It took approximately 250 years for geologists to accrue enough observations and ideas to finally arrive, in the 1960’s, at a broadly accepted, unifying model for how the Earth works – plate tectonics. Because of this vast time/space scale, our understanding of how the Earth works requires the collective observations made over centuries by many scientists with varied specialties in order to compile enough ‘foundational’ data to allow us to form an accurate picture of how our Earth works.Ī concerted effort to understand the workings of Earth and the organized science of geology, as we know it, began in the 18 th century with the studies of James Hutton. These processes take place on such a grand scale, over such broad time spans, that it is difficult for mortals such as us to truly grasp them in our ken. How the Earth works – that is, how the continents and oceans form and evolve, how mountain belts grow, why magma pours out onto Earth’s surface, how erosional degradation of continents takes place – is an age-old geological question. Hutton’s angular unconformity at Siccar Point, East Lothian, Scotland
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