Geology
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geology (of Greek ?? - (Ge -, "ground") and????? (logos, "the word", "the reason") are science who treats composition, of structure, of the history and the evolution of as well as its physical properties and processes which work it. Geology is one of sciences of the ground. </br> Geology made it possible, amongst other things, to determine the age of , and allows the discovery and the exploitation of the natural resources (, coal, , , stones gems).</br> The word geology has for the first time be uses in its current acceptance by Jean-Andre Deluc in 1778; it was fixed the following year by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure.
Synopsis |
History
Contrary has other sciences which took their rises "modern" in XVIIeme and XVIIIeme century (, , and in particular), geology ran up of full whip against the dogma of the catholic Church: the concept-key of geology is Time, and the first scientific observations contradicted directly Genesis (chapter 1) according to which which the ground was creates in six days.
Work on rocks of Théophraste (a disciple of) was a reference lasting nearly one millenium. Its interpretation of fossils was not contradicted until A the scientific revolution of XVIIeme century, and was translated into like in the principal European languages.</br> In , the scholar Shen Kua (1031 - 1095) an assumption formulated on the processes of formation of the ground: based on the observation of fossils sailors in the various geological layers of the mountain have-hang You Shan far away from the oceans; it deduced from it that these mountains were has one moment on the sea level (" I saw shells of bivalves [... ] in a horizontal layer, crossing a cliff [... ]. This [ this layer of fossils ] ] was has one moment gives at the seaside, although the sea is now has several hundred kilometers more has Is. »). It also thought that the fossil plants were evidence of changes of the climate. </br> Georg Bauer (Georg Agricola, 1494-1555), physicist of his state summarized mining and metallurgical knowledge of its time in a work " Of Re metallica libri xii "which appeared in 1556. It comprised an appendix, "Buch von den Lebewesen unter Tage"("delivers creatures of the interior of the ground"). This book treats wind power and hydrodynamic, transport and cast iron of , and of the extraction of different layers.</br> With the paddle of XVIIeme century, Jean-Etienne Guettard and Nicolas Desmarest surveyed the center of France and recorded their observations on a geological map, underlining the volcanic origin of this part of France.</br> James Hutton is often considere like the first modern geologist. In 1785, it presenta an article entitles "theorie of the ground"in 1788 in the" Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ". In this paper, it explains its theory according to which the ground must be much older than what was supposes, to be able to leave time with the mountains to erode, and the sediments to form new rocks under the sea, which has their turn will be raised and emerged. The successors of Hutton were known under the name of "plutonists", because they thought that the rocks were formed by volcanicity (deposit of lava volcanic, in opposition to "neptunists" who thought that the rocks had been formed in a large ocean of which the level will drop with the court of time.</br>
In 1811, George Vat and Alexandre Brongniart published their explanation of an old age of the ground, inspired by discovered by Cuvier of fossils of elephants has Paris. To support their thesis, they formulated the principle stratigraphic of temporal succession of the geological layers. Independently, they were preceded by William Smith (1769-1839) which drew some of the first geological maps and began the scheduling of the geological layers of and ofScotland by examining the fossils which were contained there.</br> Sir Charles Lyell published its first edition as of its "Principles of Geology"in 1830, that it updated by new editions until A its death in 1875. It thought is right that the geological processes were slow and had taken place during all the history of the ground, and continued at present. This theory (influenced by work of is has to oppose to catastrophism according to which the terrestrial characteristics were formed in only one catastrophic event not to evolve/move more. Although the observations contradict simply this idea, them creationnists refuse today still to refute the biblical writings.</br> In XIXeme century, geology leaned seriously on the thorny question of the age of the ground. The estimates oscillated between hardly 100000ans until several billion years.</br> The projection most significant, revolutionary, and probably the birth of modern geology were the development and acceptance by the scientific community of plate tectonics in the years 1960. Since 1920, Alfred Wegener the theory of the continental drift proposed, followed in the years 1940 by Arthur Holmes, but without convincing a broad audience before the years 1960.
Various disciplines
Geology includes, inter alia:
- geochemistry, which studies the chemistry of the Earth;
- geophysics, which studies the structure and the nature internal of the Earth with tools of physics (magnetism, gravimetry, seismic...);
- hydrogeology, which studies the underground water run-offs. The nature of the basement crossed influence directly quantity and the quality of water emerging with the source or exhaurée of drilling.
- mineralogy, which studies nature, the composition and the physical properties of the minerals which compose the rocks;
- paleontology, which studies the organizations passed thanks to the description and to the analysis of the fossilized remainders
- micropaleontology, which studies the microscopic fossils contained in the sediments;
- petrology, which studies the nature of the rocks and the mechanisms which chair the genesis and the transformation of the rocks;
- sedimentology who studies the sedimentary rocks and formations; in this case one also speaks about stratigraphy who studies the succession of the various geological layers or layers
- seismology, which studies the earthquakes and the natural or caused seismic wave propagation (one speaks then about seismic);
- volcanology, which analyzes and tries to envisage the volcanic phenomena, which studies the chemical and mineralogical composition and the processes of installation of the volcanic products;
- structural geology is the study of the deformations of the rocks and mechanisms chairing the deformation of these rocks on all the scales. On a large scale, one speaks about tectonics.
- metallogeny, which studies the mechanisms of formation of the metalliferous layers and proposes to define methodological tools and guides of prospection usable by the mining explorers and prospectors.
- geoarcheology, which studies them archaeological sediments and deposits of quaternary age.
- exogeology or astrogeology who, on the basis of teledetection, ofexperimentation in situ or of samples, studies composition, structure and history of satellites and of planets .
References
- Charles Pomerol, Maurice Fox, Yves Legabrielle, Elements of geology, 12e éd., Dunod, Paris, 2000. ISBN 2-10-004754-X.
- Rene Dars, Geology, 3e éd., university Presses of France, Paris, 2000. ISBN 2-13-050844-8. (What do I know?).
- Alain Foucault, Jean-François Raoult, Dictionary of geology, 6th éd., Dunod, Paris, 2005. ISBN 2-10-049071-0.
External bonds
- geology category directory dmoz.
- (Fr) The geology of the Alps
- (Fr) The geological company of France
- (in) James Hutton Theory on the ground
- (in) History of seismology
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