Notes

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• Page 1, Row 2 panel 3: Hutton is holding a rock with a graptolite fossil, a class of animals that existed in the Paleozoic. Graptolites evolved and diversified quickly, making them a good index fossil, a fossil that can date the age of a rock.

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• Page 2, Row 1 panel: In 1772, a visitor wrote that Hutton’s “study is so full of fossils and chemical apparatus that there is hardly room to sit down.”

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• Page 2, Row 2 panel 1: Hutton was not a good writer, so John Playfair (1748-1819) summarized Hutton’s work in his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth in 1802.

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• Page 2, Row 2 panel 2: James Hutton stands with John Playfair at Siccar Point, in the county of Berwickshire in Scotland, spring 1788, The place is called “Hutton’s Unconformity” because of the large age gap between types of rocks, caused by erosion of rock after the first layers of rocks were deposited and before the top layers were deposited.

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• Page 3, Row 2 panel: Although Hutton originally came up with the idea of uniformitarianism, the term wasn’t coined until the 1830s by William Whewell.

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• Page 4, Row 2 panel: Hutton published his findings in a book Theory of the Earth, which consisted of two volumes, in 1795. His ideas grew popular after they were restated through John Playfair in 1802 and later Charles Lyell in the 1830s.

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• Page 4, Row 3 panel: Another view of Siccar Point/Hutton’s Unconformity.

 

For Further Reading Online

 

National Association of Geoscience Teachers. “Visualizations: Rock Cycle.” Teaching Petrology in the 21st Century: Topical Resources. Compiled by Mark Francek. Last Modified April 8, 2016. Accessed May 30, 2016.  http://serc.carleton.edu/31428.

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Thomson, Keith. “Vestiges of James Hutton.” American Scientist 89 (2001): 212. Accessed May 31, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1511/2001.3.212.

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National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA). “Rock and the Rock Cycle.” Windows to the Universe. Last Modified August 19, 2005. Accessed May 31, 2016. http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/geology/meta_intro.html.

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Villanueva, John Carl. “How are Rocks Formed?” Universe Today, December 3, 2009. Accessed May 31, 2016. http://www.universetoday.com/46594/how-are-rocks-formed/.

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Works Cited

 

American Museum of Natural History. “James Hutton: The Founder of Modern Geology.” In  Earth: Inside and Out, edited by Edmond A. Mathez. New York: The New Press, 2001.  Accessed March 2016. http://www.amnh.org/explore/resource-collections/earth-inside-and-out/james-hutton-the-founder-of-modern-geology/.

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Encyclopædia Britannica. “James Hutton, Scottish geologist.” Last modified January 1, 2016. Accessed March 2016. http://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Hutton.

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National Library of Scotland. “James Hutton (1726-1797).” Scottish Science Hall of Fame. Accessed May 2016. http://digital.nls.uk/scientists/biographies/james-hutton/.

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O’Connor, J.J., and E.F. Robertson. “James Hutton.” School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Last modified January 2004. Accessed May 2016. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hutton_James.html.

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Wheeling Jesuit University/NASA-supported Classroom of the Future. “Rock Cycle.” NASA Classroom of the Future Earth Science Explorer. Last Modified April 28, 2005. Accessed March 2016. http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/msese/earthsysflr/rock.html.