Home

References

  Glossary||   Geological Events ||

Geological Events

Obviously, the following tale is not exhaustive, but it highlights some of the major events that have occurred during the development of geology as a science.
Where further detail is available within this site, a link is given within the site.

year event internal external
4 BC Aristotle puzzled over the existence of fossil marine creatures in rocks high above the sea. .. ..
1086 Shen Kau wrote essays describing the principles of erosion, uplift and sedimentation. .. ..
1546 Georgius Agricola introduced the word fossil. .. ..
C15th Leonardo da Vinci recorded the observation that fish once swam over the plains of Italy. .. ..
1620 Sir Francis Bacon studied crude maps of the world, drawn by the pioneering sea-farers. Like many others, he observed the strange similarities of the coasts of Africa and South America. He commented (in his Novum Organum) that these were 'no mere accidental occurrence'. .. ..
1634 Descartes concluded that the creation o the Earth had been the result on ongoing natural processes - but had not published these conclusions, for fear of the all-powerful Church. .. ..
1677 Robert Plot published his "Natural History of Oxfordshire". .. ..
1650 The first of 2 publications by Archbishop Ussher, dating the Creation of the Earth "upon the entrance of the night preceding" Sunday October 23, 4004BC. .. ..
1650 James Hutton proposed his Principal of Uniformitarianism. This states that 'the present is the key to the past', meaning that geological processes that are in operation now are comparable to those that were operating in the past. This is evident in the rocks we see today. .. ..
1765 Lazaro Spallanzani disproved the theory of spontaneous generation of micro-organisms from inorganic matter. .. ..
1780 The publications of "Epochs of nature" by LeClerc, freeing (some) scientific thought from the restrictions of the Biblical account of creation. .. ..
1782 Benjamin Franklin proposed that the crust of the Earth was a shell floating on a fluid interior. "Thus the surface of the globe would be capable of being broken and distorted by the violent movements of the fluids on which it rested". .. ..
1799 Humboldt began a 5-year expedition in South America, where he recognised the similarity of mountain ranges between the east coast of that continent, and west coast of Africa. .. ..
1799 William Smith published his 'Table of Strata.' - ' check date? .. explanation
table
1805 Publication of the "Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth", that brought to a wider audeince Hutton's ideas of the vastness of geological time. It described his deductions that the earth must be formed and reformed by the natural processes of accumulation, erosion, heating and folding that have continued in the same general manner for many geological ages. Watching streams scour the hills, he reflected that "old continents are wearing away and new continents are forming in the bottom of the sea". .. ..
1811 Mary Anning finds the first known fossil Icthyosaur in Dorset at the age of 12.
1815 William Smith (1769-1839) published the first geological map, which was of the UK.
He also proposed the Principle of Faunal Succession which claims that a given fossil assemblage can be used to ascertain relative ages of rock layers found large distances apart. 		Map Map
1821 Mary Anning finds the first known fossil Plesiosaur.
18 Gideon Mantell (1790-1852) recognized that dinosaur bones were the remains of ancient, giant reptiles. These preceded the age of biblical times, and he was the first to seperate their assumed existence from the biblical Flood.
183 Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) advanced Huttons and Smiths views with the publication of Principles of Geology. This included his own observations on the Principle of Superposition: i.e, that sedimentary rocks are deposited in layers with the oldest at the bottom.
1842 Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892), a comparative anatomist/palaeontologist, coined the word 'dinosaur' to describe the extinct giant reptile-like animals discovered by others. .. ..
1859 Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection .. ..
1864 The postulation of the continent of "Lemuria" spanning the Indian Ocean and linking India to Madagsacar, and other now-lost continents and land bridges. These derived from the theory of the contracting earth, and accounted for identical life forms in now-seperated continents. .. ..
1868 Thomas Huxley wrote "On a piece of Chalk" Chalk Chalk
1887 The first paleogeographic map was constructed. Using the worldwide distribution of fossils as a guide, it proposed how the earth might have looked 190 million years ago. It linked Africa to South America, and India to Madagascar. .. ..
1899 Clarance Dutton's theory of isostasy was published in his revolutionary paper, "On Some of the Greater Problems of Physical Geology", In it, he proposed that light granite land rises whilst dense basalt sinks and supports it at depth. .. ..
1909 Andrija Mohorovicic discovers the boundary between the crust and the mantle, now known as the Mohorovicic boundary or Moho. .. ..
1912 Alfred Wegener addressed the Geological Association in Frankfurst with his paper, "The Formation of the Major Features of the Earth's Crust (Continents and Oceans)" .. ..
1915 Alfred Wegener published his theory of continental drift in "The Origin of Continents and Oceans". It was the the first of 4, with the others following in 1920, 1922 and 1929. .. ..
1930 Alfred Wegener dies in the snows of Greenland, with his theory of Continental Drift 'generally considered to be a bizarre fantasy - an aberration in an other exemplary life.' .. ..

return to top



For any comments, suggestions or contributions, please e-mail me at: portsdown@bbm.me.uk