Smudge Studio’s Geologic Time Viewer re-casts the “official Geologic Time Scale” as not only a way of looking back into the past, but also a window into the present: “the materialities of every previous geologic epoch flow into the present-as-middle and give form to our daily lives.” We learn, for instance, that iron infrastructures, like Manhattan Bridge, are built out of material laid down during the Precambrian; that it is Devonian oil which combusts in automobile engines; that East Coast brownstones are clad by Triassic stone; and that Cape Cod is an “ephemeral” Pleistocene landscape, “waiting for sea levels to rise and submerge it again”.
-
recent posts
- mud and oil
- dredgefest california
- prosthetic landscapes in a time of acceleration
- Excavations, Shockwaves, and Limits
- on landscape science
- sea ice small multiples
- the dredge underground
- the five thousand pound life: land
- suburban futures
- pilot projects
- landmarks
- territorial reclamation
- landscape information modeling
- mesosphere excavations
- semipile
-
recent comments
- rholmes: Thanks for your comments, all. Brian: I look forward to your further thoughts on my first two points. Where...
- Michael: A little late to the party but here nonetheless. Needless to say I’m quite sympathetic to the pursuit...
- building nothing out of something: 30;] home // hide asides // links // index.archive // contact us // teaching //...
- Brian: well, there are few things more gratifying than producing something that people I admire and draw from engage...
- Brett: So it seems it would be great if the new Places interface could include a comment forum to give the authors...
- Ryan Lee Waldron, PE: I don’t think Landscape Architecture should be renamed landscape science, just as I...
- Alan Wiig: For whatever reason, when reading this commentary I thought of John McPhee’s book The Pine Barrens,...
- Julian Raxworthy: Interesting discussion Rob, and great to be referred to and introduced to your blog. Reading this...
- Thoughts on Everything under the Sun or I am a guilty Secularist: 30;] h/t m.ammoth.us […]
- Anchorite: If NM fails to meet its water obligations to TX they don’t pay a simple penalty, a federal judge...
-
monthly archives
-
category archives
-
tags
anthropocene architectural-criticism architecture army-corps-of-engineers atchafalaya china climate-change competitions dredge dredge-research-collaborative ecological-urbanism-at-gsd economics flood-control geology glacier-island-storm hacking-infrastructure hydrology infrastructural-vernacular infrastructure internet iphone kazys-varnelis landscape landscape-architecture landscape-futures landscape-infrastructures landscape-urbanism los angeles louisiana mississippi-river networked-urbanism new-urbanism new york city photography post-industrial re-industrial reading-the-infrastructural-city readings soft-systems suburbia technology transportation urbanism video-games waste
[…] geology as infrastructure – mammoth // building nothing out of something […]
[…] geology as infrastructureSmudge Studio?s Geologic Time Viewer re-casts the ?official Geologic Time Scale? as not only a way of looking back into the past, but also a window into the present: ?the materialities of every previous geologic epoch flow into the present-as-middle and give form to our daily lives.? We learn, for instance, that iron infrastructures, like Manhattan Bridge, are built out of material laid down during the Precambrian; that it is Devonian oil which combusts in automobile engines; that East Coast brownstones are clad by Triassic stone; and that Cape Cod is an ?ephemeral? Pleistocene landscape, ?waiting for sea levels to rise and submerge it again?.(tags:geo history ) […]