Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 3
From Here to Eternity: The
Past, Present, and Future of
Geologic Thought
In This Chapter
Using catastrophe to explain geologic phenomena
Proposing origins for earth's rocks
Arriving at modern ideas about the earth
Using today's processes to understand the past
Unifying theories with plate tectonics
Continuing to ask questions
For many sciences, the foundations of modern thought were laid during Europe's Scientif-
ic Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During this time great thinkers
began to redefine how they examined and understood the world around them. While
great advances were made in astronomy, mathematics, anatomy, and other sciences dur-
ing this time, advancement of geologic science was constrained by a widely held belief
that the Bible described an accurate age of the earth at only a few thousand years.
As a result, the road to modern geologic theories did not begin to be paved until later in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In fact, significant insights into the earth's sys-
tems are still occurring today. In this chapter I describe the important theories presented
along the way to our current understanding of the earth and its systems. I also describe
the sequence of important hypotheses that led to a unifying theory of the earth (called
plate tectonics
theory), as well as some of the exciting areas of current geologic research.
Catastrophe Strikes Again and Again
