GEOL 303 Lecture 1: Geology 303 Lecture 1
Document Summary
Doctrine of catastrophism - all large landforms on earth were produced by catastrophic events. This idea changed over time due to james hutton. Doctrine of uniformitarianism - all of the chemical and physical laws that operate today were also operating in the geologic past. Earth cannot be a few thousands years old, it has to be millions of years old. The present is the key to the past (putting it in another way) If we can understand the present then it helps us to understand the past. He was attacking the fundamental belief of religions during that time. There are billions and billions of galaxies in our universe. In our own milky way galaxy, there are 100-400 billion stars and 10-100 billion solar systems. Nebular hypothesis - predominantly hydrogen, some helium, and small amount of other elements that exist. Takes on a disk shape and differentiate to a series of rings with different composition.
