Scientists

James Hutton

Also Known As The Father of Modern Geology

Geologist

Citation Formats

General Reference

Earth and Environment Atlas. "James Hutton." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-earth.interactiveatlas.org/scientists/james-hutton.

APA Style

Earth and Environment Atlas. (n.d.). James Hutton. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-earth.interactiveatlas.org/scientists/james-hutton

BibTeX

@misc{earthandenvironmentatlas-james-hutton,
  author = {Earth and Environment Atlas},
  title = {James Hutton},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-earth.interactiveatlas.org/scientists/james-hutton},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

An eighteenth century Scottish naturalist widely called the father of modern geology for founding uniformitarianism, the principle that the same slow processes visible today built the Earth over an immensity of time far beyond what his contemporaries assumed.

Facts

Birth Date

1726-06-03 1

Birth Year

1726 1

Death Date

1797-03-26 1

Death Year

1797 1

Birthplace

Edinburgh, Scotland 1

Nationality

Scottish 1

Defining Contribution

Established uniformitarianism and the concept of deep time in his 1785 Theory of the Earth, arguing that geological features could not be static but underwent continuing transformation over indefinitely long periods, and that Earth's history could be read from present day rock formations. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections