Mars was empty before we came. That's not to say that nothing had ever happened. The planet had accreted, melted, roiled and cooled, leaving a surface scarred by enormous geological features: craters, canyons, volcanoes. But all of that happened in mineral unconsciousness, and unobserved. There were no witnesses--except for us, looking from the planet next door, and that only in the last moment of its long history. We are all the consciousness that Mars has ever had. -Kim Stanley Robinson
“Geologists take it for granted that rock equals time,” Allmon said. “I don’t know of another experience that we all have in our daily lives where a solid substance represents time.”
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/glimpses-of-a-mass-extinction-in-modern-day-western-new-york
via Instapaper