Deep Time Walk: Earth history

Deep Time Walk C.I.C.

About this app

Every metre you walk is one million years of Earth's history.

Deep Time Walk turns the planet's 4.6-billion-year history into a guided audio walk. Set off, and GPS paces the narration to your own steps - 4.6 kilometres, 4,600 million years, from the molten beginning to the web of life that surround you.

You walk it in company. The included "A Fool and a Scientist" narrative is a dramatised audio production. One character reaches for poetry, the other for evidence, and both circle the same question: how did a ball of hot rock become a living world?

This initial Deep Time Walk narrative is directed by Jeremy Mortimer (over 200 productions for BBC Radio) and designed by Jo Langton (a BBC Studio Manager), with voices provided by leading actors Paul Hilton (Garrow’s Law, The Bill, Silent Witness), Chipo Chung (Doctor Who, Sherlock, Into the Badlands) and Peter Marinker (Love Actually, Event Horizon, Judge Dredd). The script is written by Peter Oswald (ex-playwright in residence at Shakespeare Globe, London) and Dr Stephan Harding.

WHY WALK IT INSTEAD OF READING IT?
Being told the Earth is 4.6 billion years old gives you a number. Walking it gives you something a number cannot - and embodied experience.

Life appears early and then stays single-celled for well over half the journey. The oxygen you are breathing began as a waste product that poisoned the world that made it. Flowers arrive with a few hundred metres to go. All of recorded human history is the last few millimetres. This closing stretch is why so many people walk this. Deep Time Walk helps you think about what it means to be human today - it embodies just how unusual, and how fragile, the conditions we have inherited actually are.

TWO WAYS TO WALK
• Walking mode — GPS advances the story as you move, outdoors, at your own pace.
• Listening mode — for those not able to walk 4.6km.

WHAT YOU GET
• Stunning graphics accompanying different chapters in Earth's history from a range of artists
• Learn about key concepts from Earth’s long evolution including how Earth formed, the evolution of life, plate tectonics, oxygenic photosynthesis, multicellular life, The Cambrian Explosion, vertebrates, plants, amphibians, mammals, dinosaurs and finally (in the last 20cm) humans.
• Around 80 minutes of original audio with an ambient soundscape
• An interactive glossary - tap any idea for a plain-English explanation
• Complete offline downloads, so you need no signal on the walk itself
• Join a Walk - discover small, in-person, facilitator-led group walks happening near you
• Background playback, so the story continues with your screen locked

Step back in time and experience Earth history like never before. Deep Time Walk is a ground-breaking tool enabling anyone, anywhere to take a walking audio history of our planet.

Ratings and reviews

I find the idea is absolutely fantastic that everyone gets to experience a Deep Time Walk just with their phone, simply by plugging in their headphones and walking, being guided through it with the engaging storytelling. So sad that it's based on podometer, it didn't recognize correctly when I'm walking. I walked 2 kilometers with my phone only detecting a few step... Looking forward for an update! How about based on GPS location? Cheers!

The audio performances are excellent. The app itself leaves something to be desired. Pauses after almost every audio segment but continues playing the ambient "walk" sounds; I'd walked almost a kilometre before realizing this (apparently I'm very patient!) and had to manually continue after 80% of the clips. Estimates of step length and/or count are way off too; I'm about 190cm tall and ended up walking almost 12km (even with fast-forwarding).

I was introduced to this app through my university professor for a Socionature class. We enjoyed a nature walk/hike as a group and followed along as the app traveled through time. The overall experience was very enjoyable and informative with the unique and engaging dialogue and delivery. The only issue I found using the app was it would sometimes pause and not start again until I pressed play, unsure if this was just user error or maybe a data issue but in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t too distracting. I found the voice acting to be very good and the storyline is full of fun examples of natural events and changes throughout earths timeline some I remembered but many were a learning experience for me. They did a great job of letting it sink in how little time humanity has been alive and how much we have achieved and the damage we’ve caused to achieve it in such a short time span, I would highly recommend installing and having it be a walking companion on your next outing.

What’s new

Deep Time Walk has been rebuilt from the ground up. It is the foundation of our new multi-narrative platform bringing walks that are more relevant and contextualised.

• A completely redesigned walk screen with stunning full-screen graphics
• On-device GPS engine to provide accurate distances
• Listening mode - experience it anywhere
• A 120-term searchable glossary
• Join a Walk - find facilitator-led Deep Time Walks near you
• Offline downloads, so a walk is ready before you set off