Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
5
Thinking in layers: early ideas
in stratigraphy
The late Roman Catholic Bishop of Kilfenora, a tiny diocese in County
Clare in western Ireland, was responsible on 23 October 1988 for
beatifying another bishop and elevating him to the position of
Blessed, the first step along the time-consuming path to sainthood. It
would be unusual, one might think, for a minor bishop to have
such power, but not when you discover that amongst the Bishop of
Kilfenora's other sees is that of Rome. This bishop was none other
than John Paul II, the late Pope, who had been responsible during his
pontificate for creating more saints and beatifying more persons than
did his five predecessors combined. In total Pope John Paul II canon-
ised 469 people and beatified over 1,300 more. The subject of the
autumn 1988 ceremony held in Rome was Nikolas (or Niels or
Nicolaus) Stensen, the Titular Bishop of Titiopolitan, whom geo-
logists and historians of science are more likely to remember by the
Latin version of his name, Steno. Geologists revere him as the 'father
of geology', and his ideas gave rise to what has been labelled by some
'the Stenonian Revolution' in geology.
STENO AND THE TUSCAN LANDSCAPE: TURNING THE KEY
TO THE CONCEPT OF STRATIFICATION
Nikolas Stensen (Figure
5.1
) was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on
20 January 1638 and died 48 years later in Germany on 25 November
1686. In that comparatively short time he achieved much in several
fields: in medicine, natural history and in the church.
He trained at medical college and became a noted anatomist,
publishing two celebrated treatises, that on muscles, De musculis et
glandulis, in 1664 and Discours sur l'anatomie du cerveau in 1669.
He was consecrated Bishop of Heliopolis in 1677. On his death, he left
little in the way of material goods, and was buried over six months
