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Informationen zum Autor DAVID OLDROYD, University of New South Wales David Oldroyd is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of New South Wales and was Secretary-General of the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences for eight years. A recipient of awards for his historical work from the Geological Society of London, the Geological Society of America, and the Australian Commonwealth, he is the author of numerous articles and several books, including (in the geosciences): The Highlands Controversy: Constructing Geological Knowledge through Fieldwork in Nineteenth-century Britain , Sciences of the Earth: Studies in the History of Mineralogy and Geology , Thinking about the Earth: A History of Ideas in Geology , Earth, Water, Ice and Fire: Two Hundred Years of Geological Research in the English Lake District , and (with Jan Kozak and Victor Moreira) The Iconography of the Lisbon Earthquake . Klappentext Humans have tried to figure out what formed the landscape of the earth for thousands of years. How were mountains created? Where did lakes and rivers come from? What lies under the surface of the earth? And one concept that greatly aided the scientific advance of the earth sciences was that of geological cycles. Once scientists understood that many geological actions are cyclic, the scientific knowledge of the earth exploded. These ideas are central to the nature of the earth sciences, and appreciating how scientists arrived at these ideas is essential for understanding the nature of the earth sciences. Zusammenfassung One concept that greatly aided the scientific advance of the earth sciences was that of geological cycles. This work traces the history of this concept from the ancient philosophers to the modern times. It is useful for students researching the earth sciences and the history and nature of the scientific understanding of the world around us. Inhaltsverzeichnis Figure 2.1. Leonardo's "theory of the Earth" from his "Codex Leicester." (Leonardo d Vinci, 2000, 31) Figure 3.1a. Four stages in the Earth's development (Descartes 1656, 151). Figure 3.1b. Further development of the Earth (Descartes 1656, 155). Figure 3.2. Steno's scheme for the geological history of Tuscany (1669, unnumbered page, preceding ). Figure 3.3. Frontispiece to Burnet's Theory of the Earth (1684). Figure 3.4. Figure from Burnet's Theory of the Earth (1684, 57). Figure 3.5. Formation of oceans and mountains due to collapse structures (Burnet 1697, 227). Figure 4.1. The Earth, its envelope of water, and the initial directions of motion of freely falling objects at different latitudes, based on Hooke's account in his Posthumous Works. Figure 5.1. The "geostrophic cycle." Figure 5.2. Cross section of northern part of Arran, drawn by John Clerk, Jr., 1787. Figure 5.3. Geological sketch map of northern Arran showing likely line of section for Clerk's drawing (Figure 5.2). Figure 5.4. Unconformity at Loch Ranza, Arran, as figured by Archibald Geikie (1899). Figure 5.5. Profile of unconformity observed by Hutton near Jedburgh in 1787. Figure 5.6. Unconformity at Siccar Point. Figure 5.7. The evolving continuum of mineral substances from the residues of living organisms, according to Lamarck's Hydrogeology. Figure 6.1. The "Temple" of Serapis at Pozzuoli near Naples. Figure 6.2. Illustration of Lyell's theory of "random" creation and extinction of species. Figure 7.1. Development of canyon profiles according to the hardness of strata (Dutton 1882, plate 40, facing p. 250). Figure 7.2. Evolution of a landscape according to Davis, from Holmes (1944, 187). Figure 8.1. Part of the Earth's pentagonal arrangement of mountain ranges (Élie de Beaumont 1852, vol. 3, plate 5). Figure 8.2. Cooling, con...
