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Catastrophism

For the idea that Earth-like planets have been affected in the past by short-lived, violent galaxy-wide events, see Neocatastrophism.
The discoveries of different layers of fossils, such as those containing Palaeotherium and Anoplotherium (pictured), by Georges Cuvier led him to believe that series of catastrophic events wiped out worlds before the modern one.

In simple terms, catastrophism is a theory in geology that says the Earth's shape has been largely shaped by sudden and violent events. These events might have affected the whole world at once.[1] This idea is different from uniformitarianism or gradualism, which says that slow, small changes like erosion shaped everything on Earth. Uniformitarians think that what happens today is how things happened in the past. Scientists now think both big disasters and slow changes played roles in shaping our planet's history. They believe big disasters, like huge floods or mountains forming quickly, sometimes caused lots of plants and animals to die out, making room for new life to grow fast.

People who believed in catastrophism thought that each period of time in Earth's history ended with huge natural disasters, like big floods or mountains forming very quickly. These disasters would make old plants and animals die out fast, and new ones would appear suddenly. Some people even thought one of these disasters was the same flood described in the Bible's story about Noah.

A French scientist named Georges Cuvier talked a lot about catastrophism in the early 1800s. He thought that many of Earth's big changes happened because of disasters like floods. But he didn't mix these ideas with religion or other beliefs in his science writing.[2][3]

  1. ↑ Turney, C.S.M.; Brown, H. (2007). "Catastrophic early Holocene sea level rise, human migration and the Neolithic transition in Europe". Quaternary Science Reviews. 26 (17–18): 2036–2041. Bibcode:2007QSRv...26.2036T. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2007.07.003.
  2. ↑ Cite error: The named reference McG 3 was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
  3. ↑ Cite error: The named reference Rudwick 133 was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).

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