Deep within the earth's crust, tectonic plates grind and heave, colliding, folding, and thrusting

vast slabs of rock skyward to form towering mountain ranges. Ancient inland seas surge across

the land, carving channels and leaving behind thick layers of fertile sediment. Then come the glaciers,

ice, blanketing the uplifted earth, scouring it clean, carving deep, U-shaped valleys through granite

and schist. Mighty rivers then follow, like lifelines, tracing the contours of the continent.

The restless motion of those plates sparks volcanoes and earthquakes, shaping and reshaping

the land in an endless cycle of creation and destruction.

North America, as we know it, and like all the earth, was born from these colossal natural

forces.

But humanity's recognition of that fact are awakening to the Earth as a living, shifting thing,

was itself a seismic change in American thought.

Hi there, I'm Don Wildman. Thanks for clicking through to another episode of American History. I'm glad you're here. Back in the 19th century, against a backdrop of so much

industrial, economic, and social transformation, a tectonic shift happened to American consciousness.

It had to do with time, specifically the time the North American continent had existed.

Prior to the 1800s, there was widespread acceptance of the biblical version of cosmic origin.

The planet was 6,000 years old, and the Great Flood came about

1,500 years later. Noah built the ark, saved the animals and mankind from death by drowning.

But that theory would be fundamentally challenged as humans began to closely consider the fossilized

bones and other evidence of prehistoric creatures, all of it suggesting the

earth was much older than the Bible would have us believe. A new book released this year

grapples with this entire phenomenon and its profound implications entitled How the New World

became Old, the Deep Time Revolution in America, authored by historian Carolyn Winterer, the William

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