Geology Flashcards
Living and Fossils Elephants is a writing about which famous scientist?
Cuvier
What historical events lead to the perfect situation for Cuvier to establish himself as a scientist in Paris?
The French Revolution and the end of the Reign of Terror
many well known and connected scientists had either fled Paris or been killed so the need to break into a well established network was diminished - kind of a blank slate for Cuvier to get into the field
How did the National Museum of Natural History in Paris survive the Reign of Terror according to Living and Fossils Elephants?
It reformed itself at the height of the revolution with a more politically correct position and renamed itself
How did Cuvier start at the National MoNH?
junior position as an understudy to Merstrud, an undistinguished prof of animal anatomy
How did Cuvier put his science on the map and establish himself as a force to be reckoned with (Living and Fossils Elephants)?
his concept of animals as machines, while not new, was much more focused and thorough on the functionality of animal machines
Who was the youngest member of the First Class at the Museum of NH (Living and Fossils Elephants)?
Cuvier, after his inaugural lecture
What types of animals did Cuvier work on at the NMoNH?
He began with continuing his studies on anatomy of the poorly understood invertebrates (molluscs specifically) then changed to vertebrates and mammals
eventually he came to address questions about fossils
What was the major question Cuvier eventually came to trying to address?
While it was not a new question, he also came to wonder: how was it possible that large fossil bones and teeth were being discovered in northern latitudes in deposits close to ground surface when these animals were known to be inhabitants of tropical (lower latitude) areas?
Which large mammal bones were being discovered in northern latitudes?
elephants and rhinos
Which known scientists were contributing largely to the debate about the fossils before Cuvier (Living and Fossils Elephants)?
Louis Jean Marie Daubenton (1716-99): a professor of mineralogy at the museum who had been a major contributor to the fossil debate prior to the revolution
George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-88): fossils were a key component to his theory of the earth
What was Cuvier’s major empirical advantage over his predecessors?
spoils from the revolution included major natural history collections of the former ruler of the conquered Netherlands
What did the Netherlands natural history collection provide for Cuvier?
in addition to the collection at the museum, it allowed him to confirm his hypothesis that the living African elephant was not the same as the Indian elephant which had been previously thought
AND that the fossil elephant, or ‘mammoth’ was also different from both the living Indian and African elephant
Did Cuvier include a discussion or acceptance of evolutionary theory in his description/reporting of the 3 elephant species?
he dismissed the idea that the differences between the 3 species may be due to the transformation of one into the others (evolution) - a concept being actively debated in Paris - he did this almost passively
What was significant, or what did Cuvier know was significant, about his work to the field of geology?
he knew his comparative anatomy provided more solid evidence and a stronger argument for the theory of the earth or geology
How did Cuvier’s comparative anatomy of the 3 elephant species undermine Buffon’s ‘Theory of the earth’ ?
Buffon had argued that the earth originated from some very hot celestial body in space which had cooled gradually and that the bones in northern latitudes but the presence of elephants in tropical latitudes were because they had to move to seek warmer climates
Cuvier undermined the argument of the earth cooling and the animals moving because he determined the mammoth was a different species altogether which may have had adapted to different climates such as the cold one where its bones were found
Which new problems arose from Cuvier’s argument?
most importantly: what caused the difference between all the known fossil species and those alive today?
How did Cuvier dramaticize his claim about the distinction between fossils and living species?
He made the sweeping claim that fossils were completely distinct species from living ones and that this also extends to marine organisms, as well as terrestrial
What was the counter argument to Cuvier’s inclusion of marine organisms in his fossil v. extant organisms argument?
conchologists rejected his idea that fossils are different species entirely from extant because they had found that marine molluscs had exact ‘analogues’ among fossils
What did Cuvier claim about the origin of the world/the earth’s prehuman history and origin?
without a sufficient argument, he thought that the world had been ‘destroyed’ by a sudden catastrophic event - this theme was pervasive throuhgout the rest of his work
What evidence did Cuvier discuss for his claim that the living and fossil elephants were different species?
molar teeth of elephants
elephant skulls with teeth
fossils of mammoths (tusks)
comparative anatomy!
What branch of science is Cuvier best known for?
comparative anatomy
T or F: Cuvier determined that comparative anatomy is an essential tool to support geology
true
What type of questions were at the root of geology? give examples
practical and theoretical
ex.
where can we find minerals and metals?
how did mountains form?
where do rivers come from?
what are fossils?
how did earth form? was it divine creation or natural?
What terrestrial phenomenon did Sir Isaac Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation explain that was previously inexplicable?
the daily tides
How did Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation inspire the geological questions that followed the understanding of the daily tides?
the development of cosmogony
What is cosmogony?
theories of the origin of the universe and the earth and the physical laws that govern it
Who was Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher? What did he contribute?
Ussher developed the Genesis view of the origin of the earth
he published a chronology of human history including events in the bible
When did divine creation begin according to Ussher and the Genesis view? how did he determine this?
divine creation was recent and began at 12PM on October 23, 4004 BC (so specific)
he did extensive biblical and non-biblical research to create his 2000 page chromology of human hisotyr
what was the implication of the Genesis view?
only one geological event in history significantly shaped the earth and that was the Great Flood of Noah
What event, according to the Genesis view, greatly shaped the earth?
Great Flood of Noah
What did early scientific models of the earth try to incorporate into the account of earth’s origins and history?
new knowledge of physics and astronomy
usually into a biblical/genesis framework
Who was William Whiston (c. 1667-1752)? what did he do?
he was a mathematician and he tried to explain biblical events through cometary events
ex. Haley’s comet
What was Whiston’s principle regarding the bible?
accept it as literally true unless you have reason to believe otherwise
What was Whiston’s take on the 6 days of creation in Genesis?
he thought that Genesis was told through the POV of the surface of the earth and not the entire cosmos - ie., it’s not an account of the origin of everything
What did Whiston think happened before Genesis starts the narrative? ie., the creation of the actual earth?
earth was a comet with a highly elliptical orbit and became more circular by god - God used physical laws outlined by Newton as tools to shape the earth
god cleaned the atmosphere to let the sun hit the earth’s surface = ‘see’ the sun to allow life on earth
What did Whiston think about the Fall of Man?
the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden was accompanied by a comet hitting earth causing it to spin and tilt = diurnality and seasonality
What did Whiston attribute the Flood of Noah to?
he thought the flood occurred from a close encounter between the earth and the water in the tail of a passing comet
the comet caused tidal forces on the earth to open cracks in its surface = upward surge of subterranean water = flood
What did Whiston believe to be the next large catastrophe after the Flood of Noah? ie., what was the coming conflagration?
he thought there will be another comet that will approach Earth, strip the atmosphere, raise molten interior material and make the Earth’s orbit more elliptical
What was the consummation to Whiston?
Christ will reign for a thousand years, the battle of Armageddon will be fought, the righteous win and go to heaven
Earth will be directly hit with another comet and knocked back into a highly elliptical orbit and every thing perishes the end
What is the Telliamed (1748) book about? Who wrote it?
Benoit de Maillet (1656-1738) is a book describing his conversation with a philosopher from the East in which he included his radical ideas about the earth’s creation
