Title:
‘Geological Time Line’
Location:
Hanging Shaw, Forest-in-Teesdale,
Co Durham,
2005
Materials:
Sandstone, ceramic tiles
Description:
Commissioned by the North
Pennines A.O.N.B. (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) Partnership
after the area was designated
Britain’s first Geopark, the
sculpture is in four parts. The sawn face of the main stone has
recessed into it a geological time line, from the Pre-Cambrian era
at base to the emergence of Homo Sapiens at the top. The names of
the different periods are imprinted into ceramic tiles, with
illustrative tiles made by the local primary school children,
showing lifeforms from each period to either side. On the rough
reverse side are carved three examples of local fossils, hugely
magnified.
Through a hole which passes through the stone one can see another,
smaller stone, set some 57 metres away, which represents
(on a scale of 1metre = 10 million years) how far we are from
the beginnings of fossil life. On the same line of sight, and
working to the same scale but a quarter of a mile further off, a
pillar represents the start of the Pre-Cambrian Era when the Earth
is thought to have come into being.
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