Download Chapter 5 : The Stone Breakers - Story Board

Chapter 5 : The Stone Breakers
- Story Board
Reem Fathy
Samar Samir
Yosra 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 (18301833)
• 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.
..