In science, geology, from Greek γῆ, gē, i.e. "earth", from Egyptian “Geb”, the earth god of Heliopolis creation myth, + -λoγία, -logia, i.e. "study of, discourse", is the study of the earth, its processes, changes, and forms.
Overview
In 1785, Scottish geologist James Hutton published his Theory of the Earth: an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe, which in the years to follow allowed his “disciples to remove the assumption that six thousand years was the age of this planet”, which, according to Norman Dolloff (1975), was a “relaxation [that] gave Darwin the lever to pry biology loose from religion.” [4]
In 1830, Charles Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, showed that according to geological evidence that the earth was more than 300-million years old, rather than 6,000-years-old, the Biblical view.
In 1831, Charles Darwin, aged 22, was given a copy of volume one of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, by HMS Beagle captian Robert FitzRoy, which he read during their famous voyage around south America. [3]
Geomorphology
In 1962, American hydro-geomorphologists Luna Leopold (1915-2006) and Walter Langbein (1907-1982), in their “The Concept of Entropy in Landscape Evolution”, applied thermodynamics to the study of the evolution of hydraulic geomorphologies, river shape evolution in particular. [1]
In 2012, Jeff Tuhtan historically touched on the work of Leopold and Langbeing. [2]
References
1. (a) Leopold, Luna B. and Langbein, Walter B. (1962). “The Concept of Entropy in Landscape Evolution” (pdf), Theoretical Papers in the Hydrologic and Geomorphic Sciences, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Papers, 500-A, pgs. A1-A20.
(b) Luna Leopold – Wikipedia.
(c) Walter B. Langbein – NASOnline.org.
(d) Scheidegger, Adrian E. (1967). “A Complete Thermodynamic Analogy for Landscape Evolution” (pdf), International Association of Scientific Hydrology. Bulletin, 12(4):57-62.
2. Tuhtan, Jeff. (2012). “A Modeling Approach for Alpine Rivers Impacted by Hydropeaking Including the Second Law Inequality” (pdf), PhD dissertation, Stuttgart University, Germany.
3.Principles of Geology – Wikipedia.
4. Dolloff, Norman H. (1975). Heat Death and the Phoenix: Entropy, Order, and the Future of Man (pg. xiv). Exposition Press.
External links
● Geology – Wikipedia.
