My brother and I took all our kids to Nevada last month, and in Cajon Junction, Calif., I called out to the kids as we drove past the Mormon Rocks. If I’m headed on a long car trip, I will Google not just good places to eat but also if there are any interesting formations visible from the road. I’ll ponder how many millenniums it’s been there or the seismic event that sheared it from something bigger. I still pay attention to the wildlife and plants along a hiking path, but if I come across a large, imposing wall of rock, as I did in Eaton Canyon a few weeks ago, I will also pause to admire it. I am sort of a tectonic dilettante, thinking broadly about the long-ago shifts that created a landscape but fuzzy on the specifics of granite versus gneiss, or Pliocene versus Pleistocene. Real rockhounds know the chemical components of their favorite minerals and the geological conditions that created them. Geology is one of those interests that can go big or small. ![]() But contemplating deep time does the job without the side effects. Plant-based mind-expansion attempts have never gone well for me: My brain gets itchy, my skin feels tight, pets start looking at me in contemptuous and unsettling ways. No matter how awe-inspiring, any natural feature is here but for a blip of time, its geographic coordinates “a temporary description,” as McPhee put it, “as if for a boat on the sea.” To take in The Picture is to appreciate that every single physical thing that Earth or man creates will eventually be subsumed by this force of relentless motion and regeneration. The chunks of earth that make up today’s continents have joined and scattered so many times that the borders we draw upon them seem almost sweetly naive, like the moats children dig in the sand to defend their castles from the tide. Canyons, islands and mountain ranges formed and wore away before even our earliest ancestors were around to see them. Everest were once at the bottom of the sea. This giant rock we live on is in constant, ceaseless motion, making and remaking itself through the magical combination of infinitesimal movement and incomprehensible amounts of time. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. ![]() Otherwise geology seemed to me the sour gray aunt of science, a pastime for people put off by the charm and character of actual living things. I’d pull over to admire Earth’s biggest hits, like Sedona’s fiery sandstone or the Grand Canyon’s layer cake of history. I used “geology” when reaching for an example of the most tedious subject I could think of I used phrases like “dull as rocks” without concern. When she isn’t digging around in the dirt for work, she enjoys running on the beach, paddling in search of sea lions and chasing after the various small mammals she lives with.įor a very long time, I was bored by rocks. This week’s guest wilder is The Times’ science and medicine reporter Corinne Purtill. For the next several weeks, we’re featuring a series of guest writers (whom we’ve dubbed “wilders” ) from around The Times who are eager to share their adventures with you. Editor’s note: The Wild is all about featuring a variety of exciting voices from SoCal’s outdoors scene.
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