The huge earth and long history determine the special complexity of this subject. It was formed and developed in the debates of different schools and viewpoints.
germination period
(Ancient ~ A.D. 1450)
Man's understanding of the properties of rocks and minerals can be traced back to ancient times. In China, copper mining has reached a considerable scale more than two thousand years ago; Some chapters in Shan Hai Jing, Yu Gong and Guan Zi during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, as well as The Story of the Stone by Theophrastos, an ancient Greek, are the earliest summaries of human knowledge about rocks and minerals.
In the process of mining and fighting against natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and floods, people gradually realize the role of geology and make speculative and speculative explanations. China's ancient Book of Songs recorded the understanding of crustal changes that "the high shore is a valley and the deep valley is a mausoleum". Aristotle of ancient Greece proposed that the land and sea changes occurred in a certain period according to certain laws; Shen Kuo in the Middle Ages gave a correct explanation of land and sea changes, paleoclimate and fossil properties, and Zhu also scientifically revealed the origin of fossils.
Basic period
( 1450 ~ 1750)
Taking the Renaissance as an opportunity, people began to have a scientific explanation of the history of the earth. Italian Leonardo da Vinci, Danish Stena, British Woodward, Hooke, etc. , have demonstrated the origin of fossils. Hook also proposed using fossils to describe the history of the earth; Stena put forward the law of stratigraphic sequence; In petrology and mineralogy, Li Shizhen recorded more than 200 kinds of minerals, rocks and fossils in Compendium of Materia Medica. Agricola's research on minerals, vein formation and the role of water in mineralization initiated mineralogy and mineral deposit science.
formative period
( 1750 ~ 1840)
Under the impetus and influence of the British Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, scientific investigation and adventure travel rose in Europe. Travel and exploration make the crust a direct research object, and make people's research on the earth change from speculative speculation to on-the-spot observation. At the same time, the debate between different viewpoints and schools is very active. At the end of 18, the debate between plutonism and hydraulics about the origin of strata and rocks became sharp.
Werner in Germany is a representative figure of water formation theory. He proposed that both granite and basalt were deposited, and made a systematic division of rock strata. Hutton in Britain put forward the idea of "no beginning and no end" in revealing the history and geological process of the earth with natural processes. The dispute between fire and water promoted the separation of geology from cosmology, natural history and paleomineralogy, and gradually formed an independent discipline. In China, Xu Xiake's travels, which appeared in the17th century, are also transcendental achievements of natural investigation. By 1840, the principles and methods of underlying zoning have been established, and the geological age and stratigraphic system have been basically established.
At this time, mineralogy developed along the direction of morphological mineralogy and mineral chemistry, and Dana's mineralogical system in the United States marked the maturity of classical mineralogy. 1829, Nicole in England invented the polarizing microscope, which made the rapid development of microliths possible. 1829, Beaumont, France, put forward the contraction theory of the earth's cold contraction and orogeny, which had a great influence on the tectonic theory in the past hundred years.
In this way, a geological system composed of paleontology and stratigraphy related to earth history, petrology and mineralogy related to crustal material composition, and tectonic geological theory related to crustal movement has gradually formed.
/kloc-in the first half of the 0/9th century, the argument about catastrophe theory and variational method had a historic impact on the thinking method of geology. Giant is the main representative of catastrophe theory, and he put forward the view that there have been many catastrophes in the history of the earth, which led to the extinction of organisms. British Lyle is the main representative of equalization theory. He insisted on the view that "the laws of nature are always consistent" and put forward a realistic method to discuss the past with the present. In the debate, the theory of geological homogenization has gradually become the orthodox view of geology and its research methods for more than 100 years.
development period
(A.D. 1840 ~ A.D. 19 10)
With the development of industrialization, various industrial countries have carried out regional geological surveys, which have developed geology from regional geology to global tectonics and promoted the rapid establishment and development of various branches of geology.
Among them, Agassi's research on glaciology in Switzerland and the crustal equilibrium theory put forward by Airy and Pratt in Britain are of great significance. The geosyncline theory about the formation of mountains was finally established through the efforts of Hall and Dana in the United States. Bertrand of France put forward the concept of orogenic cycle; Og's classification of geosyncline types makes orogeny theory more perfect. Hughes of Austria and Karbinski of Russia have systematically studied the platform. Hughes' The Face of the Earth is a summary of geological research in the19th century. At the same time, Hughes studied the relationship between crustal movement in time and space from a global perspective by means of comprehensive analysis, which predicted the arrival of a new era of geological research in the 20 th century.
Modern geology
(A.D.188910/October 26th-1971April 29th)
Since the 20th century, with the development of society and industry, petroleum geology, hydrogeology and engineering geology have gradually formed independent branches. With the steady development of the basic discipline of geology, due to the mutual infiltration of various branches, the combination of basic sciences such as mathematics, physics and chemistry with geology, and the adoption of new technical methods, a series of marginal disciplines have emerged.
The study of seismic waves reveals the ring structure of solid earth and the difference between marine crust and continental crust structure. The experimental study of high temperature and high pressure rocks provides a reliable basis for people to understand the geological process in the deep crust. All these have promoted the transformation of geological research from qualitative to quantitative, and developed in both micro and macro directions.
In 1950s and 1960s, large-scale investigation and exploration around the world made geological research change from shallow to deep, from mainland to ocean, and marine geology developed rapidly. At the same time, great progress has been made in paleomagnetism, geothermal and gravity survey, which provides a scientific basis for the emergence of new global tectonic theory. On this basis, the continental drift theory put forward by German Wei Gena in 19 15, which is contrary to the traditional land-sea fixation theory, has revived.
In the early 1960s, the theory of submarine expansion put forward by Hess and Dietz in the United States explained the drift mechanism well. Canadian Wilson proposed transform fault and coined the word plate. In the mid-1960s, Morgan of the United States and Le Pixiong of France put forward the theory of plate tectonics to explain the basic theory of global tectonic movement, which marked the formation of a new view of the earth and brought modern geological research into a new stage.