Читать книгу Geology For Dummies - Alecia M. Spooner - Страница 49

Nicholas Steno scientifically examined the head of a shark and reported that the teeth in the shark’s head were very similar to stones found in the mountains. These stones were called glossopetrae, or “tongue stones,” and at the time were believed to result from lightning strikes. Indeed, what Steno had discovered was that sharks’ teeth were actually buried in the rocks on the mountaintop!

Through his observations of sites such as Siccar Point — a rocky area along the east coast of Scotland — Hutton began describing geologic processes that required long periods of time to create the rock formations visible today. He was the first geologist to propose the idea of geologic time, also called deep time, which extended the age of the earth much farther into the past than had previously been accepted.

According to Hutton, with a long enough period of time, even the small, commonplace processes that shape the earth’s surface today could result in the dramatic formations previously assumed to be the results of catastrophe.