Misconceptions
This Big Idea is loaded with misconceptions for many people. The central issue is sometimes called DEEP TIME. The fact that deep time wasn’t perceived by people held back geological thinking. Once geologists realized that earth history is billions of years long, it is possible to conceive of processes and changes that are inexorable and which clearly fit once a long time scale is accepted. A simple example is “Rivers cut their own valleys” This idea cannot be reconciled with only a few years, because erosion, even during floods, is too slow. But once the time scale is lengthened--all makes sense.
A second set of misconceptions that haunt this big idea is radioactivity and radioactive dating. All rocks are radioactive naturally, containing radioactive isotopes left over from nuclear synthetic events like the BIG BANG. It is not only nearly impossible to stop this spontaneous radioactivity---it is impossible to change the RATE of its decay. So scientists use this as a clock to quantify deep time.
