Atlas Trail
Four Billion Years in Eight Stops
From a molten, airless Hadean Earth to the ice age climate cycle we are still living inside of: the founding wave's own path through deep time, deep rock and the earthquake that changed how the planet is measured.
Stop 1 of 8.
Eras
4.6 to 4.0 billion years ago. A molten, airless Earth, hostile enough that almost nothing from it survived to be read today.
Stop 2 of 8.
Eras
538.8 million years ago. The Cambrian explosion: the most rapid diversification of complex animal life the fossil record shows.
Stop 3 of 8.
Materials
The second most abundant mineral in the continental crust, and the reference point for hardness 7 on the scale that lets geologists identify any mineral with a scratch kit.
Stop 4 of 8.
Materials
Pure carbon crystallized deep in the mantle: the hardest naturally occurring material known, and the top of the same scale.
Stop 5 of 8.
Eras
145 to 66 million years ago. The last period of the age of dinosaurs, ending exactly where the next stop begins.
Stop 6 of 8.
Phenomena
66 million years ago. An asteroid roughly ten kilometers across ends the Mesozoic and every non-avian dinosaur with it.
Stop 7 of 8.
Scientists
1912. A meteorologist proposes continental drift, is rejected for want of a mechanism, and dies on a Greenland expedition three decades before he is vindicated.
Stop 8 of 8.
Processes
The unifying theory Wegener's idea grew into once seafloor spreading gave it a mechanism: the framework every earthquake, volcano and mountain range on this atlas traces back to.
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