Earth Sciences 1022A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: James Hutton, Uniformitarianism, Catastrophism
27 Apr 2019
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Catastrophism: earth landforms shaped by catastrophes or processes that occurred very quickly. Made sense since everyone thought the earth was very young (several 1000 years old). The concept of uniformitarianism was formulated by james hutton in. States that the physical, chemical and biological laws that operate today also operated in the geologic past. Implications: processes that produce geologic features in the present day can be assumed to have produced the same features in earth"s past (i. e. , The present is the key to the past ). Many geologic processes (e. g. , mountain building, erosion, etc. ) tend to operate over long periods of time (and may be slow and gradual). Seemingly insignificant changes can amount to big changes over long periods of time. Evidence of mountain building and wearing down of mountains (by erosion) suggests that earth must be very old ( no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end ).
