Ego Delusion versus Rocks

I've been studying the geology of my neighborhood on and off for about 10 years. Every few years there's some new tool or online database that provides new sets of information to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. For example, now there's a water well database online so it's possible to look at a map of all the water wells and depth to bedrock across the state of Ohio. You can also view the logs and see what types of rocks are at a given depth. Also now there's LIDAR imaging over the whole state that's accessible online, so it's very easy to assemble a model of the landscape.

The defining features of this area are ancient layers of sedimentary bedrock, like sandstone and shale, that are deposited on top of one another. Those bedrock layers are almost completely covered by an overlying layer of glacial debris that's hundreds of feet thick in some places. It is quire shallow in others typically at higher elevations, or where there are outcroppings of sandstone, or in specific fast flowing creeks where water keeps washing away debris from the bedrock. By contrast, the bedrock is exposed all over the place in southern Ohio. You can go on google maps street view in southern Ohio and just try a few roads and soon you'll see exposed sandstone or shale on the roadside.

My property is on a deposit of glacial debris that's quite deep. Unfortunately, there's no well log for my property in the online database, so I'm not totally sure what's going on beneath the surface. There could be shale at a depth of 50 or so feet, or it might be glacial debris that are over 100 feet deep down to the next layer of sedimentary rocks in this area.

Back in 1912 a geologist named Charles S. Prosser published a geological survey of Ohio, including my neighborhood where Big Creek is a feature. He wrote about a few sections of exposed bedrock I'm quite familiar with and others I didn't know existed because they're hidden away on private property. For example, he writes about some shale that's exposed along Ravenna Road just north of Chardon (google maps link). I drive or ride my bike past that almost every day.

Anyway, that shale is 300 million or so years old. That kind of timescale is all but impossible for a human being to comprehend. Recorded human history doesn't even go back to the ice age, which is only about 14,000 years ago. There's barely a glimmer of mythological memory from that period.

Many people living today, though, imagine human civilization will last indefinitely and they certainly act as if it will. The ego delusion is extremely strong and warps human perception.