Eastern Oregon 2009

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Walking Through Time

100,000,000 years ago Oregon was-- under the Pacific Ocean. A visitor from another planet, as there were no humans yet, would have seen ocean waves lapping the shore near McCall, Idaho. Things happened-- as they tend to do where it comes to the earth. Volcanic eruptions, uplifts, weather and eventually Oregon rose to take its place as the left wing capitol of the country-- well not really.

Places like John Day Fossil Beds National Monument's three units (Sheep Rock, Painted Hills, and Clarno) give us a sense of timelessness and time. It cannot help but make anybody think that climate change is both inevitable and something we better plan for-- over say a few million years, give or take a few.

Where I walked through beautiful stone canyons, once there were lush forests with 100" of rain a year, where predators and prey lived together. Some of the species living then didn't evolve into anything else. They disappeared. Others can be recognized (with DNA) still today. None of them had any idea that things might change because their concerns were strictly about from where their next meal might come.

The earth did change though due to more volcanic action, more earthquakes and uplifts and a steady change of the climate that left behind a fossil record from what they call The Age of the Mammals that is fascinating and really does stir the soul. My guess is most who visit this Monument, not that well publicized nor known, have already felt stirred by the history of earth.

To help a person equilibrate themselves to the vast sense of time and change, the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center is a great spot to start. There you find fossil exhibits, a working laboratory where you can spy on the work through a glass window, paintings and exhibits to help you see what animals would have been out there say 20 million years ago. It also directs you to the various units.

This is a glimpse into that time after the extinction of the dinosaurs until the Ice Age. Some of the fossils of animals I saw as familiar but others were new to me. What made some survive and others disappear? Fascinating story with no definitive answer-- yet anyway.

Here we get a view of earth's physical reality where sometimes we have had absolutely nothing to do with what happens-- like the recent string of earthquakes in Indonesia and Samoa. Not to say we cannot sometimes have an impact with our human finger in every pie attitude.

Spending some time in the center is helpful, but the real experience is walking the many hiking trails to look at the layers of rock and earth. It's beautiful but more than that, it feels spiritual and to a pagan like me-- sacred. Earth is more awe inspiring than the most beautiful temple ever made by man and some of these formations seem very much like cathedrals.

When we reached the end of one trail (signs clearly mark where visitors can go) we heard a tapping farther up the canyon. A gentle, steady tapping. Back at the center we asked to be sure but were relatively positive that it was a crew from there. The careful work goes on in the laboratory as the matrix is further removed from the fossils.

There were others visiting the monument but not many. It was easy to find quiet places to just sit and think, to let it all soak in.

Mankind has only been here a few million years and in his present form only about 90,000 years. Some of the animals that once walked the ground where I walked, they don't exist today. Someday if mankind is foolish or maybe even if not, our species may not.

To better understand this land and the influences that made it what it is, at the museum, we asked what they recommended. We bought the book In Search of Ancient Oregon by Eileen Morris Bishop. It has many photographs and well-written texts to help put the story of Oregon's beginning, the stages through which it went, that got us from 100 million years ago (when dinosaurs roamed Montana) through the processes that bring us to today-- which is clearly not the end of Oregon's story even if we humans might like to think so.

Going somewhere like John Day Fossil Beds puts our own time on earth into perspective. I don't know what its energy is, but it's strong. Is it those animals wanting their stories to be told? They didn't die leaving no sign behind. Their stories are being told. It's a blessing that others saw these places and worked to preserve them for future generations to have the chance to walk back through time.