A few dozen New Yorkers experienced their city at a new pace earlier this month. "Even the concrete we're standing on is changing," said artist Elizabeth Ellsworth, gesturing at the pockmarked floor of Studio-X in Lower Manhattan. "Everything in the city is a dynamic force."

Ellsworth and her collaborator, Jamie Kruse, were there to celebrate the launch of their new book. Geologic City: A Field Guide to the GeoArchitecture of New York (smudge studio, 2011) highlights 20 urban sites where humans interact with the region's complex geologic cycles. The water flowing from a New Yorker's faucet began as rain that trickled into an underground aquifer in the Catskill Mountains north of the city thousands of years ago. The metals used in skyscrapers and cars first were used to build our planet 4.5 billion years ago, and accumulated in rock formations thereafter. The calcium in 600,000 skeletons decomposing in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery began as igneous or limestone rock, thrust upward by the imperceptibly slow movement of Earth's crust; over millions of years, weathering released the rocks' calcium for uptake by plants, animals and humans.

The authors demonstrate that, in innumerable ways, the urban environment is intricately interwoven with processes that are far older than life itself.

Jessica Veenstra, an environmental scientist who bought the book, is excited to show it to her students at Flagler College in Saint Augustine, Fla. "In a lot of places you'll read about humans being separate from nature, not being treated as geologic actors," she says. "This book puts people into these cycles in a fun way."

The book's thought-provoking and whimsical images also belie a plea for environmental responsibility. "Humans need to understand deep time because we are capable of influencing the Earth for millions of years into the future," Ellsworth says. "We didn't evolve to contemplate it, but now we need to."

The human brain may not be hardwired to comprehend the billions of years of history that have shaped the modern environment, but there is hope, the authors wrote. As Geologic City demonstrates, the concepts that exceed human intelligence "can be experienced indirectly, through aesthetic works and acts of the imagination."

» View the Urban Geology Slide Show

2 Comments

1. 1. nissankananayakkara 06:29 AM 9/23/11

   Dear Sir,
   Urban Geology seems to be very useful for survival of all the species living on this plant.Your comments and way of viewing things that formed and existed around the spots of urban areas connected to geology look creating a new thinking pattern to save our outer crust at least.In Sri Lanka we see unknown forces with friendly environment gather people around these rock-carved religious monuments.Money as well as many kinds of sources stacking on this places with unseen forces.May be due to geological activities since thousands or millions of years without doing any harm in mass scale for pilgrims.Still we visit and study them.I believe planet's outer crust had have particular spots that always try to keep friendly atmosphere with geology and theology.My best for Scientific American.
   M.A.N.Nanayakkara,
   No.83,
   Ganearamba,
   Beruwala,
   Sri Lanka.

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2. 2. Vee En 12:01 AM 9/29/11

   Why urban only? This applies to all environments.

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