the development of geology - public.asu.edujmlynch/hps323/documents/03b-geology.pdf · 9/10/2008 2...
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the development of geology
1557
Conrad Gesner
1565
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The Head of a Shark Dissected (1667)
Glossopetrae were the teeth of very large sharks
Preliminary discourse to a dissertation on a solid body naturally contained within a solid[i.e. on fossils]
Superimposition: Layers of rock are arranged in a time sequence, with the oldest on the bottom and the youngest on the top, unless later processes disturb this arrangement.
Original Horizontality: most sediments, when originally formed, were laid down horizontally.
Original Lateral Continuity: the sediment will not only be deposited in a flat layer, it will be a layer that extends for a considerable distance in all directions. In other words, the layer is laterally continuous.
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Vain Speculation Undeceived by Sense
“I have no idea how the sea could reach so far into the land; I do not know whether this happened during the universal Deluge or during other special floods. ... I do not know, neither do I know the way to find out. Nor do I care. What I do know is that the corals, the shells, the sharks' teeth, the dogfish teeth, the echinoids, etc., are real corals, real shells, real teeth; shells and bones that have indeed been petrified.
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Annals of the Old Covenant
from the First Origin of the
World (1650)
◦ Creation on the evening
preceding Sunday, 23rd
October 4004 BCE
6,000 year old Earth versus
4,550,000,000 year old
6-day EdenicRestoration
Noah’s Flood(local?)
Matter & LifeCreated
4004 BCE 2348 BCE
Perhaps multiplecataclysms and creations
FossilsFormed
Chaos-Restitution
Life created
Noah’s Flood(local?)
MatterCreated
4004 BCE 2348 BCE
Gap of undetermined length
Gap
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Humans Created Noah’s Flood(local?)
Matter
Created
Six “Days” of Creation
FossilsFormed
Day-Age
LifeCreated
1 2 3 4 5 6
“There is a prejudice against the speculations of the geologists, which I am anxious to remove. It is said that they nurture infidel propensities … This is a false alarm. The writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe.”
1804
Earth realized to be older than Ussher’s estimate – but how old?
(Local?) flood believed to be the cause of some fossils
Use of naturalistic mechanisms
Rise of stratigraphy (no assumption of age)
William “Strata” Smith
1769 - 1839
1815; A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales with a part of Scotland.
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HorizontalRed Sandstone
Vertical Grey shale
Inchbonny,Jedburgh,Scotland(1887)
Red Sandstone Greywacke
Theory of the Earth, or an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution and Restoration of Land upon the Globe. (1785 / 88 / 95)
The Earth had a long history and that this history could be interpreted in terms of processes currently observed.
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“The solid parts of the present land appear in general, to have been composed of the productions of the sea, and of other materials similar to those now found upon the shores. Hence we find reason to conclude:
1st, That the land on which we rest is not simple and original, but that it is a composition, and had been formed by the operation of second causes.2nd, That before the present land was made, there had subsisted a world composed of sea and land, in which were tides and currents, with such operations at the bottom of the sea as now take place. And,Lastly, That while the present land was forming at the bottom of the ocean, the former land maintained plants and animals; at least the sea was than inhabited by animals, in a similar manner as it is at present.
Hence we are led to conclude, that the greater part of our land, if not the whole had been produced by operations natural to this globe; but that in order to make this land a permanent body, resisting the operations of the waters, two things had been required;
1st, The consolidation of masses formed by collections of loose or incoherent materials;2ndly, The elevation of those consolidated masses from the bottom of the sea, the place where they were collected, to the stations in which they now remain above the level of the ocean.”
“Here are three distinct successive periods of existence, and each of these is, in our measurement of time, a thing of infinite duration. ...The result, therefore, of this physical inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.”
Plesiosaurs (1811)
Mary Anning
'Duria Antiquior - a more ancient Dorsetshire' by Henry Thomas de la Beche, 1830
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Reliquiae Diluvianae, 1823
Geology was not inherently irreligious and confirmed the occurrence of a global flood.
Miraculous forces were not, however, required - natural law was applied
Later shifted to the idea of a local flood.
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1851
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1822
40
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Learned geology from Buckland in Oxford
In 1827 abandoned the law for geology
Principles of Geology(1830-33)
Elements of Geology (1838)
Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)
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1830 - 1833
“An attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth's surface by reference to causes now in operation”
“The present is key to the past”
Bands of holesdug by aquaticmolluscs
Basic laws of nature had not changed over time
No causes other than those we can see operating now can be employed in explanations (actualism)
The intensity of these causes does not change over time (uniformitarianism)
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Alan Cutler, The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earth. 2004. [Steno]
Jack Repchick, The Man Who Found Time. 2004 [Hutton]
Simon Winchester, The Map That Changed The World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology. 2002. [Smith]
Deborah Cadbury, Terrible Lizard: The First Dinosaur Hunters and the Birth of a New Science. 2001. [Mantell & Owen]