Editing Timeline of geology

{{short description|Chronological list of notable events in the history of the science of geology}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
{{Geology sidebar}}

'''Timeline of geology'''

==Early works==
* {{circa|1025}} – [[al-Biruni]] publishes the ''Kitāb fī Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind'' (''Researches on India''), in which he discusses the [[geology of India]] and hypothesizes that it was once a sea.<ref>[[Abdus Salam|A. Salam]] (1984), "Islam and Science". In C. H. Lai (1987), ''Ideals and Realities: Selected Essays of Abdus Salam'', 2nd ed., World Scientific, Singapore, pp. 179–213.</ref>
* 1027 – [[Avicenna]] publishes ''[[The Book of Healing]]'', in which he hypothesizes on two causes of [[mountain]]s.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Goodfield|first1=Stephen Toulmin, June|title=The discovery of time|date=1999|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|isbn=9780226808420|page=[https://archive.org/details/discoveryoftime00toul/page/64 64]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/discoveryoftime00toul/page/64}}</ref>

==16th and 17th centuries==
* Portuguese and Spanish explorers systematically measure [[magnetic declination]] to estimate the geographical longitude <ref name=retos /><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Alvarez|first1=Walter|last2=Leitão|first2=Henrique|title=The neglected early history of geology: The Copernican Revolution as a major advance in understanding the Earth|journal=Geology|date=March 2010|volume=38|issue=3|pages=231–234|doi=10.1130/G30602.1|bibcode=2010Geo....38..231A}}</ref>
* 1556 – [[Georg Agricola|Agricola]] publishes ''[[De re metallica]]''. This book acts as the standard mining and assaying text for the next 250 years.
* 1596 – [[Abraham Ortelius]], Flemish-Spanish cartographer, first envisages the [[continental drift]] theory.<ref name=retos /> 
* 1603 – [[Ulisse Aldrovandi]] coins the term ''Geology''.<ref name=retos>{{cite web|last1=Garcia-Castellanos|first1=Daniel|title=How old is Earth Science?|url=http://retosterricolas.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-early-history-of-geoscience.html|website=Retos Terrícolas|publisher=blogspot.com|access-date=7 April 2018|date=27 November 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Vai|editor-first1=Gian Battista|editor-last2=Cavazza|editor-first2=William|title=Four centuries of the word geology : Ulisse Aldrovandi 1603 in Bologna|date=2004|publisher=Minerva|location=Bologna, Italy|isbn=9788873810568}}</ref>
* 1669 – [[Nicolas Steno]] puts forward his theory that sedimentary strata had been deposited in former seas, and that fossils were organic in origin

==18th century==
* 1701 – [[Edmond Halley]] suggests using the salinity and evaporation of the Mediterranean to determine the age of the Earth
* 1743 – Dr [[Christopher Packe (physician and cartographer)|Christopher Packe]] produces a geological map of south-east England
* 1746 – [[Jean-Étienne Guettard]] presents the first mineralogical map of France to the [[French Academy of Sciences]].
* 1760 – [[John Michell]] suggests earthquakes are caused by one layer of rocks rubbing against another
* 1776 – [[James Keir]] suggests that some rocks, such as those at the [[Giant's Causeway]], might have been formed by the crystallisation of molten lava
* 1779 – [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Comte de Buffon]] speculates that the Earth is older than the 6,000 years suggested by the Bible
* 1785 – [[James Hutton]] presents paper entitled Theory of the Earth – Earth must be old
* 1799 – [[William Smith (geologist)|William Smith]] produces the first large scale geological map, of the area around [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]]

==19th century==
* 1809 – [[William Maclure]] conducts the first geological survey of the eastern United States
* 1813 – [[Georges Cuvier]] publishes his ''Essay on the Theory of the Earth'', proposing [[catastrophism]] on the basis of his work in [[biostratigraphy]]
* 1830 – Sir [[Charles Lyell]] publishes book, Principles of Geology, which describes the world as being several hundred million years old
* 1837 – [[Louis Agassiz]] begins his glaciation studies which eventually demonstrate that the Earth has had at least one [[ice age]]
* 1841 – [[August Breithaupt]], ''Vollstandiges Handbuch der Mineralogie''
* 1848 – [[James Dwight Dana]], ''Manual of Mineralogy''
* 1862 – [[Lord Kelvin]] attempts to find the age of the Earth by examining its cooling time and estimates that the Earth is between 20 and 400 	million years old
* 1884 – [[Marcel Alexandre Bertrand]], [[Nappe]] and [[Thrust fault]] theory

==20th century==
* 1903 – [[George Darwin]] and [[John Joly]] claim that radioactivity is partially responsible for the Earth's heat
* 1907 – [[Bertram Boltwood]] proposes that the amount of lead in uranium and thorium ores might be used to determine the Earth's age and 	crudely dates some rocks to have ages between 410 and 2200 million years
* 1911 – [[Arthur Holmes]] uses radioactivity to date rocks, the oldest being 1.6 billion years old
* 1912 – [[Alfred Wegener]] proposes that all the continents once formed a single landmass called Pangaea that broke apart via [[continental drift]]
* 1912 – [[George Barrow (geologist)|George Barrow]] maps zones of [[metamorphism]] (the Barrovian sequence) in southern [[Scotland]]
* 1913 – [[Albert A. Michelson]] measures [[tide]]s in the solid body of the Earth
* 1915 – [[Pentti Eskola]] develops the concept of [[metamorphic facies]]
* 1928 – [[Norman L. Bowen|N. L. Bowen]] publishes ''The Evolution of the Igneous Rocks,'' revolutionizing experimental [[igneous]] [[petrology]]
* 1935 – [[Charles Richter]] invents a logarithmic scale to measure the magnitude of [[earthquake]]s (<math>M_L</math>)
* 1941 – [[Nickel-Strunz classification]], [[Karl Hugo Strunz|Karl H. Strunz]], ''Mineralogische Tabellen''
* 1948–1959 – [[Felix Andries Vening Meinesz]] investigations show gravity anomalies, implying that the crust is moving (together with [[Johannes Herman Frederik Umbgrove|J.H.F. Umbgrove]], [[Berend George Escher|B.G. Escher]] and [[Philip Henry Kuenen|Ph.H. Kuenen]])
* 1951 – [[Alfred Rittmann]] links [[subduction]], [[volcanism]] and the [[Wadati–Benioff zone]]
* 1953 – [[Maurice Ewing]], [[Bruce Heezen]], and [[Marie Tharp]] discover the [[Great Global Rift]] running along the [[Mid-Atlantic Ridge]]
* 1960 – [[Harry Hammond Hess|Harry Hess]] proposes that new sea floor might be created at mid-ocean rifts and destroyed at deep sea trenches
* 1963 – [[Frederick Vine]] and [[Drummond Matthews]] explain the stripes of magnetized rocks with alternating magnetic polarities running parallel to mid-ocean ridges as due to sea floor spreading and the periodic geomagnetic field reversals ([[Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis]])
* 1966 – [[Keiiti Aki]] discovers the [[seismic moment]] (<math>M_0</math>)
* 1979 – [[Thomas C. Hanks]] and [[Hiroo Kanamori]], [[Moment magnitude scale]] (<math>M_W</math>), it succeeds the [[Richter magnitude scale]]
* 1980 – Physicist [[Luis Walter Alvarez|Luis Alvarez]], his son, geologist [[Walter Alvarez]], and others propose that the impact of a large extraterrestrial object caused the [[extinction]] of the [[dinosaur]]s at the [[Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event|end of the Cretaceous Period]], about 66 million years ago.

==21st century==
* 2001 – [[Nickel-Strunz classification]], [[Karl Hugo Strunz|Karl H. Strunz]] and [[Ernest Henry Nickel|Ernest H. Nickel]], ''Strunz Mineralogical Tables'' 9 ed.

==See also==
{{wikibooks|Historical Geology}}
* [[History of geology]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Geology}}

[[Category:History of Earth science]]
[[Category:Geology timelines|*]]