Geology Today
Today, the basic tenets of uniformitarianism are just as viable as in Hutton's day. realize more strongly than ever that the Indeed, we present gives us insight into the past and that the physical, chemical and biological laws that govern geological processes remain unchanging through time. However, we also understand that the should not be taken too literally. To say that geological doctrine processes in the past were the same as those occurring today is not to suggest that they always had the same relative importance or that they operated at precisely the same rate. Moreover, someimportant geologic processes are not currently observable, but evidence that they occur is well established. For example, we know that Earth has experienced impacts from large meteorites even though we have no human witnesses. Such events altered Earth's crust, modified its climate, and strongly influenced life on the planet.
The acceptance of uniformitarianism meant the acceptance of a very long history for Earth. Although Earths processes varyin intensity, they still take a very long time to create or destroy major landscape features.
Forexample, existed in geologists have established that mountains once gan, and portions of present-day Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michi and Manitoba, Canada. Today, region consists of low hills rock plains because erosion gradually destroyed these peaks The record contains evidence that shows Earth has experienced many cycles of mountain building and erosion. Concerning the ever-changingnature of Earth through great expanses of geologic time, Hutton made a that was to become his most famous. In concluding his classic 1788 paper published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he stated, "The results therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of beginning-no prospect of an end It is important to remember that although many features of our physical landscape may seem to be unchanging over our life times, they are nevertheless changing, but on time scales of hun dreds, thousands, or even many millions of years