Edinburgh
We’re beginning our journey to discover the roots of 21st-Century science in Edinburgh because it was here that our modern scientific understanding of the Earth took hold over 200 years ago.
One of the key components of modern science is our understanding of the Earth as a planet and the processes that shape that planet and the life it carries. The first scientific evidence for the immense age of the Earth was provided by a Scottish farmer and geologist names James Hutton, who lived in Edinburgh in the late 18th Century. Perhaps the most important of Hutton’s discoveries was made about 50 miles east of Edinburgh at Siccar Point. But before heading to the spot at Siccar Point at which James Hutton peered into “the deep abyss of time,” we’ll spend a day exploring the remarkable geology of the city of Edinburgh, rightly known as the birthplace of Geoscience.
Copyright Wittenberg University 2007