What are James Hutton's cycles?
1 Answer
Jame Hutton's cycles refer to the cycles of erosion deposition, sedimentation and uplift due to plutonism or volcanic actions.
Explanation:
James Hutton was a leading member of the Scottish Enlightenment. He had been exposed to David Hume's idea that the past must be interpreted by the present. Hutton set out to propose and discover a means of explaining the geological history of the earth by purely natural forces in line with the Enlightenment world view.
As Hutton participated in the digging of the canals in England he observed that there was a repeating pattern of sedimentary layers.
Hutton also found places where magma had intruded into sedimentary layers. Off the coast of England he found sedimentary layers that had been turned from the horizontal to near vertical with evidence of wave actions.
These observations led Hutton to propose that the history of the earth was composed of cycles of erosion followed by deposition of the sediments into sedimentary layers that turned to rock. These layers of sedimentary rock were uplifted by volcanic action. The uplift was then eroded in turn starting the cycle over again.
This proposal became the basis of what has become known has uniformitarianism or as Charles Lyell later said The present is the key to the past. Hutton believed that the earth was eternal just undergoing successive cycles of erosion and uplift.
The proposal conflicted with the Hypothesis of Bishop Ussher that interpreted the Bible as allowing only about 6,000 years for the age of the earth. The evidence that Hutton amassed and agreement with the world view of the enlightenment convince the scientific community that uniformitarianism was correct. Uniformitarianism has been the foundation of geology ever since.
