that has ever let us

thrive. Hopefully this opens other eyes to what we as humans have done, and hopefully we

learn to change sooner rather than later, before its too late.

Sources

Johnson, C. C., Middendorf, J., Rehrey, G., Dalkilic, M. M., & Cassidy, K. (2014). Geological time,

biological events and the learning transfer problem. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and

Learning, 14(3), 115. doi:10.14434/v14i4.4667

Yau, N. (2012, October 08). History of Earth in 24-hour clock. Retrieved July 30, 2017, from

https://flowingdata.com/2012/10/09/history-of-earth-in-24-hour-clock/