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Geology Quotes

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Geology Quotes

“Kramer's recognition, with the geologists Lees and Falcon, that people could have settled in the fertile valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers much earlier than had previously been assumed has been entirely vindicated by subsequent discoveries of the traces of 'primitive agricultural villages' dating back more than 8000 years.”

GeologyArchaeologyDeep Human HistorySumeria
Book:Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization
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“Many of the other megalithic works at Machu Pic'chu show large gaps as in the two previous photos. The width of these gaps is very similar, and again suggest that a massive earthquake cataclysm, moving in a east-west direction, affected the site in the very distant past [...]. A geologist who inspected this with the author stated quite emphatically that such a drop would not have been the result of poor foundation work when the structure was made, but far more likely, again, the result of a catastrophic earthquake. She also stated that such an earthquake would have caused the rough stone and clay mortar buildings to be completely demolished. This, then, clearly indicates that the megalithic core of Machu Pic'chu, which comprises about 5-10 percent, is older than the Inca, and may in fact have been made prior to the cataclysmic event of about 12,000 years ago.”

CatastropheGeologyCataclysmMegalithic MonumentsMegalithic Structures
Book:Aftershock: The Ancient Cataclysm That Erased Human History
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“Scientists still do not appear to understand sufficiently that all earth sciences must contribute evidence toward unveiling the state of our planet in earlier times, and that the truth of the matter can only be reached by combing all this evidence. ... It is only by combing the information furnished by all the earth sciences that we can hope to determine 'truth' here, that is to say, to find the picture that sets out all the known facts in the best arrangement and that therefore has the highest degree of probability. Further, we have to be prepared always for the possibility that each new discovery, no matter what science furnishes it, may modify the conclusions we draw.”

TruthScienceUnderstandingInformationEvidenceDiscoveryGeologyPlanetScientistsHistory Of The EarthEarth SciencesHistory Of The Planet
Book:The Origin of Continents and Oceans
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“In using the present in order to reveal the past, we assume that the forces in the world are essentially the same through all time; for these forces are based on the very nature of matter, and could not have changed. The ocean has always had its waves, and those waves have always acted in the same manner. Running water on the land has ever had the same power of wear and transportation and mathematical value to its force. The laws of chemistry, heat, electricity, and mechanics have been the same through time. The plan of living structures has been fundamentally one, for the whole series belongs to one system, as much almost as the parts of an animal to the one body; and the relations of life to light and heat, and to the atmosphere, have ever been the same as now.”

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Book:Manual Of Geology
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“The ridge of the Lammer-muir hills... consists of primary micaceous schistus, and extends from St Abb's head westward... The sea-coast affords a transverse section of this alpine tract at its eastern extremity, and exhibits the change from the primary to the secondary strata... Dr HUTTON wished particularly to examine the latter of these, and on this occasion Sir JAMES HALL and I had the pleasure to accompany him. We sailed in a boat from Dunglass ... We made for a high rocky point or head-land, the SICCAR ... On landing at this point, we found that we actually trode [sic] on the primeval rock... It is here a micaceous schistus, in beds nearly vertical, highly indurated, and stretching from S.E. to N. W. The surface of this rock... has thin covering of red horizontal sandstone laid over it, ... Here, therefore, the immediate contact of the two rocks is not only visible, but is curiously dissected and laid open by the action of the waves... On us who saw these phenomena for the first time, the impression will not easily be forgotten. The palpable evidence presented to us, of one of the most extraordinary and important facts in the natural history of the earth, gave a reality and substance to those theoretical speculations, which, however probable had never till now been directly authenticated by the testimony of the senses... What clearer evidence could we have had of the different formation of these rocks, and of the long interval which separated their formation, had we actually seen them emerging from the bosom of the deep? ... The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much farther reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.”

ScienceTimeGeologyHallHuttonJames HuttonJames HallSir James Hall
Book:Biographical Account of James Hutton, M.D. F.R.S. Ed.
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“We’ve learned,” he says, “that over the history of our planet, Earth and life have co-evolved. Changes in the environment affect life, and changes in life can transform the environment. This is a lesson to ponder as we think about our future as well as our past.” —Andrew H. Knoll PhD— From—Cambrian Ocean World: Ancient Sea Life of North America (Life of the Past).****couldn’t find this title****”

ScienceEvolutionBiologyGeologyOceanography
Author:John Foster
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“We Are Turkiye (The Sonnet) Earthquake may shatter our houses, But it can never shatter our hearts. We shall rise from the rubble once again, We shall build back against nature's curse. But this time let us build back better, By putting our faith in science not politics. We could've averted such cataclysmic terror, Had we heeded the warnings of scientists. A scientist works to preserve life, Politician plays publicity with death. Given the choice between the two, Listen to the scientist without wait. Why do people have to die for us to open our eyes! If we still fail to heed reason, nothing will stop the funeral cries.”

SciencePolitical ScienceGeologyNatural DisasterEarthquakeDisaster PreparednessDisaster ResponseListen To ExpertHelp TurkeyTurkey Earthquake
Book:Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo
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“The scientific world of the time was in the midst of a terrible ferment, with discoveries and realizations coming at an unseemly rate. To many in the ranks of the conservative and the devout, the new theories of geology and biology were delivering a series of hammer blows to mankind's self-regard. Geologists in particular seemed to have gone berserk, to have thrown off all sense of proper obeisance to their Maker... Mankind, it seemed, was now suddenly rather – dare one say it? – insignificant. He may not have been, as he had eternally supposed, specially created.”

GodScienceGeographyGeologyVolcanoDutch East IndiesVolcanism
Book:Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
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“Sophisticated human beings were on hand to see this volcano's convulsions, they were able to investigate the event, and they were able to attempt to understand the processes that had caused such dreadful violence...their observations, painstaking and precise as science demanded, collided head-on with a most discomfiting reality: that while in 1883 the world was becoming ever more scientifically advanced, it was in part because of these same advances that its people found themselves in a strangely febrile and delicately balanced condition...”

IndonesiaGeologyTsunamiDutch East IndiesVolcanism
Book:Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
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“They leave the insistent monotony of the interstate for more reasonable roads. While the former slices its path through entire states, peppering them with exit signs and mile markers, these lesser cousins of the grand highways keep their manners intact, clinging gently to the hemlines of all but the most obstinate geological points of interest. Charming and sometimes a bit frightening, their paths are as unpredictable and winding as a little boy's route home from school.”

HighwaysGeologyRoad TripRoadsInterstateCountry Road
Book:On Angels and Rabbit Holes
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“The evidence claimed for an impact event includes a charred carbon-rich layer of soil that has been found at some 50 Clovis dated sites across the continent. The layer contains unusual materials (Nano diamonds, metallic micro spherules, carbon spherules, magnetic spherules, iridium, charcoal, soot, and fullerenes enriched in helium-3) interpreted as evidence of an impact event, at the very bottom of the black mat of organic material that marks the beginning of the Younger Dryas. The idea that Earth-based volcanism, or other natural processes, or human activity being responsible has been ruled out.”

EvidenceCatastropheGeologyCataclysmYounger DryasComet Impact
Book:Aftershock: The Ancient Cataclysm That Erased Human History
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“The spherules [that could only have formed from the combustion of rock] also were found at 17 other sites across four continents, an estimated 10 million metric tons' worth, further supporting the idea that whatever changed Earth did so on a massive scale. It's unlikely that a wildfire or thunderstorm would leave a geological calling card that immense, covering about 50 million square kilometers. 'We know something came close enough to Earth and it was hot enough that it melted rock, that's what these carbon spherules are. In order to create this type of evidence that we see around the world, it was big,' Tankersley says, contrasting the effects of an event so massive with the 1883 volcanic explosion on Krakatoa in Indonesia. 'When Krakatoa blew its stack, Cincinnati had no summer. Imagine winter all year round. That's just one little volcano blowing its top.”

EvidenceCatastropheGeologyCataclysmComet Impact
Book:Aftershock: The Ancient Cataclysm That Erased Human History
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“The Himalayas are the crowning achievement of the Indo-Australian plate. India in the Oligocene crashed head on into Tibet, hit so hard that it not only folded and buckled the plate boundaries but also plowed into the newly created Tibetan plateau and drove the Himalayas five and a half miles into the sky. The mountains are in some trouble. India has not stopped pushing them, and they are still going up. Their height and volume are already so great they are beginning to melt in their own self-generated radioactive heat. When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in snow over the skeletons of creatures that had lived in a warm clear ocean that India, moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as 20,000 feet below the sea floor, the skeletal remains had turned into rock. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the earth. If by some fiat, I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence; this is the one I would choose: the summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone.”

ScienceWonderGeology
Book:Annals of the Former World
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“When a planet is born from interstellar dust it has about twelve refractory minerals, those resistant to decomposition by heat, pressure, or chemical attack. By the time it is complete with asteroid accretion and finally volcanic activity, about 1,500 different minerals are present. The earth has at least 4,300 species of mineral. This high number is unique in the solar system, a function of biological processes such as photosynthesis that releases oxygen which chemically bonds with almost every element, creating new minerals.”

EarthPlanetsCosmosGeologyMineralsSolar SystemSigns Of Life
Book:Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Ever-Ending Earth
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“Look, I don't know what you are, but you're more than a geologist, if you are one at all. I've met lots of geologists on different projects like this, and they're all tiny sunburned men with fetishes for geodes. They wear floppy hats and carry baggies for soil samples around with them. ... And geologists don't make rocks disappear like you did the other night. They keep them and build little shrines to them.”

ScienceGeologyScientistsGeologistDruidsGeologists
Book:Tricked
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“At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the 'harmony of Genesis and Geology.' Like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies. Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature will outrank the 'sacred' falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ. Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind? When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.”

RealFactsUseTruthSchoolPastScienceNatureChurchWealthMoneyTeacherProgressMankindHonestPoetWasteLivingWeakHarmonyBlessedSacredBraveErrorsUniversityPhilosopherPursuitMistakesIgnorantReputationRecognitionGreatDeadCreedsThinkPatriotPeersMiraclesMiraculousLecturesApplauseFactSuperstitionGenesisCathedralsGeologyPhilanthropistPriestScientificDiscoveriesHypocritesChurchesFailedEnlightenVapidFalsehoodsElevateMinisterGeneralsCivilizeClergymanHoly WritPerfertStlers
Book:Some Mistakes of Moses
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“In the preface to his great History of Europe, H. A. L. Fisher wrote: "Men wiser than and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave ..." It seems to me that the same is true of the much older [geological stratigraphical] history of Europe.”

MenI CanWisdomSeemsScienceEuropeHarmonyWavePatternsFollowingRhythmPlotWiserEmergenciesConcealedGeologyPredeterminedGreat History
Author:D. V. Ager
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“Let us make an arbitrary decision (by a show of hands if necessary) to define the base of every stratigraphical unit in a selected section. This may be called the "Principle of the Golden Spike." Then stratigraphical nomenclature can be forgotten and we can get on with the real work of stratigraphy, which is correlation and interpretation.”

IfsMayRealShowsHandsScienceDecisionPrinciplesForgottenGoldenInterpretationUnitsSectionsArbitrarySelectedGeologyCorrelationReal WorkNomenclature
Author:D. V. Ager
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“Although I was four years at the University [of Wisconsin], I did not take the regular course of studies, but instead picked out what I thought would be most useful to me, particularly chemistry, which opened a new world, mathematics and physics, a little Greek and Latin, botany and and geology. I was far from satisfied with what I had learned, and should have stayed longer.”

WorldShouldYearsLittlesWould BeScienceCoursesStudyFourShould HaveMathematicsUniversityPhysicsSatisfiedGreekLatinChemistryNew WorldFour YearsGeologyWisconsinBotany
Book:Essential Muir
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“We hence acquire this sublime and interesting idea; that all the calcareous mountains in the world, and all the strata of clay, coal, marl, sand, and iron, which are incumbent on them, are MONUMENTS OF THE PAST FELICITY OF ORGANIZED NATURE!”

WorldIdeasPastScienceInterestingMountainOrganizedAcquireSandIronSublimeCoalClayMonumentGeologyFelicityIncumbentsInteresting Ideas
Book:Phytologia, or the philosophy of agriculture and gardening; with the theory of draining morasses and with an improved construction of the drill plough
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“The Bible is the Only Book That Can Make Us Wise unto Salvation. The Bible is not a book to be studied as we study geology and astronomy, merely to find out about the earth's formation and the structure of the universe; but it is a book revealing truth, designed to bring us into living union with God.”

BookEarthChristianUniverseStudyWiseSalvationStructureUnionsAstronomyRevealingFormationGeology
Book:In the Volume of the Book
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“The existing and long-standing use of the word 'evolution' in our state's textbooks has not adversely affected Georgians' belief in the omnipotence of God as creator of the universe, There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy. There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith.”

NeedsLongStatesFactsUseEarthChristianOrderFallUniverseBeliefStarsReligiousTeachSkyLandEvolutionStandingCreatorAstronomyBiologyFlatsAffectedProvenReligious FaithTextbooksChristian FaithGeologyOmnipotenceIncompatibilityGeorgians
Author:Jimmy Carter
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“Each of the major sciences has contributed an essential ingredient in our long retreat from an initial belief in our own cosmic importance. Astronomy defined our home as a small planet tucked away in one corner of an average galaxy among millions; biology took away our status as paragons created in the image of God; geology gave us the immensity of time and taught us how little of it our own species has occupied.”

LittlesLongHomeBeliefMillionsTaughtPlanetsEssentialsMajorsImportanceSpeciesAverageCornersAstronomyDefinedBiologyIngredientsCosmicRetreatGalaxyInitialsTaught UsGeologyGod ImageImmensity
Book:Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History
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“The sea erupted. Often the sea and land changed places. The immobility of contours of continents and seas, a dogma in geology, has no basis in fact. And immediately there is the problem of the climate. There were ancient climates that were very different from what they are today. If those corals grew where they were found, certainly the Earth was not travelling with the same elements of rotation and revolution which means not in the same orbit, not with the axis directed in the same position as it is today. If you don't believe it, try to conservate corals on the North Pole.”

IfsTryingBelieveMeanDifferentFactsProblemTodayEarthFoundSeaLandPositionChangedRevolutionGrewElementsBasesClimateDon't BelieveAncientDogmaContinentsGeologyOrbitAxesRotationNorth Pole
Author:Immanuel Velikovsky
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“We know from astronomy that the universe had a beginning, from physics that the future is both open and unpredictable, from geology and paleontology that the whole of life has been a process of change and transformation. From biology we know that our tissues are not impenetrable reservoirs of vital magic, but a stunning matrix of complex wonders, ultimately explicable in terms of biochemistry and molecular biology. With such knowledge we can see, perhaps for the first time, why a Creator would have allowed our species to be fashioned by the process of evolution.”

KnowsFirstsHas BeensWholeUniverseProcessTermWonderMagicEvolutionFirst TimeTransformationSpeciesComplexesCreatorPhysicsAstronomyBiologyUnpredictableTissuesGeologyStunningReservoirsBiochemistryPaleontologyMolecular BiologyProcess Of Change
Author:Kenneth R. Miller
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“I've always loved empty stadiums, none more than this one. It feels alive when it's packed and now it looks like it's resting, waiting for next week. This building has seen a lot of things. Billy Cannon's punt return, a crowd so loud it registered on the Richter Scale up the street at the geology department. It's as if all that history leaves Tiger Stadium tired and so it needs to recharge until it's time to wake and do it again.”

IfsNeedsFeelsLooksNextWaitingAliveWeekStreetsBuildingReturnEmptyTiredCrowdsScalesLoudDepartmentTigersStadiumsGeologyNext WeekCannonsLsuTiger Stadium
Author:Wright Thompson
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“There are a whole other range of sciences that must deal with the narrative reconstruction of the inordinately complex events of history that can occur but once in their detailed glory. And for those kinds of sciences, be it cosmology, or evolutionary biology, or geology, or palaeontology, the experimental methods, simplification, quantification, prediction and repetition of the experimental sciences don't always work. You have to go with the narrative, the descriptive methods of what? Of historians.”

KindWholeDealsEventsGloryMethodComplexesNarrativeRangeBiologyHistorianRepetitionPredictionsCosmologyGeologyReconstructionSimplificationEvolutionary BiologyExperimental Science
Author:Richard Lewontin
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“If usually the "present age" is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as thehistory of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”

IfsYearsMayLongStillsAgePleasureStudyCenturyCivilizationThousandLong TimeHundredUnityThousand YearsGeologyExtending
Book:The Philosophy of Josiah Royce
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“If there be one attribute of the Deity which astonishes me more than another, it is the attribute of patience. The Great Soul that sits on the throne of the universe is not, never was, and never will be, in a hurry. In the realm of nature, every thing has been wrought out in the august consciousness of infinite leisure; and I bless God for that geology which gives me a key to the patience in which the creative process was effected.”

IfsGivingHas BeensSoulUniverseProcessConsciousnessCreativeKeysGive MeInfiniteRealmsBlessAttributesLeisureCreative ProcessThronesDeitiesAugustGeologyGreat Souls
Author:J. G. Holland
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