FATHER OF BRANCHES OF GEOLOGY

 The word Geology is formed by combination of two Greek words that are "Geo" meaning "Earth" and "Logos" meaning "Discourse".

Geology is the Science that deals with the Origin, Structure and history of development of the Earth including its Rocky Lithosphere, Liquid Hydrosphere, Gaseous Atmosphere, Living and Extinct Biosphere. Geology involves studying the material that makeup the Earth, the Features and Structures found on Earth as well as process that act on them.

Geology is the unique branch of Science that deals with Past and Present processes that act on Earth, their migrations and extinctions. It deals with the processes that are undergoing within the Earth. It involves the study about the Earthquakes, Tsunami, and Volcanoes that are the natural hazard on Earth processed by Tectonics. In this we study about fossils remains and dead organisms. 

1. Father of Geology: James Hutton (June 3, 1726 to March 26, 1797)

He was a Scottish geologist, chemist and given one of the fundamental principles of geology- uniformitarianism, which explains that the process which are operating on the earth surface today, also operated in the past. (Present is the key to past)

Hutton was the son of a merchant. Hutton's father died when he was quite young, Hutton managed  education in the local grammar school and at University of Edinburgh. 

His chief contribution to scientific knowledge, the uniformitarian principle, was put forward in his papers presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785. Two of these papers were published in 1788 in the Transactions of the royal Society of Edinburgh under the title "Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution and Restoration of Land Upon the Globe." These two papers marked a turning point for geology; from that time on, geology became a science founded upon the principle of uniformitarianism.

2. Father of Stratigraphy: Nicolaus Steno (1638 to 1686)

He was a geologist and anatomist whose early observations greatly advanced the development of geology.

In 1660 steno went to Amsterdam to study human anatomy, and while there he discovered the parotid salivary duct, also called Stensen's duct. In 1665 he went to Florence, where he was appointed physician to Grand Duke Ferdinand II.

Steno traveled extensively in Italy, and in 1669 he published his geological observations in De Solido Intra Solidum Naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus (The Prodromus of Nicolaus Steno's DissertationConcerning a Solid Body Enclosed by Process of Nature Within a Solid). In this work, a milestone in the literature of geology, he laid the foundations of the science of crystallography. He reported that, although quartz crystals differ greatly in physical appearance, they all have the same angles between corresponding faces. In addition he proposed the revolutionary idea that fossils are the remains of ancient living organisms and that many rocks are the result of sedimentation.

Steno was the first to realize that the Earth's crust contains a chronological history of geological events and that the history may be deciphered by careful study of the strata and fossils. He rejected the idea that mountain grow like trees, proposing instead that they are formed by alterations of the Earth's crust.

3. Father of Paleontology: Georges Cuvier (August 23, 1769 to May 13, 1832)

He was a French Zoologist who established the sciences of comparative anatomy and paleontology.

In 1784-88 Cuvier attended the Academic Caroline in Wurttemberg's capital, Stuttgart, where he studied comparative anatomy and learned to dissect. After graduation Cuvier served in 1788-95 as a tutor, during which time he wrote original studies of marine invertebrates, particularly the mollusks. His notes were sent to Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire,  a professor of zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, and at Geoffroy's urging Cuvier joined the staff of the museum. For a time the two scientists collaborated, and in 1795 they jointly published a study of mammalian classification, but their views eventually diverged.

Meanwhile, Cuvier also applied his views on the correlation of parts to a systematic study of fossils that he had excavated. He reconstructed complete skeletons of unknown fossil quadrupeds.

4. Father of  Sedimentalogy: Henry Clifton Sorby (May 10, 1826 to March 9, 1908)

English geologist whose microscopic studies of thin slices of rock earned him the title "father of microscopial petrography'

Sorby's early investigations were concerned with agricultural chemistry, but his interests soon turned to geology. He published works dealing with the physical geography of geologic periods, rock denudation and deposition, and the formation of river terraces.

Convinced of the value of the microscope as  tool in all sciences, Sorby began to prepare thin sections of rocks (about 0.025 mm, or 1/1000 inch thick) for microscopic study in 1849. His subsequent findings demonstrated the value of petrography, the descriptive branch of the study of rocks. 

In 1865 Sorby announced a new type of spectrum microscope for analyzing the light of organic pigments, especially minute bloodstains. His research on meteoric geology led to studies of iron and steel, and he concluded that steel is a crystallized igneous rock. His later studies included the origin of stratified rocks, weathering and marine biology.

5. Father of Mineralogy and Economic Geology: Georgius Agricola (March 24, 1494 to November 21, 1555)

German scholar and scientist known as "the father of mineralogy". While a highly educated classicist and humanist, well regarded by scholars o his own and later times, he was yet singularly independent of the theories of ancient authorities. He was indeed among the first to found a natural science upon observation, as opposed to speculation. His De re metallica dealt with the arts of mining and smelting, and his De natura fossilium, considered the first mineralogy textbook, presented the first scientific clssification of minerals and described many new minerals and their occurence and mutual relationships.

References:

1. https://www.britannica.com/

2. wikipedia

Note: The Post is edited and reprinted from the materials provided by above references.