The Most Ordinary and Most Exciting Fossil
Way way way back, like, a billion or so years ago, there was basically no life on the planet.
Way way way back, like, a billion or so years ago, there was basically no life on the planet.
Well, apart from a carpet of microbial slime at the bottom of the ocean. You know, the usual stuff.
But picture this: there were no trees, no animals or insects. No NUTHIN’.
So, things were pretty different. But some things were the same. Like rain.
In this quiet world, rain still fell down from the sky.
When rain fell, much like it does today, the raindrops made imprints on the ground. But then… nothing happened.
For sure, there were no people propping up umbrellas, nobody looking at the sky and wondering if they could just pop out and ‘risk it’.
But there were also no animals taking shelter. No thirsty trees and flowers thankful for a much-needed gulp of water. And certainly, no adorable frogs doing any of this:
Because there were no little (or big) critters scuttling over the Earth’s surface, or plants slowly moving over and under ground, the rain would fall, plop to the ground, and that was that. On especially muddy or soft ground, raindrops would hit the ground and make little raindrop impressions. And those raindrop impressions just… stayed there. Unperturbed.
Because they were undisturbed, some of these raindrop shapes actually fossilised.
Like, we can literally look at some special rocks today and say, “hey, that’s a raindrop, from a billion years ago!”
Isn’t that cool? I thought so. So much so that I wrote a song about it.
It’s the first track off of my geology-themed concept album, Typical Forever (but you diehard fans already knew that).
Listen to it here:
More Reading:
✶ What Fossilized Raindrops Reveal About Early Earth - Scientific American
✶ A great specimen linked here at the Edinburgh University Library website
🎧 Where Can I Listen to Typical Forever?
💿 Want to buy the album? Amazingly, I have managed to sync this release up with ‘BANDCAMP FRIDAY,’ which is a day where Bandcamp waives its fees and all revenue goes to the artist.
Bandcamp is the best place to buy the digital version of the album. Go check it out and buy the record today! (and CDs will be available soon!)
📈 Kickstarter Friends: If you bought a digital album download through Kickstarter, that should be in your inbox by now. If you bought a CD, I am planning on sending them out next week.
💻 Streaming? Check it out on Spotify, or Apple Music or Youtube Music.
🪩 Anywhere else? Just search “olivia rafferty typical forever”
Be good,
Olivia 🌈🗻
