| Article Index |
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| Hutton's Unconformity |
| Problems |
| A Fine Example Of Science |
| Further Reading |
| All Pages |
Hutton found other, similar, unconformities; one near Jedburgh in the Scottish borders, and the most famous one at Siccar Point, on the coast east of Edinburgh. He published books with his ideas and evidence, but his ideas were not immediately accepted. Nearly 30 years after his death another geologist, Charles Lyell, took up his ideas and built upon them with yet more evidence, and his views were the main influence on geology for some time. Lyell was a strict uniformitarian, denying any role at all for sudden events, but in fact both ideas have merit. You only have to look at a flash flood or the self-destruction of a volcano to realise that catastrophic events do have a part to play. Even glaciers, slow by our human standards, should probably count as a fast-moving 'catastrophic' mechanism for erosion when compared to the time taken for most geological processes.
So Hutton's unconformity is a fine example of science as we know it – careful observation leading to an idea, the combining of this observation with many others to formulate a hypothesis, which can then be tested by further observation. Hutton even attempted experiments to test his ideas about the formation of igneous rocks, but at the time the apparatus was not available to approximate the temperatures and pressures required.
Well, not quite. As far as can be gathered from records, Hutton's reasoning went something like this: The Earth must have a purpose, and what better purpose than to support life. But if the Earth was designed for this, it was not a very good design because bits of it keep wearing away and the soil necessary for life, although formed by weathering and erosion, is also washed away and destroyed by the same processes. If these processes continued the Earth would eventually become uninhabitable. Perhaps the design had included the capacity for repair? From the idea that the purpose of the Earth is to support life, Hutton deduced that there must be some means of repair and set out to gather evidence to support this view.
Visiting the unconformity on Arran is a bit like a trip to the Galapagos islands would be to a biologist – albeit cheaper and a lot colder. I like the name, too – apart from the geological term, the 'unconformity' also reminds us that Hutton's ideas, while not conforming to the view of the world prevailing in his time, do not conform to the ideal of our modern scientific method either.
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