Chapter 5 : The Stone Breakers- Story Board

Reem FathySamar SamirYosra Badra

Maysa El Gendy(Group # 8 , Section 21)

Layout

• Message: Science is a process of constant change, discovery and paradigm shifts. No one theory is absolutely justified. No one theory is above ongoing examination and falsification. And through all this new theories come up and new fields of science work.

• What are we talking about ?

The development and “coming-about” of the science of Geology. Main point being (as in to convey the debates and shifts in science): age of the earth.

Story Board - Intro

• The science of geology is a considerably new form of science that has started to provoke the minds of scientists and intellectuals in the late 18th century.

Geology

But what is Geology ?

• Geology is the study of the Earth, the materials of which it is made, the structure of those materials, and the processes acting upon them.

• An important part of geology is the study of how Earth’s materials, structures, processes and organisms have changed over time.

• Geologists work to understand the history of our planet. The better they can understand Earth’s history the better they can foresee how events and processes of the past might influence the future.

(Geology.com)

Stone-breakers?

• “Fossils are precious gifts from geological past: signs and remains of ancient living things preserved in the Earth's crust.”

• Skeletons, leaves, stones, etc

• For geologists fossils mean/include: ancient remains - the actual bodies of ancient life. These can occur frozen in glaciers or polar permafrost.

• They can be dry, mummified remains found in caves and salt beds. They can be preserved over geologic time inside pebbles of amber. And they can be sealed within dense beds of clay.

• That’s why the fist “founders of geology” were called “The Stone-Breakers” !

Beginning

• James Hutton

Hutton ..

1795 “A Theory of the earth with proofs” - He almost singlehandedly created the science of geology, which

transformed our understanding of the earth, in this 4-volume book that was not completely published due to its lack of literary and rhetorical skills – it was literally “unreadable”. *

- In it, however, Hutton put forward concepts and ideas that wouldn’t grasp the full attention and understanding of geologists until 200 years later. (Erosion and deposition .. In brief .. Emphasize clash of theories and debates (plutonists/neptunists .. Then what he came up with)

*John Playfair wrote “Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth” .. Simplified exposition of the Huttonian principles.

The Geological Society (VERY BRIEF)

• When ? Why ? Who ? Any achievements ...

• “Simply Gentlemen with the wealth and time to indulge a hobby at more or less professional level”

Some advancements along the way

• Include the following (brief.. i.e. almost mere mentioning) ...

- Roderick Murchison “The Silurian System” - James Parkinson

“Organic Remains of a former world” - Reverend William Buckland

Image to complement previous slide ..

Charles Lyell

Charles Lyell

• “The Principles of Geology” 3 volumes (1830-1833) • Talk about his theories in brief..

- how he was to be proved wrong on some and new theories came up.. - how what he said at times was what Hutton had put forward years ago and gone unnoticed. - yet how Lyell developed so much in geology that “when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell one yet saw it partially through his eyes”

Meanwhile...

• Debate was rising among geologists about periods/ages of rocks..

{No huge technical details}

- Great Devonian Controversy - (Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian)- What Lyell said: epochs, etc

Debate

Age of the Earth

• Put forward the main concepts in trying to understand and know the age of the earth this..

• What different people said: Lyell, Edmond Halley, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Lord Kelvin (elaborate more here), Darwin, etc

• Mention the different ages .. • Emphasize the constant changing and new

theories/understandings being brought-up over the years with more study and research

• End up with what the author ends up with .. How even yet in the years to come these views will still be changed again ..

Old Earth? Young Earth?

Today ..

• We know today that the age of the earth is 4.5 billion years ..

• Brief background on this too.

..