![]() Hutton didn't believe that there was anything happening long ago that wasn't still happening on Earth today. ![]() He thought that most of the features on the surface of the Earth were formed by slow, ongoing geologic processes, not by sudden catastrophic events. In 1785, a geologist and physicist named James Hutton proposed another idea. The drama was over, immortalized in religious texts, never again to be seen on such a humongous scale. These events would not at all resemble the small-scale natural disasters we experience in our time. ![]() An impressive mountain range was probably formed by worldwide earthquakes and eruptions.Ĭuvier and other scientists believed that most major features of the land we see today were established a very long time ago by very dramatic events. So, a species that went extinct was probably killed off by a giant natural disaster. This idea emerged and spread among scientists as the theory of catastrophism.Ĭatastrophism is the theory that Earth's features are mostly accounted for by violent, large-scale events that occurred in a relatively short amount of time. Combined with his impressions of the violent natural disasters recounted in the Bible, Cuvier's observations made him believe that most of Earth's history was characterized by geologic catastrophe. He saw a lot of mysterious gaps that is, certain species would show up for long periods of geologic time and then suddenly disappear. Outside the religious world, Cuvier was also making observations that puzzled him about the fossil record. When it came to Earth's history, they looked to the biblical story of the great flood to help them understand the geologic events of the past. At that time in history, European scientists had a very strong habit of interweaving their studies of the Bible with their studies of natural science. ![]() Georges Cuvier lived in France right at the turn of the century, from 1769 to 1832. Let's look deeper into our geologic theories and see how they have changed over the last few hundred years. How could a guy who knew so much about the Earth, who studied rocks and fossils and contributed so much to science, be so drastically wrong about the age of our planet?Īs we'll see, it had a lot to do with Cuvier's upbringing and the scientific atmosphere that existed in his time. But the funny thing is, Cuvier also believed that Earth was only a few million years old! That's a big deal, considering we know now that the Earth is over four billion years old. He named the first flying reptile, the pterodactyl, and he even has five living animals named after him.Ĭuvier contributed a lot to our knowledge about the Earth. ![]() He began the popular field of comparative anatomy by studying the bones of modern elephants and ancient mammoths. Cuvier formed the basic methods of biostratigraphy by studying sedimentary rock layers and fossil succession. As a zoologist and naturalist, he helped establish our current understanding of the history of Earth. I'd like you to meet an important scientist named Georges Cuvier. ![]()
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