In geology there are scientists who changed the way we see the world and our planet. One of those scientists who revolutionized the way people thought about planet Earth was James huttonHe was the geologist who gave us the concept of deep time. He was a man who loved whiskey, women, and thinking up new ideas to discuss with his peers. Despite having a medical degree, he had a keen interest in the formation of the Earth and the natural world. And, as we've seen throughout science and its development, the greatest discoveries are made either by searching for something other than what has been discovered, or by people who weren't specialists in the subject.
In this article we are going to tell you the biography and feats of James Hutton as well as his great contribution to science and geology.
The bible and geology
You have to think that in ancient times there were not so many technological devices to be able to investigate our planet. At that time, the only geology text was the Bible. In those times it was even believed to know the exact day that God created the Earth, October 22, 4004 BC.
Although James Hutton believed in God, he was not committed to having a literal interpretation of the Bible. He believed that God had created the world but with a system of laws of nature.
His wife became pregnant and they took her to London to give birth. At age 26, Hutton was forced to make a new life on a family farm in southern Scotland. It is on that farm where his ideas about the planet gained strength and relevance in his life. Since the land of that farm was quite windy, rainy and bad weather, he had to turn the farm into something of low profitability. He was forced to dig and clean different drainage ditches on a constant basis so that it could be sustainable.
Since the trenches carried away the soil that was used for cultivation, erosion was only increasing. Because of this, James Hutton began to worry about soil erosion and began to think that if the erosion continued for a long time, there would be no land to grow crops on as the years went by. This led him to reason that God had created a world that would tend to become barren over time. It didn't make sense. According to him, God had to create a planet capable of regenerating itself.
Great Earth system
Faced with the need for the Earth to be able to renew itself and not be condemned to the death of people starving, he began to study how it regenerated. Erosion like geological agent it was a variable of destruction, now he had to take into account what they built.
The different rock types that had been studied by Hutton and came to understand that they were sediment remains carried by the water and which, year after year, in a very slow way, they were compacted to form a rock. With studies and the passage of time, he understood that the Earth was in a balance between destruction and construction and that this did not depend on dramatic and sudden events as the Bible affirmed, but were rather the result of the years. That is, the Earth was formed from rubble from the past.
His exile ended at 41, so he was able to return to the city of his youth. It was then the Scottish Enlightenment era. In Edinburgh was the intellectual area with greater splendor and Hutton knew how to make the most of it. He investigated and knew that not all rocks had layers of sediment, rather, different types of rocks also had different formation conditions.
It was thanks to a friend of his, James Watt, that he was able to learn more. This man was an inventor of steam engines and brought about more efficiency during the Industrial Revolution. Hutton then wondered what heat fueled the planet. This is how he became the first to think that the Earth's center was a hot, fiery point. Volcanoes were simply vents from those gigantic, hot depths.
Time of truth
All this led him to think that other types of rock were made in this giant internal furnace that gave their shape when they cooled on the surface. With all this, he came to postulate two ways of creating land:
- From sediments compacted by agents such as rain, wind, transport, erosion. It gave rise to sedimentary rocks.
- In the earth's core, with immense heat, rocks were formed from molten lava. This make up igneous rocks.
Because it was a theory that would revolutionize, James Hutton's friends persuaded him to make it public. In 1785, he published it at the Royal Academy of Edinburgh. Being so nervous and not a good speaker, His theory was rejected and he was branded an atheist.
This did not stop him in his investigations. Hutton continued to investigate the entire environment of Scotland and found that the granite had been cast before. This is how he proved that there was a hot giant engine inside the planet. All these observations were proof that the Earth had a great system of destruction and construction.
Even so, he was not satisfied and wanted to find out if the Earth was only a few thousand years old as the Bible claimed or was much older. He had seen some vertical layers along the coast, but he knew that further on the angle changed. Although he did not know the plate tectonics theory could deduce that it was the birth and death of whole worlds. He came to understand that the Earth created and destroyed crust and that this is how the cycle continued.
As you can see, James Hutton made numerous contributions to science, although it was not widely accepted by religion. Once again we realize that religion only served to hinder scientific improvements.
