Editing Neptunism (section)

==Historical development==
In the mid-eighteenth century as the investigation of [[geology]] found evidence such as [[fossil]]s, [[natural history|naturalists]] developed new ideas which diverged from the [[Genesis creation narrative]]. [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Georges de Buffon]] proposed that the Earth was over 75,000 years old, possibly much older, and showed signs of historical development in a series of distinct [[Epoch (reference date)|epoch]]s.

[[Abraham Gottlob Werner]] was the inspector of mines and professor of mining and [[mineralogy]] at the Mining Academy in [[Freiberg, Saxony|Freiberg]] ([[Saxony]]) which became dominant in late eighteenth-century geology. His ''Short Classification and Description of Rocks'' of 1787<ref>This probably  should say "''Short classification and description of the various rocks''"; See e.g. {{cite book 
| title       = Showing all editions for 'Short classification and description of the various rocks.' 
| publisher   = [[OCLC]] 
| date        = 1786 
|oclc = 205028}}</ref><ref>See ''also'' (e.g.) {{cite book  
| title       = Short classification and description of the various rocks : [translation and facsimile of original text (1786) in juxtaposition]  
| publisher   = [[Hafner Publishing|Hafner]] 
| date        = 1971  
|author1=Werner, Abraham Gottlob |author2=Alexander M Ospovat 
 |oclc = 311498807|name-list-style=amp | author-link  = Abraham Gottlob Werner
}}</ref><ref>See ''also'' (e.g.) {{cite web  
| url         = https://books.google.com/books?id=xVc1AAAAMAAJ 
| title       = (The "Google Books" entry for) [the book] ''Short Classification and Description of the Various Rocks''
| access-date  = August 9, 2015 
| last1 = Werner
| first1 = Abraham Gottlob
| year = 1971
}}</ref><ref>See ''also'' the first page (labeled "page 599") of {{cite web  
| url         = http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM57/AM57_599.pdf 
| publisher   = [[Mineralogical Society of America]] 
| title       = BOOK REVIEWS 
| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20070714125023/http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM57/AM57_599.pdf 
| date        = 1972 
| archive-date = July 14, 2007 
| url-status     = live 
| access-date  = August 9, 2015 
}}</ref> and his lectures set out a classification of rocks on the basis of their age based on the sequence of layers of differing material, rather than by the types of minerals as had been previous practice.

He based his historical sequence of rock formation on the theory that the Earth had originally consisted of water. According to this account, the water contained material which settled out of suspension in a process of [[sedimentation]] to form the core of the planet and the continents as a series of layers, the oldest and hardest being [[granite]] while newer layers showed an increasing number of [[fossil]]s. [[Volcano]]es had a minor effect, modifying the continents and adding more sediment as well as some volcanic rocks, and successive lesser floods added more layers, so that most rocks resulted from [[precipitate]]s settling out of water. There is no indication that any of the floods in Werner's cosmogony were [[Noah's flood]].<ref>Ospovat, Alexander, "Werner, Abraham Gottlob," ''Dictionary of Scientific Biography'', pp. 256–264.</ref>