GEOS2328 - Geologic Time: An Historical Perspective

GEOS 2328 Geologic Time: An Historical Perspective (3 semester credit hours) Notions of immortality and concepts of eternity--the struggle to understand human existence and the physical world. The geocentric universe--a Graeco-Christian compromise. The Hexaemeron and the 6000 year-old earth. The Renaissance and the slow acceptance of the Copernican universe. Seventeeth century attempts to explain the earth in biblical terms. Steno's laws and the demonstration that the Earth had a history. James Hutton's Earth machine and William Smith's strata--the progeny of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Biostratigraphy, the great stratigraphers, and Darwin. Victorian reaction to the realization of Earth's antiquity, as expressed in literature. Lord Kelvin's arguments for a young Earth. Discovery of radioactivity and the refutation of Kelvin. Patterson and the age of the solar system. Modern rock dating techniques. A walk through geologic time. Current concepts of the origin of the universe and the solar system. (3-0) Y