Themes of the Day:

• History of the Science of Geology

History of the Science of Geology

• Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze Age - natural resource specialists
• First geologic maps are from Egypt (circa 5 ka) - resource maps
• 79 A.D. - First scientific description of a volcanic eruption by Pliny the Younger (Pliny the Elder succumbed to volcanic gasses during naval evacuation efforts.) (Vesuvius from Pompeii in Google Earth)
• De Re Metallica, 1556 by Gregorius Agricola - Dawn of mineralogy as a science (translated into English by Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover, 1912)
• Nicolas Steno (Neils Stensen - mid-1600's) Principles of Superposition, Original Horizontality, Lateral Continuity
• James Hutton (1726-1797) - "Father of Modern Geology" - observed the angular unconformity at Siccar Point, Scotland which led to understanding of the immensity of geologic time - Earth history viewed as "no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end."
• Catastrophism (origins in Biblical view of Creation) vs. Uniformitarianism (championed by Hutton) - "The present is the key to the past." - Strongly debated mid-late 1700's
• Charles Lyell (1830) Principles of Geology - Includes Principles of Crosscutting Relations and Inclusions
• Current view emphasizes uniformitarian processes, but recognizes geologic significance of catastrophic events
• Alfred Wegener (1912) Hypothesis of Continental Drift
• Plate Tectonics Revolution (1960's) - paradigm shift