James Hutton

1726-1797

Father of modern geology – part 1

• Born in Edinburgh, Scotland

• Father was Treasurer of City of Edinburgh

• Attended High School of Edinburgh

• Began attending University of Edinburgh at age of 14!

• At 17 trained as a lawyer (barrister) as well.

• At this time it was generally believed that the earth was only 6000 years old.

Father of modern geology – part 2

• 1749: graduated from medical school at Leyden, Netherlands

• Trained in chemistry

• 1760 inherited the family farm and actively ran the farm

• Studied landscape and farming practices

• Collected rocks and minerals to study

• Hutton’s gentlemen farming explorations had a great influence on his geological ideas.

Academic Accomplishments

• University of Edinburgh

• Studied during the period of ‘Scottish enlightenment’ 1740-1790

• Noticed by Colin MacIaurin who had trained under Isaac Newton (who was at Cambridge the same time as James Ray!)

• MacIaurin introduced Hutton to Newtons’s ideas on the cycling of the planets.

• MacIaurin exposed Hutton to idea of deism = idea that God perfectly designed and created the universe then let it be….

• Deism played an important role in allowing Hutton to accept an ancient earth that did not conflict with his belief in God.

Academic Accomplishments

• Theories of geology and geologic time were revolutionary

– Deep Time ~ "we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end, the earth is OLD

– Plutonism = volcanic activity source of rocks on surface of earth

– Uniformitarianism – same natural processes occurred in the past as in the present

– In contrast to readily accepted, Castastrophism – all current rock formations are from the great flood…..

Academic Accomplishments

• 1785: Presented finding to Royal Society of Edinburgh

• In granite rock, an 'igneous' rock forms from molten magma from inside the Earth.

• Hutton wanted to show that outcrops of granite form after, and not before, the sediments surrounding it

• Hutton’s hypotheses was in opposition to the previous beliefs from German geologist Gottlieb Werner's - all sediments were formed by the universal ocean and were simply laid down on top of primitive igneous rock.

Quartz veins in Granite ~ unconformities

Academic Accomplishments

• Hypothesized that heat extreme pressure within the earth is involved with mineralization

• Discovered irregularities in rock layers – added support to his hypothesis

• Hutton thought that sedimentation occurred gradually over time and that all of the geologic processes that one could observe on earth in the present were what had formed the earth in the past.

• Great geological cycle= rocks decay/erode and then are laid down again via sedimentation. A continuous cycle….

Unconformities at Jedburgh

Scholarly works

• 1795 Theory of Earth, with Proofs and Illustrations– Volume I

– Volume II

• Theory of the Earth – Volume III was close to completion at the time of his death. According to Lord Seymour the last volume was almost ready to be published (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol vii, 1814, p373. The manuscript for volume III was published although likely not complete in 1899 via the Geological Survey Office of London.

• 1794 Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge

• 1797 Elements of Agriculture

Historic perspective: Academic Accomplishments

• Colleagues John Playfair and James Hall followed up on Hutton’s work.

• Playfair wrote a summary of Hutton’s ideas.

• Hall conducted laboratory experiments demonstrating that igneous rock could form mineral crystals simply by slowly cooling down

• Darwin well aware of Hutton’s work

• Lyell (born year Hutton died) wrote book “Principles of Geology”

• Lyell does not write the Principles of Geology for another 35 years…..

References

• http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/earth/p_hutton.html

• http://books.google.com/books?id=tMcQAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=James+Hutton#PPR9,M1

• http://great-scientists.suite101.com/article.cfm/james_hutton_the_geologist

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hutton