Year 1: Discovering Earth Science

Essay on the history of Earth Science:

"James Hutton was ahead of his time. After years of study and field work he published a paper in 1785 that would change the world of geology forever. He is, to this day, considered to be the 'father of modern geology'.

Until Hutton came along the majority of the geological world held to German geologist, Abraham Gottlob Werner, theory of 'neptunism'. This theory put forth the thought that the Earth's entire geology was formed by a primordial 'universal ocean' that left behind deposits of rock. This theory also stated that the Earth had a core of rock. He believed that volcanoes were a more recent occurrence of coal beads burning near the surface. In the late 18th century Hutton’s radical new theory or 'plutonism' flattened these ideas.

'Plutonism' was the theory that the world was in constant motion beneath the surface. Hutton believed that the core was full of molten rock which found it’ s way to the surface via cracks which ultimately lead to the formation of volcanoes. He believed that the Earth’s molten core and the heat within was the key to the changes on the surface. This theory also helped explain the movement of the continents and the cycles of geological formation’s birth and destruction.

Hutton’s studies also lead to another idea called 'uniformitarianism'. This was the idea of viewing the present geology as a key to understanding the past. By studying modern forces we could look back in time and see how the Earth was originally formed and where these changes were heading in the future.

His ideas changed the world we live in. He made it into a world that was forever changing. A world in chaos. A world full of mountains that die and are reborn, valleys that fill and then become valleys once again and where the very land we live on is actually islands floating on a sea of molten core. His ideas helped to further educate the world on the fact that this planet was alive and always breathing and growing.

Without James Hutton we very well may have gone on believing that our world was a dead thing. That it was just some pebble washed up on the shores at the edge of a universal ocean like so much flotsam. We may never have understood just how powerful our Mother Earth really is."

References

Erickson, Jon. Plate Tectonics. New York: Facts On File, 1992.

Dixon, Dougal. The Practical Geologist. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Werner

http://www.gennet.org/facts/hutton.html

http://www.strangescience.net/hutton.htm

Friday, September 01, 2006