-USSHERING IN THE MILLENIUM-
by Russell Seitz
originally appeared in Earth magazine

The 6,000th anniversary of Earth's creation (4004 B.C. - A.D. 1997) is
about to be celebrated by congregations that revere geochronology's
founder, the good and great Archbishop Ussher. Their enthusiasm
seems bound to spill over into their congressional districts, with obvious
ramifications for the funding of geophysical research. So it may be
prudent to amend geochronology to fit a Biblically Correct 6,000-year
format, at least for the fiscal year to come.


25 Oct. 4004 B.C.: Encounter with Nemesis
   knocks Lucifer out of Oort Gloud.
1 Nov. 4004 B.C.: Earth still largely molten;
   Adam and Eve invent asbestos waders.
3714 B.C.: The first biotechnologist, Cain,
   invents cyanobacteria.
3554 B.C.: Komatiitic lava inundates earliest
   crust; Noah's Ark incinerated.
3264 B.C.: Methuselah begins to notice
   passage of geological time.
3124 B.C.: Archaean stratiform sulfide
   deposits form, making Bronze Age possible.
2844 B.C.: Tired of reading graphic granite,
   Imhotep invents hieroglyphs.
2584 B.C.: Earliest sedimentation; discovery
   of slate leads to stone tablets.
2444 B.C.: Breathable atmosphere develops;
   first sermon preached.
2384 B.C.: Descendants of Tubal Cain
   inaugurate banded Iron Age. Sphinx
   starts to fossilize.
2024 B.C.: Nimrod the Hunter erects the
   Geosyncline of Babel.
1914 B.C.: Advent of diapirism; Lot's wife
   turned into first salt dome.
1794 B.C.: Children of Ham split from Israel-
   ites, insisting that the Burgess Shale
   fauna are kosher; chowder invented.
1704 B.C.: Charshumash the Hittite bitten by
   first vertebrate; lawyers emerge from
   slime.
1624 B.C.: Samson attempts perovskite
   synthesis; laboratory of the Philistines
   implodes.
1444 B.C.: War of the Chaldean Succession;
   Pangea broken up in accordance with the
   Treat of Uruk
1334 B.C.: Shang Empire abandons efforts
   to invent compass when China drifts over
   south magnetic pole.
1264 B.C.: Moses invents hydrofracturing;
   opening of Red Sea rift drowns Egyptian
   Army.
1194 B.C.: Odysseus runs aground on
   Gondwandan Riviera; Circe founds Club Teth.
1104 B.C.: Ezekiel see de pterodactyl 'way
   up in de middle ob de air.
1024 B.C.: Goliath stepped on by irate
    Barosaurus, David takes credit.
794 B.C.: Jonah swallowed by Carcharas
    megalodon.
564 B.C.: Pythagoras publishes Air-Earth-
    Fire-Water phase diagram.
454 B.C.: Marble deposits form in Greece;
    Parthenon erected.
338 B.C.: Aristotle concludes that quartz is
    just another polymorph of ice, like
    diamond or pearls; this is known as
    the Wisdom of the Ancients.
48 B.C.: All of Gaul is divided into three
    parts by the collision of Corsica with the
    European Plate.
The Year Zero: Nothing much happened,
    there being none.
A.D. 31: Miracle of the Loaves and
    Ichthyosaurs.
A.D. 70: Paul, formerly Saul the Tarser,
    undergoes identity crisis on the road to
    Damascus and writes Epistle to the
    Cephalopods.
A.D. 344: Vanguard of Attila the Hun
    perishes when Romans breach
    Gibraltar escarpment, flooding the
    Mediterranean Desert.
A.D. 494: Snakes evolve and are driven out
    of Ireland.
A.D. 974: Lief the Unlucky is lost with all
    hands when his dragon ship is spotted
    by an amorous Kronosaurus.
A.D. 1066: William the Conqueror invades
    England by walking through northern
    France.
A.D. 1215: Magna Carta eaten by Velociraptor.
A.D. 1324: Gunpowder and plate armor introduced;
    dinosaurs hunted to extinction.
A.D. 1384: Dante Alighieri describes
    core-mantle boundary.
A.D. 1444: Flowering plants appear; War of
    the Roses commences.
A.D. 1484: Leonardo da Vinci designs
    Archaeopteryx.
A.D. 1492: Mesoamerica emerges, thWartinrc
    Columbus's discovery of Japan; the
    Santa Maria is attacked by ammonites.
A.D. 1522: Hernan Cortes uses asteroid
    impact to conquer Aztec Empire.
A.D. 1588: Spanish Armada frustrated by
    continuing absence of English Channel.
A.D. 1636: Earliest primates appear; Harvard
    founded.
A.D. 1664: An English primate becomes
    Primate of Ireland; Archbishop Ussher
    successfully deduces last four out of ten
    digits of the age of the Earth.
A.D. 1688: Hapsburg Iceboat Armada
    invades England via London-Bruges
    canal; Inquisition burns Isaac Newton at
    the stake for alchemy.
A.D. 1754: Gibbons evolve and write master-
   pieces like The Oecline and Fall of the
   Roman Empire.
A.D. 1776: Washington's Mastodon Cavalry
   routs Hessians at Battle of Hudson Canyon.
A.D. 1835: Charles Darwin, attacked by giant
   ratite in Galapagos, returns home a
   convinced Neptunist.
A.D. 1846: A milestone in ape evolution is
   passed: birth of a son to Bishop and Lady
   Wilburforce.
A.D. 1867: COSMOS superstar Alexander
   Von Humboldt wins the Napoleon lll
   Peace Prize for sabotaging the Baltimore
   Gun Club's lunar cannon.
A.D. 1894: Awed by extent of glaciation,
   Cecil Rhodes proposes Capetown-to-
   Cairo bobsled run.
A.D. 1914: Younger Dryas sea-level rise
   unleashes U-boats into the Atlantic, Holy
   Roman Empire wins World War I.
A.D. 1948: Harry Truman proposes using ice
   to contain Stalin; Cold War begins, end-
   ing Last Interglacial.
A.D. 1954: Glaciers retreat from Fulda Gap;
   de Gaulle invades Russia.
A.D. 1957: Civil Rights Movement
   challenges Jim Cro-Magnon laws.
A.D. 1961: Rachel Carson links DDT to
   Glyptodonts' decline.
A.D. 1969: Last sighting of saber-toothed
   tiger in Central Park; Elizabeth Taylor
   divorces Proconsul.
A.D. 1971: Andy Warhol paints Campbell
   Soup cans on walls of Lascaux caverns.
A.D. 1983: Australopithecus wins the
   America's Cup.
A.D. 1988: Homo habilis volunteers to serve
     as Pat Robertson's running mate.
A.D. 1990: Last Neanderthals perish in siege
     of Kremlin.
A.D. 1991: Saddam Hussein discovers fire;
     Holocene tar sands form in Kuwait.
A.D. 1997: Citing black smoker emissions,
     the EPA bans continental drift. Thermophilis
     wins Nobel Prize for sequencing its
     own DNA while trapped in amber.

 N.B.: As all dates except the first are +/- 2.3
 billion years, the author strongly advises against
 using this chronology for purposes of exegesis
 ot the calibration of carbon-14 dating.