From the Editor - February 2016

From the Editor - February 2016


The Resistance to Extreme Geology

One of the main concepts to which all Geology 101 students are introduced is uniformitarianism, which is simply stated as “the present is the key to the past.” As we geologists all know, the fundamental concept was introduced by James Hutton in the late 18th century, and institutionalized by geologist and lawyer Charles Lyell via his landmark The Principles of Geology first published during the 1830’s.


Uniformitarianism was proposed as an alternative to catastrophism, the latter having been popularized by French paleontologist Georges Cuvier as a theory to explain the patterns of extinction and faunal succession observed in the rock record, but later used by others to support extreme events described in the Bible, such as the Noachian Flood.


Lyell attacked the catastrophists with dramatic flair: “We hear of sudden and violent revolutions of the globe… of general catastrophes and a succession of deluges, of the alternation of periods of repose and disorder, of the refrigeration of the globe, of the sudden annihilation of whole races of animals and plants, and other hypotheses, in which we see the ancient spirit of speculation revived, and a desire manifested to cut, rather than patiently to untie, the Gordian knot. In our attempt to unravel these difficult questions [of geologic history], we shall adopt a different course, restricting ourselves to the known or possible operations of existing causes; feeling assured that we have not yet exhausted the resources which the study of the present course of nature may provide, and therefore that we are not authorized… to recur to extraordinary agents.” (Lyell, 1833)


During the following century, Stephen J. Gould and others challenged strict, substantive uniformitarianism. Instead of an either/or situation, they argued that both uniformitarian and catastrophic processes and events have been and will continue to be important elements shaping Earth’s history. As someone stated (it may have been Gould himself), geologic history, like war, is characterized by “long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.”

By today, some catastrophic/extreme geological events and processes have gained wide acceptance, such as the Chicxulub bolide impact on the Yucatan Platform that caused the mass extinction which defines the Mesozoic/Cenozoic boundary. Another example is the recent body of research focused on extreme depositional systems (e.g. Chan and Archer, 2003).


Nevertheless, despite the reconciliation of the formerly competing concepts, there seems to be a persistent prejudice against hypotheses that contain elements of catastrophism. I’m not exactly sure why this is, but I’d suggest it’s related to a number of factors, among them a persistent view that “real” earth science must be based on direct observation of natural processes operating today, aversion to any ideas that could be viewed as sensationalistic, the fact that the creationist movement (seen by many as anti-science) has often used catastrophist hypotheses as a tool for promoting their cause, and perhaps just the natural human tendency to wish for a predictable/comfortable world. A recent example of this prejudice is the slowness of the geological community to give serious consideration to the Gulf of Mexico evaporative drawdown hypothesis, new evidence for which is described in the feature article by Rosenfeld starting on page 41 of this issue. n


References
Chan, M.A., and A.W. Archer, eds., 2003, Extreme Depositional Environments: Mega End Members in Geologic Time: Geological Society of America Special Paper 370, 281 pp.
Gould, S.J., 1965, Is uniformitarianism necessary? American Journal of Science, v. 263, p. 223-228
Hutton, J, 1788, Theory of the Earth: Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v. 1, part 2, p. 209-304
Lyell, C., 1833, The Principles of Geology, Volume 3, Chapter 1,
“Methods of Theorizing in Geology,” p. 6-7: John Murray publishers, London

releasedate: 
Monday, February 1, 2016
subcategory: 
From the Editor