Podcast
The MeatEater Podcast
The hosts repeatedly highlighted this Pulitzer‑winning geology trilogy, noting its memorable lines about Mount Everest being marine limestone and humanity’s brief span on Earth’s timeline. Steve Rinella and other contributors cited the book’s vivid explanations of mountain formation and the accretion of Alaska, praising it as a compelling overview of American geography. Overall, the discussion conveyed strong admiration for the book’s insightful perspective on Earth’s deep history.
Episode: Ep. 575: How to Sharpen a Knife Like a Real Man
Steve shared a quote from McPhee's Pulitzer Prize-winning book about geology, where he says the top of Mount Everest is marine limestone. He also shared another quote from the book about human history being a minuscule portion of Earth's history.
John McPhee's Pulitzer prize winning book of geology, based in range. No, it's called Annals of the Former World.
He says if he was going to, I've said this before, if he was going to sum this book up in one sentence, it would be that the top of Mount Everest is marine limestone.
He also imagines that if you took all of the earth's history and you imagine it as a timeline spanning between fingertip and fingertip. Okay, so this is the earth's history. You can remove human history with one stroke of a nail file.
Episode: Ep. 463: A 'Pus In Da Pot
This Pulitzer Prize-winning book on American geology was mentioned; the speaker highlighted some memorable quotes from the book about the formation of mountains and geological timelines.
In John McPhee's Pulitzer Prize winning Annals of the Former World, his Pulitzer Prize winning work on American geology. There's a couple nuggets in there. I'm going to get to the main nugget but I want to share a couple nuggets in there. At one point in that book, he says if I was going to sum this book up in one sentence, it would be that the top of Mount Everest is marine limestone. He also points out that if you imagine the world's history as being a timeline stretching from the tip of your finger to the other tip of your finger with your arms spread out, you would remove human history with one stroke of a nail file. And he also says that he explains how in 80 million years, Japan was the first country in the world to have accreted all of the Aleutian Islands into one big landmass. And that landmass will dock up against Alaska. And what's cool about that is that Alaska formed the same way. It was accreted archipelagos that formed in a big glob of just islands accumulating together. And it docked up against California. And that's what caused the gold that became the California Gold Rush in the Sierra. Because all that stuff that went under the plate bubbled up like that out there. But then this big blob that's Alaska shot up against the California coast and then rode and is riding a transform fault. And so far it's ridden north to where it is now.
Episode: Ep. 195: Hunting the Anthropocene
The podcast mentioned two quotes from this book, one about the top of Mount Everest being marine limestone and another about the brevity of human history compared to the Earth's.
The top of Mount Everest, the highest thing in the world in our world, the top of Mount Everest is marine limestone.
If you imagine the earth's history as your arms stretched out...he explains that you could remove the entirety of human history with one stroke of a nail file.
Episode: Ep. 183: All For a Flashy Mule
It was mentioned in relation to the geography of the US, particularly regarding the formation of mountain ranges and the accretion of Alaska. A Pulitzer Prize-winning book, it also discussed the geological processes that shaped the landscape.
Have you ever read Annals of the Former World?
By John McPhee. It explains all the geography in the U S. They won a Pulitzer prize.
Episode: Ep. 079: From Taxes to Trout
The podcast mentioned the book's summary, which stated that the peak of Mount Everest is marine limestone, and that human history could be removed from the timeline of life on earth with a single stroke of a nail file.
John McPhee has a... Have you ever read Annals of the Former World?
And in this book, there's a couple things. One, he says that if he had to sum up his trilogy in one sentence, it would be that the peak of Mount Everest is marine limestone.
But another point he makes is that if you imagine life on earth, so not just earth like the form, but life on earth.
If you imagine being a man's outstretched arms as life on earth from one fingertip to the other fingertip as a timeline, you could remove human history with one stroke of a nail file.
Episode: Ep. 025
It was described as a great trilogy about geology. The speaker summarized the book by saying that the top of Mount Everest is marine limestone, and that all of human history could be removed with one stroke of a nail file.
If I was going to sum this book up in one sentence, it would be that the top of Mount Everest is marine limestone.
He says if you imagine the history of the earth as your arms spread out as wide as you can spread them, he said you could remove all of human history with one stroke of a nail file.