Researched
Geology and deep time
James Hutton (1788) showed that slow processes like erosion and uplift shaped the Earth over immense time, not a few thousand years.
Open in the interactive tree →Hutton saw 'no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end'. Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830-33) made this view mainstream and gave Darwin the time he needed. Geologists then built the sequence of rock layers, later dated in absolute numbers.
Prerequisites
- Earth measurement and maps~240 BC
- Scientific Method~1600-1620
- Stratigraphy (Steno)1669Hutton and Smith read rock layers using Steno's law of superposition
Unlocks
- First Geological Map (Smith)1815
- Ice ages discovered1837
- Evolution by natural selection1859Darwin needed the vast age of the Earth that geology (Hutton, Lyell) established
- Soil science1883Soil forms from weathered rock over long periods; soil science grew out of geology
- Greenhouse effect1896
- Seismology: inside the Earth1906
- Continental drift1912
- Radiometric age of the Earth1956
- Final disposal of nuclear wasteopen