As the scientific discipline of geology began to take shape during the late eighteenth century, different schools of thought contributed to the debate over the Earth's creation and development. Among the more popular theories in the debate was one based on a slow formation and erosion of the Earth's landscape and another espousing a more rapid, but still natural origin for the rock and fossil record. A third, subscribed to a history consisting of a series of catastrophes, thought by some to be of supernatural (divine) origin.

Philosophers and naturalist historians who subscribed to the gradual evolution of the Earth's landscape became known as Plutonists , or Vulcanists. They believed that the Earth consisted of rock types of several different origins including those such as granite produced by internal heat and cooling, as well as accumulations of materials from erosion at the Earth's surface, such as sandstones.

The main...