Fingering these primordial crustacea is unsettling, a tactile nudge from planetary coevolution. Through them Joan has discovered a bridge across time and space, life speaking to life across a chasm of forty million years. Another sensed a genetic link to some other place. Such comments are more accurate than may have been realized at the time. Joan Lederman is discovering and creating a unique means for letting the Earth speak to all of us through her own particular talent and intelligence.
Some scientists think that the darker material was caused by the impact of a large asteroid.
This core sample has been found to contain iridium which is uncommon on Earth but is a large component of meteorites. Again the asteroid is thought to be the source. One geophysicist told Joan that in millions of years this ocean sediment will become magma that will eventually be brought to the surface as the Earth s new crust. An element that connects us to the ocean floor now simultaneously extends our conceptual reach outward into the universe. Joan Lederman is penetrating the boundaries dividing science from art, humanity from the rest of life, elements of the ocean floor from the far-flung stars.