One of the things that's been most tricky over the past six months has been - very unsurprisingly - maintaining any kind of sense of perspective. So here's a wee thread about one of the ways I've been trying to remain (relatively!) sane - by looking at rocks...

I love *time* - the whole idea of it, what it is, how does it flow, how do we experience it, does it even exist?! As a historian, I'm supposed to deal with human time. But #DeepTime, the time it takes for geological processes to work, fascinates me just as much...

Let's be clear: I'm just an amateur enthusiast, and most geological writing goes *waaaay* over my head! But James Hutton's genius in trying to conceptualise the vast amounts of time required to form, for example, #SiccarPoint just to the south of Dunbar....

Is easy to understand, and yet completely impossible to comprehend: no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.

Wow.....

So I often take myself off for wee walks round #Dunbar and #Belhaven, just to try to situate myself within that incomprehensibly vast expanse of #DeepTime. And what walks there are! I use this book as a guide, and you can find it on t'internet here: http://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Garleton_Hills_Volcanic_Rocks_-_an_excursion

Today, I walked from the High St, along the Pool Beach and the Old Red Sandstone. Not all of it is 'natural' - at one point, you can clearly see the line of paint which I think must have been part of the old pool...

Sadly, it was too slippery to walk on the rocks so I had to move up onto the Esplanade. Where there's more Old Red Sandstone, this time built into the wall & clearly showing the ripples and waves created millions of years ago when this was all an estuary...

And then there are the volcanoes! Not just the #BassRock #BerwickLaw & #TrapainLaw, which are the worn-down, hardest leftovers, but the pipes and plumbing which forms the rocks along the Parade....

All of these have been worn down so far that they're basically horizontal - wave-cut platforms, in geology speak. As you move round to #Belhaven Bay, you get the mudstones and sandstones....

All of these layers have been worn & folded, into stunning textures and colours.....

Round the point, to one of my favourite spots to stop, and think about *time*. These shells, lodged in, and eroding out of, the cliff, were on this beach about 7-9000 years ago. They're the same species as you get today....

.... so you never know if you pick up a shell here: is it a year old, or thousands of years old?

Wow.

Somehow, that all just puts it into context....

So, that's what I do for some perspective: go for a walk by the sea and look at some rocks. Walk through millions and millions of years. And think about the wisdom of James Hutton https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/edinburghs-geology/geological-pioneers/james-hutton/