Abraham Gottlob Werner's Neptunist Stratigraphy: an Incorrect Theory Advances the Geological Sciences
Overview
Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) is often remembered as the mistaken champion of a false theory about the structure of Earth's crust. However, his water-based hypothesis of the formation of rock strata was more than a wrong idea. Werner's theory was the first well-ordered geological description of the strata of Earth based on physical evidence that accounted for Earth's history. While his ideas were eventually overturned, often by his own students, he established a new way of thinking about the formation of Earth based on observation, experiment, and an attempt to understand historical geological processes.
Background
Earth's strata are the layers of various rock and mineral deposits that exist in a cross-section of Earth's crust. Strata look like the layers of a cut onion, or the side of a hamburger when you take a bite out of it. These layers are sometimes revealed by erosion, in the case of the Grand Canyon, or by landslides and man-made excavations.
The idea that water was the main force in the creation of Earth's surface dates back to at least the tenth-century Arab philosophers. In medieval Europe water-based theories became popular, as they explained the biblical flood of Noah.
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