Rocks and Minerals | Earth is a living machine
Earth is a living machine
At the end of the eighteenth century, James Hutton (1726–1797), a Scottish doctor, met once a week in Edinburgh to talk with other visionary men about new ideas. The Industrial Revolution was just beginning, and the men he met included James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, and Joseph Black, the chemist who discovered carbon dioxide. Hutton was interested in the rock and soil of his homeland and discussed his theories with this group.
Certain cliffs overlooking the North Sea, called Siccar Point, particularly fascinated Hutton. The upper part of the cliffs is red sandstone in horizontal layers, while the lower half is a dark rock tilted almost vertically. He knew the cliffs did not just magically appear in this form. After years of study, Hutton concluded that Earth was like a living machine, driven by heat within. He theorized that over thousands of centuries, the heated material within...
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