History of geology

By Alfonso B.
  • 1025

    Early Works

    Early Works
    Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī publishes the Kitāb fī Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind, which he discusses the geology of India and hypothesizes that it was once a sea.

  • 16th century

    16th century
    Abraham Ortelius, Flemish-Spanish cartographer, promotes the continental drift theory.

  • 17th century

    17th century
    Nicolas Steno puts forward his theory that sedimentary strata had been deposited in former seas, and that fossils were organic in origin.

  • Beginning of the 18th century

    Beginning of the 18th century
    Edmond Halley suggests using evaporation from Mediterranean to determine the age of the Earth.

  • crystallization of lava

    crystallization of lava
    James Keir suggests that some rocks, like the ones at the Giant's Causeway, might have been formed by the crystallisation of molten lava.

  • 19th century

    19th century
    Sir Charles Lyell publishes book, Principles of Geology, which describes the world as being several hundred million years old.

  • Ice age theory

    Ice age theory
    Louis Agassiz begins his glaciation studies which eventually demonstrate that the Earth has had at least one ice age.

  • 20th century

    20th century
    George Darwin and John Joly claim that radioactivity is partially responsible for the Earth's heat.

  • Radioactive dating

    Radioactive dating
    Arthur Holmes uses radioactivity to date rocks, the oldest being 1.6 billion years old.

  • 21st century

    21st century
    Physicist Luis Alvarez, and his son Walter Alvarez, and others propose that the impact of a large extraterrestrial object caused the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago.