The idea that the earth might be vastly older than most people believed
made little headway in science until the publication of Principles of Geology
by an English scientist, Charles Lyell, early in the 19th century. The
impact of Lyell's book was a result of both the wealth of observations
it contained on the patterns of rock layers in mountains and the locations
of various kinds of fossils, and of the careful logic he used in drawing
inferences from his data.
| NSES Content Standard D
Earth and Space Science: Origin and evolution of the earth system Grades 9-12, page 189 Interactions among the solid earth, the oceans, the atmosphere, and organisms have resulted in the ongoing evolution of the earth system. We can observe some changes such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on a human time scale, but many processes such as mountain building and plate movements take place over hundreds of millions of years. See also Content Standard G History and Nature of Science (grades
9-12): Historical Perspectives.
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