During the 17th and 18th centuries the doctrine of catastrophes strongly influenced people's thinking about earth.Brieflystated, catastrophists believed that Earth's landscapes had been developed primarily by great catastrophes Features such as mountains and canyons which today we know take great periods of time to form, were explained as having been produced by sudden and often worldwide disasters triggered by unknowable causes that no longer operate. This philosophy was an attempt to fit the rate of Earth processes to the prevailing ideas on the age of Earth.