When I was researching soil, I learned how long it takes for rocks to weather. I learned that it takes thousands to tens of thousands of years for rocks to weather and become as fine as sand. I think it depends on the size and material, but the weathering speed of granite is about a few millimeters per 1,000 years. Granite may be quite strong, but it takes an incredibly long time for rocks to turn into sand or even finer particles.
https://stone-c.net/report/3955/2
I think I’ve heard that water also takes a long time to reach the ocean depending on the route it takes. It evaporates from the ocean and becomes rain, falls on mountains and forests, and flows into the soil and underground over a long period of time before flowing into the ocean. It is said that the water cycle in glaciers takes 20 to 100 years, the water cycle in the ocean takes 3,200 years, and the water cycle in groundwater takes hundreds to 10,000 years. Over a long period of time, groundwater is filtered through rocks, becoming water that contains many minerals.
https://lyprone.com/column/228
It seems that fossil fuels such as oil are also produced over millions to hundreds of millions of years. The remains of ancient plants and animals are buried underground and transformed into fossil fuels over a long period of time at high temperatures and pressures underground. Coal is mainly produced from dead plants, while oil and natural gas are mainly produced from the remains of marine plankton and other organisms. It is hard to imagine the time it takes for both to occur over hundreds of millions of years.
https://u-power.jp/sdgs/future/000402.html
In addition, it takes hundreds to thousands of years for minerals such as quartz to grow under high temperatures and pressures. The cycle of crustal movement caused by geothermal heat also lasts on a scale of tens to hundreds of millions of years. The cycle in which the mantle melts, comes to the surface, becomes a plate, moves, sinks into the mantle, circulates inside the earth, and comes to the surface again may be the longest cycle on Earth.
https://www.natureasia.com/ja-jp/ndigest/v10/n7/
We’ve looked at everything from things necessary for daily life to cycles of crustal movement, and all of them have taken so long, it’s almost mind-boggling. It seems so convenient to be able to obtain and use things that took so long to develop without spending so much time on them. It’s convenient because we’re taking a shortcut through the many processes and labor that went into the Earth and nature over so many years. Most of these things have taken so long, far too long for a human lifetime, and the sheer scale of circulation and creation is amazing, but this time I want to talk about the greatness of time. Time is amazing. The Earth is amazing.
