Historians of science often cite plutonism — the old geological theory that the rocks forming the Earth were formed in fire by volcanic activity, with a continuing gradual process of weathering and erosion, then deposited on the sea bed, re-formed into layers of sedimentary rock by heat and pressure, and raised again — as a turning point in nineteenth-century geology.
Historians of science often cite plutonism — the old geological theory that the rocks forming the Earth were formed in fire by volcanic activity, with a continuing gradual process of weathering and erosion, then deposited on the sea bed, re-formed into layers of sedimentary rock by heat and pressure, and raised again — as a turning point in nineteenth-century geology.
科学史の研究者は、地球を構成する岩石が火山活動による熱で形成され、その後風化や浸食という継続的で緩やかな過程を経て海底に堆積し、熱と圧力で層状の堆積岩へと再形成され、再び隆起したとする古い地質学説（火成説）を19世紀地質学の転機としてしばしば挙げる。
