1. SEDIMENTOLOGY
ADVENTURE IN IDEAS
In the following paragraphs, we sketch
the highlights of these aspects of
sedimentology. Our presentation attempts
to add historical perspective, yet it is not
strictly chronologic nor is it strictly topical.
We begin with sedimentology and the birth
of modern geology.
SEDIMENTOLOGY, THE BIRTH OF
MODERN GEOLOGY, AND THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY'S GREAT
"TIME DILEMMA"
The birth of modern geology can be
considered as beginning with James
Hutton (1727-1797) and his wide-ranging
and revolutionary concept of the great
geological cycle. The significance to
geology of Hutton's cycle idea has been
compared to the significance to astronomy
and physics of Newton's law of gravity.
Hutton argued that the history of the
Earth could be deciphered from study of its
layers of stratified bedrock, that these
ancient stratified rocks had formed in ways
comparable to those now forming modern
sediments, and that the Earth was a
dynamic body whose surface was
constantly in a state of flux as a result of
its outflowing thermal energy from deep
inside and of the effects at the surface of
incoming solar energy, the Earth's rotation,
and the circulation of water through the
atmosphere.
In this day and age, Hutton's ideas,
somewhat modified, form so much a part
of the world view held by many people that
we tend to take these ideas for granted
and to consider them to be self evident.
However, early in the nineteenth century,
when Hutton's ideas were first becoming
widely circulated, very different views of
the world prevailed. Because the
established nineteenth-century view stated
that the age of the Earth was no more than
about 6000 years, Hutton's ideas
presented the intelligentsia with a great
"time dilemma." Many attempts were made
to resolve this "time dilemma." Chief
among these were Diluvianist philosophy,
catastrophism, "day stretching," and
"Cuvier's compromise." We examine these
in the following paragraphs.
As geologic observations began to
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accumulate early in the ' nineteenth
century, various , "natural philosophers"
(as what we now term geologists were
then known) began to compile a list of
natural events that they were certain must
have happened to the Earth in bygone
times. With each field trip, it seemed that
one or more other new events had to be
added to the I ist. The great problem
presented by this ever-lengthening list of
natural events was how to fit them into
some kind of time framework. In the Hutton
scheme of things, this was no problem.
Hutton had argued that he could "read" the
Earth's history in the geologic record of its
stratified rocks, and that in this remarkable
record he could find "no vestige of a
beginning." Hutton never formally declared
-how old he thought the Earth might be;
just the same, it was clear, to everyone
that he was talking about vastly longer
amounts of time than the "standard" 6000
years that were "allowed" by OldTestament scholars and clergy. Some
persons even felt that Hutton's ideas
implied that the Earth's age was infinite.
Rather than tamper with the widely
accepted Biblical time scale, another group
of naturalists, eventually named the
Diluvianists, attempted to explain the
geologic record by claiming that all
geologic events could be fitted into the
Old-Testament account of the Deluge and
subsequent recorded events. Because
such a supply of time was thus both small
and fixed, Diluvianist philosophy required
one to accept the view that natural
activities took place fast and furiously. In
short, it was necessary for Diluvianists to
be hard-core Catastrophists. As geologic
research progressed, and the evidence for
a more-and-more eventful geologic record
accumulated, the Diluvianist position
became untenable. They kept introducing
new catastrophes into their history.
Eventual ly, these catastrophes had to
become so numerous and so intense that
even the most-ardent Diluvianists had to
abandon their viewpoints.
Another group sought to resolve the
"time dilemma" by use of allegorical
"days." Those who used the allegorical
approach argued that the "days" of the
Old-Testament creation story were not to
be thought of as ordinary 24-hour days, as

2. we know days. Rather, they argued, those
"days" of creation were to be looked upon
as "epochs" of perhaps long duration. We
shall designate this use of allegorical days
by the term "day stretching." Such
attempts at "day stretching" assuaged a
few persons, but they never became
widely accepted. The big difficulty
associated with "day stretching" was that it
required one to adopt a view of the Bible
that was not strictly literal. The clergy
opposed this; allow a little leeway here,
they argued, and who knows on what point
one would be forced to yield next.
Given these conflicting views and the
enormous concerns that were expressed
about resolving the subject, it is not hard to
imagine that a huge sense of relief and of
triumph must have been widespread when
what appeared to be a perfect resolution of
all these difficulties was proposed by
Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832).
Cuvier argued that the history of the Earth
could be divided into three periods, or
epochs: (1) the time of the great deluge
(Noah's flood), or Diluvian period; (2) the
time since the deluge, or post-Diluvian
period; and (3) the time prior to the deluge,
or the ante-Diluvian period.
Cuvier wrote that the Diluvian period and
the post-