Geological Agent Research Articles

The Reaction to James Hutton's use of Heat as a Geological Agent

Heat is the fundamental mechanism in the theory of the earth proposed by James Hutton in 1785. According to Hutton, heat is responsible for the liquefaction of loose debris collected on the ocean floor. Consolidation follows and the newly formed land is raised above the sea by the agency of heat. The expansive nature of heat that causes this elevation of land also accounts for the creation of veins and dykes through the injection of fluid matter into openings in the earth. The activity of heat is intermittent; there are times when it is active, but at other times it is dormant. In another paper I argued that Hutton's concept of this geological heat was an application of his theory of matter in which heat is an immaterial, universally operating force acting in opposition to forces of attraction. This concept of heat was quite different from the popular late eighteenth-century belief that heat was a material substance called caloric. The critics of Hutton repeatedly tried to interpret his heat as if it were caloric. Failing in this they found Hutton a confusion of idle speculation on heat and without theoretical basis. Further, since fire was a major source of caloric and since the already established geological tradition of Vulcanism called for fires within the earth, it was natural that these critics thought of Hutton's theory as being necessarily based on the presence of internal fires and questioned how such fires could exist, disregarding the fact that Hutton rarely mentioned fires and even disclaimed the necessity of fires in the production of heat. The criticisms concerning heat fall into several major groups of which the source of heat in only one. The others include the formation of the whinstone of Scotland and the crystallization of rock in general, the expansive role of heat, the intermittent activity of heat, and the temperature of the earth. Of these the formation of particular kinds of rocks was submitted to experimenal test by Sir James Hall, whose investigations were especially concerned with the effects of the rate of cooling on crystallization and the effects of pressure on the formation of rock. Much of the discussion of Hall's work centred on the experiments, and the theoretical problem about the nature of heat was obscured as a result. It is in the commentary on the other problems noted above that the true situation becomes clear. For this reason a study of these problems is more revealing and constitutes the following.

Alaskan Submarine Cables: A Struggle with a Harsh Environment

Reviews the laying, repair and maintenance of telegraph and cable systems, at one time 86 submarine cables, between Puget Sound and Alaska 1901-60. Failures due to entanglement by whales, bruising and mauling by anchors and fishing trawls and various destructive effects of geologic agents on the sea floor are noted. In straits on the continental shelf and upper continental slope, cable failures are attributed primarily to chafe by bottom currents and, off the mouths of major streams, to turbidity currents and gravitational slides. Cable repair data for 1903-58 are tabulated, showing reported causes. Some cables at depths of 1000-1500 fathoms on the continental margin cross at least 40 major canyons, but have never failed because of turbidity currents; this indicates a lapse of 2000, possibly 5000 yr since such currents occurred in this region.

James Hutton's Theory of the Earth and His Theory of Matter

Previous articleNext article No AccessJames Hutton's Theory of the Earth and His Theory of MatterPatsy A. GerstnerPatsy A. Gerstner Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 59, Number 1Spring, 1968 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/350332 Views: 27Total views on this site Citations: 12Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1968 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Pedro Wagner Gonçalves, A marca química da doutrina natural e espiritual de James Hutton, Ciência & Educação (Bauru) 14, no.33 (Jan 2008): 519–535.https://doi.org/10.1590/S1516-73132008000300010D.R. Oldroyd FAMOUS GEOLOGISTS | Hutton, (Jan 2005): 200–206.https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-12-369396-9/00372-5Jürgen Mittelstraß H, (Jan 1995): 19–158.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-98727-3_1Douglas Allchin Phlogiston After Oxygen, Ambix 39, no.33 (Jul 2013): 110–116.https://doi.org/10.1179/amb.1992.39.3.110Bryan Gregor Some ideas on the rock cycle: 1788–1988, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 56, no.88 (Aug 1992): 2993–3000.https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7037(92)90285-QSteven Yearley Interactive-Orientation and Argumentation in Scientific Texts, The Sociological Review 32, no.1_suppl1_suppl (May 1984): 132–157.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00110.xSimon Schaffer Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century, History of Science 21, no.11 (Jul 2016): 1–43.https://doi.org/10.1177/007327538302100101Arthur Donovan James Hutton, Joseph Black and the Chemical Theory of Heat, Ambix 25, no.33 (Jul 2013): 176–190.https://doi.org/10.1179/amb.1978.25.3.176ROY PORTER, KATE POULTON Geology in Britain, 1660–1800: a selective biographical bibliography, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 9, no.11 (Nov 1978): 74–84.https://doi.org/10.3366/jsbnh.1978.9.1.74George Seddon Abraham Gottlob Werner: History and folk‐history, Journal of the Geological Society of Australia 20, no.44 (Aug 2007): 381–395.https://doi.org/10.1080/00167617308728824D. R. Oldroyd Robert Hooke's Methodology of Science as exemplified in his ‘Discourse of Earthquakes’, The British Journal for the History of Science 6, no.22 (Jan 2009): 109–130.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087400012243Patsy A. Gerstner The Reaction to James Hutton's use of Heat as a Geological Agent, The British Journal for the History of Science 5, no.44 (Jan 2009): 353–362.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087400011584

Tsunamis as geological agents

Abstract When a tsunami wave series approaches and interacts with a coast, the consequent passage shorewards of great volumes of water and their invasion of the land, especially within bays and up river valleys, results in the disturbance of existing sediment and the removal seawards of land debris and coastal and shallow‐water marine sediments. Tsunami action builds up sequences of peculiar sediments in shallow water; it at least assists in the formation and maintenance of submarine canyons and, through them, produces turbidity currents of a particularly powerful kind. Tsunami action may explain many puzzling sedimentary phenomena, for example, sudden and drastic changes in near‐shore bathymetry; the formation of chaotic sediments such as some paraconglomerates and edgewise conglomerates. It offers solutions to problems arising from the study of turbiditic sequences, both modern and ancient.

Hurricanes as Geological Agents, South Texas Coast: GEOLOGICAL NOTES

Hurricanes as Geological Agents, South Texas Coast: GEOLOGICAL NOTES

Shallow-Water Geology and Environments of Alacran Reef Complex, Campeche Bank, Mexico

Alacran is an oval, shallow-water platform approximately 100 square miles in extent which rises above the general surface of the continental shelf 70 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The reef complex includes the long, arcuate reef which forms the windward side of the platform, a deeper and less sharply defined belt of reef growth outlining the leeward margin, and a multitude of reefs of various shapes and sizes in the enclosed lagoon. Contemporary sedimentation at Alacran is resulting in three major types of accumulations: loose sediment, rigid frames, and non-rigid frames. The loose sediment, primarily skeletal debris in the form of silt, sand, and gravel, covers inter-reef parts of the lagoon bottom. The rigid frames are built by a succession of organic overgrowths during which new colonies spread over the in situ skeletons of their predecessors. Non-rigid frames are being built on the protected side of some rigid frames where branching colonies of coral or algae are so abundant on the loose sediment surface that the individual colonies nearly touch each other, or even intermesh, although they are not cemented to one another. In terms of their roles as geologic agents, the organisms of the area can be categorized as frame builders, cementing agents, sediment contributors, frame destroyers, inhibitors of reef growth, and sediment movers. Many non-fossilizable members of the fauna and flora have considerable influence on sediment character and on rate and place of sedimentation. Lateral changes in benthonic organisms and bottom character are prominent on and around the Alacran reefs. Reef surfaces are divisible into two and sometimes three zones based on distribution of species which build rigid frames. Two other zones are based on distribution of species which build non-rigid frames. Other zones, such as one recognizing prominence of sediment-binding plants, are differentiated in lagoonal areas between reefs. All the Alacran reefs appear to be thriving, or at least holding their own in relation to the destructive forces of wave action and burrowing organisms. The outward expansion of the reefs into deeper water seems to depend primarily on some of the massive corals which attain great size but do not require a hard substrate. Such species create the foundation of reef rock on which other frame builders can establish and to which they subsequently contribute. Several environmental factors influence the morphology of individual coral colonies. Change in colony form correlated with increase in water depth is well shown by one species of branching coral, and several other species illustrate the influence of wave action, sedimentation rate, and the presence of intruding organisms on colony morphology. The reefs which are exposed to the strongest wave action differ in several respects from those in more protected areas. Some of the major frame-building coral species on less protected reefs are absent or uncommon on most lagoonal reefs. Encrusting calcareous algae contribute to windward reef frames but are inconspicuous in lagoonal reefs. Study of reef surfaces suggests that cross sections of lagoonal reefs would show less tightly knit reef frames with larger pockets of loose sediment than would be the case in windward reefs.

The Uniformitarian-Catastrophist Debate

W lHEN, IN HIS Principles of Geology of 1830-1833, Charles Lyell revived and extended the geological ideas of William Hutton, he produced almost at once a division of English geologists into "Uniformitarians" and "Catastrophists," as that all-purpose Victorian thinker William Whewell dubbed the two opposing schools.' Lyell insisted on the explanation of geological phenomena by reference to secondary causes still observed to be in operation in the present, causes which have always been uniform in the same sense that they are uniform at present. By uniformity of "causes" Lyell meant not merely that the same geological agents (rain and rivers, earthquakes and volcanoes, etc.) have been at work in the past as in the present, but also that the quantity and intensity of the action of these agents have never varied. His view of the past was one of "endless variation"2 leading nowhere in particular, an apparently ceaseless repetition of continent-raising and continent-eroding processes. Moreover, in keeping with his belief that geology can never penetrate back beyond these repetitive cycles to an original or primitive state of the earth, he flatly denied that geology could show any over-all development of the surface of the earth in any particular direction from any knowable original state. He coupled to this assertion a full-length refutation of the theories of Humphry Davy and of Lamarck as to "the successive development of animal and vegetable life, and their progressive advancement to a more perfect state."3 Such a refutation was necessary to remove the possibility that paleontology could point back to a primitive lifeless condition of the earth, which would inevitably suggest radically different geological conditions, from which a developmental process could originate. The Catastrophists, led by the expert field geologist Adam Sedgwick and by William Whewell, attacked Lyell in two areas. First, they asserted the greater magnitude of geological forces in past time, especially at certain epochs where discontinuities between strata indicated vast powers at work-even, perhaps,

GEOMORPHOLOGY OF MARGUERITE BAY AREA, PALMER PENINSULA, ANTARCTICA

Research Article| October 01, 1960 GEOMORPHOLOGY OF MARGUERITE BAY AREA, PALMER PENINSULA, ANTARCTICA ROBERT L NICHOLS ROBERT L NICHOLS DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY, TUFTS UNIVERSITY, MEDFORD 55, MASSACHUSETTS Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information ROBERT L NICHOLS DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY, TUFTS UNIVERSITY, MEDFORD 55, MASSACHUSETTS Publisher: Geological Society of America Received: 06 Aug 1958 First Online: 02 Mar 2017 Online ISSN: 1943-2674 Print ISSN: 0016-7606 Copyright © 1960, The Geological Society of America, Inc. Copyright is not claimed on any material prepared by U.S. government employees within the scope of their employment. GSA Bulletin (1960) 71 (10): 1421–1450. https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1960)10[1421:GOMBAP]2.0.CO;2 Article history Received: 06 Aug 1958 First Online: 02 Mar 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation ROBERT L NICHOLS; GEOMORPHOLOGY OF MARGUERITE BAY AREA, PALMER PENINSULA, ANTARCTICA. GSA Bulletin 1960;; 71 (10): 1421–1450. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1960)10[1421:GOMBAP]2.0.CO;2 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyGSA Bulletin Search Advanced Search Abstract A snow-covered plateau hundreds of miles long extends from the northern to the southern part of the Palmer Peninsula, Antarctica. It is approximately 2000 feet high at the northern end and more than 6000 feet high at the southern end. The plateau presumably is a middle or late Tertiary peneplain which has been differentially uplifted. The peneplain was dissected after the uplift; depression of more than 1000 feet since then has resulted in a shore line of submergence.Wright, Priestley, and Gould thought that glaciation started in the Antarctic in the middle Tertiary because they interpreted breccias as tillites. The writer concludes after an examination of the literature that these breccias are probably volcanic; he believes that there is no good evidence for Tertiary Antarctic glaciation.U-shaped valleys, cirques, horns, truncated spurs, arêtes, glacially formed bedrock basins, erratics, and moraine are common.Evidence of deglaciation is widespread. Land ice extended more than 15 miles beyond the present strand line during the most advanced stage of glaciation. Three thousand feet of ice covered areas now deglaciated. The southwest terminus of the shelf ice in King George VI Sound retreated approximately 30 miles from 1940 to 1949. The Northeast Glacier retreated measurably from 1940 to 1947.A strand flat 1500 feet long, 400 feet wide, and in places as much as 20 feet above sea level was mapped. Till buried in places by elevated beach gravels veneers its bedrock platform. The strand flat was formed by a local glacier. Since its formation, sea level has dropped as much as 20 feet with respect to the land. Other strand flats have had a somewhat similar history.More than 20 elevated beaches were studied. The highest is approximately 110 feet above sea level. Elevated beaches have also been reported from South Victoria Land and from the northern part of the Palmer Peninsula. The elevations of these beaches suggest that on the average more than 300 feet of ice has been removed from the margin of the continent during deglaciation.The average depth of the break in the slope of the Antarctic continental terrace is approximately 1600 feet. The world average depth of the break in slope is approximately 430 feet. If the great depth of the Antarctic break in slope is due solely to the weight of the icecap, the icecap must average between 3550 and 4800 feet thick.More than 75 per cent of the area is covered with permanent ice. Valley, piedmont, tidewater, cliff, cirque, reconstructed, outlet, transection, and fringing glaciers are common; so too are highland, snowdrift, shelf, and island ice.The insignificant quantity of alluvium and the small size of the meltwater streams in the summer months prove that running water is of only minor importance as a geologic agent. This content is PDF only. Please click on the PDF icon to access. First Page Preview Close Modal You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.

The solusphere—its inferences and study

Water is a fundamental geologic agent active in rock decomposition, erosion, and synthesis. Solutes in water are of particular interest to geochemists as sources of raw material for synthesis or as products of decomposition. When geochemical studies move from the laboratory into natural environment many variables relating to solute hydrology must be considered. As a focal point there has been designed a graphical representation of solute hydrology, the solusphere, which embodies the concepts of land-water occurrence and movement on which are superimposed geologic, biologic, physical, chemical, and cultural processes affecting solutes. The solusphere is demonstrated by passing an imaginary plane through the centre of the earth. This plane intercepts concentric zones designated as rock flowage, saturation, aeration, surface activity, and atmosphere. Transport processes carry solutes within and between zones without alteration or conversion. However, whether stationary or in motion, the water's solute character is constantly subject to (1) alteration processes that change concentration by addition or subtraction of solutes or solvent without loss of solute identities, and (2) conversion processes that change the chemical state and form of solutes. The geochemist is concerned with specific conversion processes, but he also must consider transport, alteration, and other conversion processes that are continually modifying the materials with which he is dealing in nature. The solusphere is an attempt to organize processes affecting the chemical quality of land waters into a unified field of science much like the field of marine chemistry.

System in Photogeology

In the study of features that have been modified by a succession of geologic agents or events, the simple matching of photos becomes inadequate, and the aerial photos must be studied and analyzed in a systematic manner. The method by which a photo may be described in terms of its topography, drainage and erosion, tone, and vegetative cover is described and their significance is discussed. Land forms, and their photographic aspects, are discussed under the broad headings of sedimentary rock features, igneous rock features, metamorphic rock features, features developed on unconsolidated materials, and structurally controlled features. A few examples are given to illustrate the method.

Cavitation as a geological agent

Cavitation as a geological agent

Sea Lions as Geological Agents

ABSTRACT Sea mammals, although known to carry gastrolith pebbles in their stomachs, have not hitherto been considered important geological agents. Numbers of water worn pebbles on the surface and embedded in Recent peat deposits at the Snares Islands south of New Zealand, are attributed to transport by sea lions. Erratic pebbles of basalt have apparently been carried 130 miles to the Snares Islands from the Auckland Islands.

Volcanoes as Landscape Forms

IT is no accident that the varied landscapes of New Zealand should have stimulated Prof. Cotton to enrich the literature of geomorphology with a series of books of outstanding interest and importance. In no other country of comparable size can a greater variety of geological agents and processes be seen in active operation, and since land-forms result from the interaction of the internal and external processes, it follows that New Zealand is a geomorphologist's paradise.

Meteorites or Springs as Geological Agents?

DOUGLAS JOHNSON'S recent death is mourned by a wide circle of friends and admirers on both sides of the Atlantic. Johnson delighted in interpretation of scenery and showed to equal advantage in choice of subject, plan of attack and clarity of exposition. In his latest monograph1, which includes forty-six illustrations, mostly air-photographs, he dealt with a problematical erosion form represented by tens of thousands of parallel, oval, marshy hollows pitting the coastal plain of America. The area affected measures some 25,000 square miles, and ranges through South Carolina into neighbouring States. Here marshes of any shape are commonly called 'bays', perhaps, it has been suggested, because bay trees flourish in them. This local practice accounts for the title selected by Johnson for his book, "The Origin of the Carolina Bays". Johnson alternatively speaks of the oval hollows as craters. They are shallow basins, measuring anything from a few hundred feet up to four miles in length, and averaging about 50 ft. in depth, when allowance is made for partial infilling with peaty silt. Usually they are more or less completely encompassed with white sandy rims.

Stability of Minerals in Sedimentary Rocks

AS the rocks which form the continental masses are disintegrated by the action of weathering and other geological agents, their detritus accumulates to form sedimentary rocks, ultimately on the sea-bed. In most instances, the constituents of these sedimentary rocks afford a clue to the character of the parent material and furnish information about the probable source and direction of transportation of the detritus (provided, of course, that the investigation is carried out over a sufficiently wide area). In the majority of sediments, especially the coarser types, the bulk of the grains consist, however, of the common mineral quartz, which yields little evidence of a particular source, for it is widely distributed throughout almost all types of rocks. It is able to survive many cycles of erosion because of its high resistance to chemical alteration and mechanical disintegration. But certain other constituents, usually of rarer occurrence, known as the heavy detrital minerals because of their higher density (>2 9), are of much greater value as clues to origin, for many of them are characteristic of particular rock-types.

Beaver-Dams as Geologic Agents

Beaver-Dams as Geologic Agents

Mudflow as a Geologic Agent in Semiarid Mountains

Introduction In Utah, Nevada, and other more or less arid parts of the western United States the steeper slopes of most of the mountains are fringed with alluvial deposits, which form bajadas, or alluvial slopes. The unit of a series of such deposits is the alluvial fan, the apex of which is in the mouth of a mountain canyon. The surfaces and the eroded sections of these fans show two features by which they can be distinguished from the alluvial deposits of moister regions: many of the fans are strewn with large, isolated boulders, and the deposit as a whole consists of beds of unassorted and unstratified earthy material, a heterogeneous mixture of particles of all sizes, which in that respect resembles glacial till and some volcanic agglomerates. Lawson2 has given it the convenient name “fanglomerate.” These deposits have generally been supposed to be formed by floods, although floods normally . . .

Introductory Geology: for Use in Universities, Colleges, Schools of Science, etc., and for the General Reader

THE text of Part 1, “Physical Geology,” first appeared in 1915 in Pirsson and Schuchert's “Text-Book of Geology,” a revised second edition of which was published in 1920. With the exception of the chapter on ore deposits, which has been rewritten by Prof. A. M. Bateman, Part 1 in the present volume is reprinted from the second edition of the "Text-Book."The subject is treated under two main heads, dynamical geology and structural geology. In the first section the various geological agents and their work are dealt with fully but concisely, the geological work of organic life not being neglected. The second section is a well-arranged and comprehensive account of the composition, character, relations, and structures of the rocks forming the earth's crust. In scope and treatment the whole is an excellent introduction to the subject for students, and it must also be of interest to the general reader. The illustrations are good and include both reproductions of photographs and diagrams. There is an appendix on important minerals.

Man as a Geological Agent

Man as a Geological Agent

Birds as a Geological Agent

MR. MARTIN has directed attention in NATURE of July 5, p. 12, to the fact that birds may carry shellfish to heights considerably above sea-level, and I remember as a student being warned against a too ready assumption of elevation of the land relatively to the sea founded on the occurrence of remains of mollusca above high-water mark. But the operations of birds in the past history of the world were probably far more extensive. Their efficiency in the distribution of seeds and minute organisms over seas is now generally acknowledged, and of course we are indebted to birds for valuable deposits of guano.