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Sir James Hall
Sir James Hall of Dunglass, 4th Baronet Royal Society, FRS FRSE (17 January 1761 – 23 June 1832) was a Scotland, Scottish geologist and geophysicist. He was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament for St. Michael's borough (Mitchell (UK Parliament constituency), Mitchell, Cornwall) 1807–1812. Education Hall was born at Dunglass Castle, East Lothian, to Magdalena, daughter of Sir Robert Pringle, 3rd Baronet, of Tillich, Gloucestershire and Sir John Hall, 3rd Baronet (died 1776). He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh. As an Edinburgh student during the early 1780s, Hall studied chemistry under Joseph Black and natural history under John Walker (naturalist), John Walker. Though mineralogy was frequent taught in medical courses, Walker was one of the first professors to offer systematic lectures on the new field of geology. While attending Walker's popular course, Hall was taught how to use the chemical composition of minera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Cullen
William Cullen FRS FRSE FRCPE FPSG (; 15 April 17105 February 1790) was a Scottish physician, chemist and agriculturalist, and professor at the Edinburgh Medical School. Cullen was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment: He was David Hume's physician, and was friends with Joseph Black, Henry Home, Adam Ferguson, John Millar, and Adam Smith, among others. He was President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (1746–47), President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1773–1775) and First Physician to the King in Scotland (1773–1790). He also assisted in obtaining a royal charter for the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, resulting in the formation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783. Cullen was a beloved teacher, and many of his students became influential figures. He kept in contact with many of his students, including Benjamin Rush, a central figure in the founding of the United States of America; John Morgan, who fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial planet, rocky planet or natural satellite, moon. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is basalt. Rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt is chemically equivalent to slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro. The eruption of basalt lava is observed by geologists at about 20 volcanoes per year. Basalt is also an important rock type on other planetary bodies in the Solar System. For example, the bulk of the plains of volcanism on Venus, Venus, which cover ~80% of the surface, are basaltic; the lunar mare, lunar maria are plains of flood-basaltic lava flows; and basalt is a common rock on the surface of Mars. Molten basalt lava has a low viscosity due to its relatively low silica content (between 45% and 52%), resulting in rapidly moving lava flo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unconformity
An unconformity is a buried erosional or non-depositional surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger layer, but the term is used to describe any break in the sedimentary geologic record. The significance of angular unconformity (see below) was shown by James Hutton, who found examples of Hutton's Unconformity at Jedburgh in 1787 and at Siccar Point in 1788. The rocks above an unconformity are younger than the rocks beneath (unless the sequence has been overturned). An unconformity represents time during which no sediments were preserved in a region or were subsequently eroded before the next deposition. The local record for that time interval is missing and geologists must use other clues to discover that part of the geologic history of that area. The interval of geologic time not represented is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies underground. It is common in the continental crust of Earth, where it is found in igneous intrusions. These range in size from dikes only a few centimeters across to batholiths exposed over hundreds of square kilometers. Granite is typical of a larger family of ''granitic rocks'', or ''granitoids'', that are composed mostly of coarse-grained quartz and feldspars in varying proportions. These rocks are classified by the relative percentages of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase (the QAPF classification), with true granite representing granitic rocks rich in quartz and alkali feldspar. Most granitic rocks also contain mica or amphibole minerals, though a few (known as leucogranites) contain almost no dark minerals. Granite is nearly alway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stratum
In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as either '' bedding surfaces'' or ''bedding planes''.Salvador, A. ed., 1994. ''International stratigraphic guide: a guide to stratigraphic classification, terminology, and procedure. 2nd ed.'' Boulder, Colorado, The Geological Society of America, Inc., 215 pp. . Prior to the publication of the International Stratigraphic Guide, older publications have defined a stratum as either being either equivalent to a single bed or composed of a number of beds; as a layer greater than 1 cm in thickness and constituting a part of a bed; or a general term that includes both ''bed'' and ''lamina''.Neuendorf, K.K.E., Mehl, Jr., J.P., and Jackson, J.A. , eds., 2005. ''Glossary of Geology'' 5th ed. Alexandria, Virginia, American Geological Institute. 779 pp. . ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hutton's Unconformity
Hutton's Unconformity is a name given to various notable geological sites in Scotland identified by the 18th-century Scottish geologist James Hutton as places where the junction between two types of rock formations can be seen. This geological phenomenon marks the location where rock formations created at different times and by different forces adjoin. For Hutton, such an unconformity provided evidence for his Plutonist theories of uniformitarianism and the age of Earth. An unconformity is any break in the normal progression of sedimentary deposits, which are laid the newer on top of the older. In his search, Hutton and colleagues examined rock outcrops and cliffs, both riverside and sea, and found several locations where two adjoining rock types had been laid bare, the most noted being at Siccar Point on the coast of Berwickshire. Theory of rock formations Hutton hit on a variety of ideas to explain the rock formations he saw, and, after a quarter century of work, he read h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siccar Point
Siccar Point is a rocky promontory in the county of Berwickshire on the east coast of Scotland. It is famous in the history of geology for Hutton's Unconformity found in 1788, which James Hutton regarded as conclusive proof of his uniformitarian theory of geological development. History Siccar Point was the site of a dun, or small hill fort, in the territory of the ancient Britons. Siccar Point is now in the parish of Cockburnspath but was formerly in the parish of Old Cambus, from which the ancient parish church of St Helen's Chapel survives as a ruin about one kilometre to the west of the point. The church is built in a Romanesque style, in a mixture of Old Red Sandstone believed to have been quarried from the nearby Greenheugh Bay and of the greywacke rock also used in the drystone dyke forming the field boundaries. It is likely that the medieval village of Old Cambus was nearer to Siccar Point than the extant hamlet of Old Cambus. To the south of the point twentieth-c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berwickshire
Berwickshire ( gd, Siorrachd Bhearaig) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-eastern Scotland, on the English border. Berwickshire County Council existed from 1890 until 1975, when the area became part of the Borders region, with most of the historic county becoming part of the lower-tier Berwickshire district. Berwickshire district was abolished in 1996, when all the districts in the Borders region merged to become the Scottish Borders council area. The county takes its name from Berwick-upon-Tweed, its original county town, which was part of Scotland at the time of the county's formation in the twelfth century, but became part of England in 1482 after several centuries of swapping back and forth between the two kingdoms. After the loss of Berwick, Duns and Greenlaw both served as county town at different periods. The low-lying part of Berwickshire between the Tweed and the Lammermuirs is known as "the Merse", from an old Scots word for a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunglass
Dunglass is a hamlet in East Lothian, Scotland, lying east of the Lammermuir Hills on the North Sea coast, within the parish of Oldhamstocks. It has a 15th-century collegiate church, now in the care of Historic Scotland. Dunglass is the birthplace of Sir James Hall, an 18th-century Scottish geologist and geophysicist. The name ''Dunglass'' comes from the Brittonic for "grey-green hill". Geography Dunglass is a small settlement about 1 km (0.5 mi) north-west of Cockburnspath and 11 km (7 mi) south-east of Dunbar. The whole of Dunglass lies in an area of 2.47 km2. It lies to the east of the Lammermuir Hills on the North Sea coast at the point where the old Great North Road and modern A1 as well as the London-Edinburgh railway cross the gorge of the Dunglass Burn. The burn forms the boundary between the shires of East Lothian and Berwick. Other settlements nearby include Cove, Pease Bay, and Pease Dean. Dunglass Castle and estate Dunglass Castle was bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Playfair
John Playfair FRSE, FRS (10 March 1748 – 20 July 1819) was a Church of Scotland minister, remembered as a scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his book ''Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth'' (1802), which summarised the work of James Hutton. It was through this book that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, later taken up by Charles Lyell, first reached a wide audience. Playfair's textbook ''Elements of Geometry'' made a brief expression of Euclid's parallel postulate known now as Playfair's axiom. In 1783 he was a co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He served as General Secretary to the society 1798–1819. Life Born at Benvie, slightly west of Dundee to Margaret Young (1719/20 – 1805) and Reverend James Playfair (died 1772), the kirk minister of Liff and Benvie. Playfair was educated at home until the age of 14, when he entered the University of St Andrews to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Hutton
James Hutton (; 3 June O.S.172614 June 1726 New Style. – 26 March 1797) was a Scottish geologist, agriculturalist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist and physician. Often referred to as the father of modern geology, he played a key role in establishing geology as a modern science. Hutton advanced the idea that the physical world's remote history can be inferred from evidence in present-day rocks. Through his study of features in the landscape and coastlines of his native Scottish lowlands, such as Salisbury Crags or Siccar Point, he developed the theory that geological features could not be static but underwent continuing transformation over indefinitely long periods of time. From this he argued, in agreement with many other early geologists, that the Earth could not be young. He was one of the earliest proponents of what in the 1830s became known as uniformitarianism, the science which explains features of the Earth's crust as the outcome of continuing natural processes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
