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52-523: Edward Hitchcock (May 24, 1793 – February 27, 1864) was an American geologist and the third President of Amherst College (1845–1854). Born to poor parents, he attended newly founded Deerfield Academy , where he was later principal, from 1815 to 1818. In 1821 he was ordained as a Congregationalist pastor and served as pastor of the Congregational Church in Conway, Massachusetts , 1821–1825. He left

104-438: A branching diagram of the plant and animal kingdom against a geological background. He referred to it as a tree. This " tree of life " is the earliest known version that incorporates paleontological and geological information. Hitchcock was an advocate of gap creationism . Hitchcock saw God as the agent of change. He explicitly rejected evolution and a religious six-day creation . He believed that new species were introduced by

156-561: A deity at the right time in the history of the earth. The chart is present in all editions between 1840 and 1859. After Charles Darwin (1859) published his On the Origin of Species , a tree of life image was generally interpreted as an evolutionary tree. In the 1860 edition of Elementary Geology Hitchcock dropped the chart. In 1863 Hitchcock wrote an article in which he criticized Darwin’s theory of natural selection . After his death in 1864, his son Charles Henry Hitchcock (1836–1919) published

208-424: A feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications. The meaning and importance of Darwin's use of the tree of life metaphor have been extensively discussed by scientists and scholars. Stephen Jay Gould , for one, has argued that Darwin placed

260-402: A few of the processes by which genes can be transferred within and between bacterial and archaeal species, causing variation that is not due to vertical transfer. There is emerging evidence of horizontal gene transfer within the prokaryotes at the single and multicell level, so the tree of life does not explain the full complexity of the situation in the prokaryotes. This is a major problem for

312-600: A large ocean whose level gradually dropped over time. The first geological map of the United States was produced in 1809 by William Maclure . In 1807, Maclure commenced the self-imposed task of making a geological survey of the United States. Almost every state in the Union was traversed and mapped by him; the Allegheny Mountains being crossed and recrossed some 50 times. The results of his unaided labors were submitted to

364-705: A living tree, lineages of species competed with and supplanted one another. Petter Hellström has argued that Darwin consciously named his tree after the biblical Tree of Life , as described in Genesis , thus relating his theory to the religious tradition. Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) constructed several trees of life. His first sketch, in the 1860s, shows " Pithecanthropus alalus " as the ancestor of Homo sapiens . His 1866 tree of life from Generelle Morphologie der Organismen shows three kingdoms: Plantae, Protista and Animalia. This has been described as "the earliest 'tree of life' model of biodiversity ". His 1879 "Pedigree of Man"

416-592: A new edition (1870) also without a paleontological chart. Charles then published books and articles of his own. Geologist James Hutton is often viewed as the first modern geologist. In 1785 he presented a paper entitled Theory of the Earth to the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In his paper, he explained his theory that the Earth must be much older than had previously been supposed to allow enough time for mountains to be eroded and for sediments to form new rocks at

468-412: A path leading to mammals (M). In the text this branching tree idea is tentatively applied to the history of life on earth: "there may be branching". In 1858, a year before Darwin's Origin , the paleontologist Heinrich Georg Bronn (1800–1862) published a hypothetical tree labelled with letters. Although not a creationist, Bronn did not propose a mechanism of change. Charles Darwin (1809–1882) used

520-450: A single online database, free to browse and download. Another database, TimeTree , helps biologists to evaluate phylogeny and divergence times. In 2016, a new tree of life (unrooted), summarising the evolution of all known life forms , was published, illustrating the latest genetic findings that the branches were mainly composed of bacteria. The new study incorporated over a thousand newly discovered bacteria and archaea. In 2022,

572-428: A specialized area within their geological discipline and are employed by universities. In Canada, National Instrument 43-101 requires reports containing estimates of mineral resources and reserves to be prepared by, or under the supervision of, a Qualified Person (QP) who has at least five years of experience with the reported minerals and is a member of a professional association. The QP accepts personal liability for

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624-410: Is common in the fields of geography , engineering , chemistry , urban planning , environmental studies , among others. Geologists, can be generally identified as a specialist in one or more of the various geoscience disciplines, such as a geophysicist or geochemist. Geologists may concentrate their studies or research in one or more of the following disciplines: Professional geologists may work in

676-414: Is extrapolated for a further four thousand generations so that the descendants of A and I become fourteen new species labelled a to z . While F has continued for fourteen thousand generations relatively unchanged, species B,C,D,E,G,H,K and L have gone extinct. In Darwin's own words: "Thus the small differences distinguishing varieties of the same species, will steadily tend to increase till they come to equal

728-456: Is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus or Lepidosiren , which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station . As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many

780-673: The American Philosophical Society in a memoir entitled Observations on the Geology of the United States explanatory of a Geological Map , and published in the Society's Transactions , together with the nation's first geological map. This antedates William Smith 's geological map of England by six years, although it was constructed using a different classification of rocks. Sir Charles Lyell first published his famous book, Principles of Geology , in 1830. This book, which influenced

832-493: The Amherst College Museum of Natural History . The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst holds his papers. In 1821, he married Orra White , one of the earliest women botanical and scientific illustrators in the U.S. The two worked closely together, and she contributed more than 1,000 illustrations to his many scientific publications. He inserted a paleontological chart in his Elementary Geology (1840). It shows

884-522: The evolution of life and describe the relationships between organisms , both living and extinct, as described in a famous passage in Charles Darwin 's On the Origin of Species (1859). The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. Tree diagrams originated in the medieval era to represent genealogical relationships . Phylogenetic tree diagrams in

936-462: The 6,000 years allowed by certain biblical interpretations, Hitchcock devised a way to read the original Hebrew so that a single letter in Genesis—a "v", meaning "afterwards"—implied the vast timespans during which the earth was formed. Randy Moore described Hitchcock as "America's leading advocate of catastrophism -based gap creationism." Hitchcock left his mark in paleontology . He discovered some of

988-582: The French schoolteacher and Catholic priest Augustin Augier . Yet, although Augier discussed his tree in distinctly genealogical terms, and although his design clearly mimicked the visual conventions of a contemporary family tree , his tree did not include any evolutionary or temporal aspect. Consistent with Augier's priestly vocation, the Botanical Tree showed rather the perfect order of nature as instituted by God at

1040-591: The animals. These are crowned (graphically) with the Palms and Man. The first edition of Robert Chambers ' Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation , published anonymously in 1844 in England, contained a tree-like diagram in the chapter "Hypothesis of the development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms". It shows a model of embryological development where fish (F), reptiles (R), and birds (B) represent branches from

1092-472: The bottom of the sea, which in turn were raised up to become dry land. Hutton published a two-volume version of his ideas in 1795 ( Vol. 1 , Vol. 2 ). Followers of Hutton were known as Plutonists because they believed that some rocks were formed by vulcanism , which is the deposition of lava from volcanoes, as opposed to the Neptunists , led by Abraham Werner , who believed that all rocks had settled out of

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1144-426: The college's scientific resources and establishing its reputation for scientific teaching. In addition to his positions at Amherst, Hitchcock was a well-known early geologist. He ran the first geological survey of Massachusetts , and in 1830 was appointed state geologist of Massachusetts (he held the post until 1844). He also played a role in the geological surveys of New York and Vermont . His chief project, however,

1196-646: The country. This 'wellbeing' is often in the form of greater tax revenues from new or extended mining projects or through better infrastructure and/or natural disaster planning. An engineering geologist is employed to investigate geologic hazards and geologic constraints for the planning, design and construction of public and private engineering projects, forensic and post-mortem studies, and environmental impact analysis . Exploration geologists use all aspects of geology and geophysics to locate and study natural resources. In many countries or U.S. states without specialized environmental remediation licensure programs,

1248-467: The current pace of change in our understanding of the eukaryote tree of life, we should proceed with caution." In 2015, the third version of TimeTree was released, with 2,274 studies and 50,632 species, represented in a spiral tree of life, free to download. In 2015, the first draft of the Open Tree of Life was published, in which information from nearly 500 previously published trees was combined into

1300-542: The earliest dinosaurs discovered in North America and the United States, Megadactylus polyzelus . Later it was reclassified as the type specimen of Anchisaurus polyzelus (ACM 41109), a prosauropod . This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation E.Hitchc. when citing a botanical name . As he had researched the geologic lake which once filled the Connecticut River basin, this prehistoric lake

1352-528: The environmental remediation field is often dominated by professional geologists, particularly hydrogeologists, with professional concentrations in this aspect of the field. Petroleum and mining companies use mudloggers , and large-scale land developers use the skills of geologists and engineering geologists to help them locate oil and minerals, adapt to local features such as karst topography or earthquake risk, and comply with environmental regulations. Geologists in academia usually hold an advanced degree in

1404-450: The evolutionary sense date back to the mid-nineteenth century. The term phylogeny for the evolutionary relationships of species through time was coined by Ernst Haeckel , who went further than Darwin in proposing phylogenic histories of life. In contemporary usage, tree of life refers to the compilation of comprehensive phylogenetic databases rooted at the last universal common ancestor of life on Earth . Two public databases for

1456-427: The famous passage quoted above "at a crucial spot in his text", where it marked the conclusion of his argument for natural selection, illustrating both the interconnectedness by descent of organisms as well as their success and failure in the history of life. David Penny has written that Darwin did not use the tree of life to describe the relationship between groups of organisms, but to suggest that, as with branches in

1508-446: The fifth version of TimeTree was released, incorporating 4,185 published studies and 148,876 species, representing the largest timetree of life from actual data (non-imputed). The prokaryotes (the two domains of bacteria and archaea ) and certain animals such as bdelloid rotifers freely pass genetic information between unrelated organisms by horizontal gene transfer . Recombination, gene loss, duplication, and gene creation are

1560-575: The first fossil fishes in the United States. He published papers on fossilized tracks in the Connecticut Valley , including Eubrontes and Otozoum , that were later associated with dinosaurs, though he believed, with a certain prescience, that they were made by gigantic ancient birds. In the Hitchcock Ichnological Cabinet he established a remarkable collection of fossil footmarks. His son, Edward "Doc" Hitchcock Jr. , named one of

1612-431: The first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these lost branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only from having been found in a fossil state. As we here and there see a thin straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favoured and

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1664-440: The former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear all the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few now have living and modified descendants. From

1716-443: The greater differences between species of the same genus, or even of distinct genera." Darwin's tree is not a tree of life, but rather a small portion created to show the principle of evolution. Because it shows relationships (phylogeny) and time (generations), it is a timetree. In contrast, Ernst Haeckel illustrated a phylogenetic tree (branching only) in 1866, not scaled to time, and of real species and higher taxa. In his summary to

1768-403: The growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have tried to overmaster other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was small, budding twigs; and this connexion of

1820-458: The idea was not widely accepted at the time. For an aspiring geologist, training typically includes significant coursework in physics , mathematics , and chemistry , in addition to classes offered through the geology department; historical and physical geology, igneous and metamorphic petrology and petrography, hydrogeology , sedimentology , stratigraphy , mineralogy , palaeontology , physical geography and structural geology are among

1872-487: The many required areas of study. Most geologists also need skills in GIS and other mapping techniques. Geology students often spend portions of the year, especially the summer though sometimes during a January term, living and working under field conditions with faculty members (often referred to as "field camp"). Many non-geologists often take geology courses or have expertise in geology that they find valuable to their fields; this

1924-518: The metaphor of a "tree of life" to conceptualise his theory of evolution. In On the Origin of Species (1859) he presented an abstract diagram of a portion of a larger timetree for species of an unnamed large genus (see figure). On the horizontal base line hypothetical species within this genus are labelled A – L and are spaced irregularly to indicate how distinct they are from each other, and are above broken lines at various angles suggesting that they have diverged from one or more common ancestors. On

1976-595: The mining industry or in the associated area of mineral exploration . They may also work in oil and gas industry. Some geologists also work for a wide range of government agencies, private firms, and non-profit and academic institutions. They are usually hired on a contract basis or hold permanent positions within private firms or official agencies (such as the Geological Survey and Mineral Exploration of Iran ). Local, state, and national governments hire geologists to work on geological projects that are of interest to

2028-478: The ministry to become Professor of Chemistry and Natural History at Amherst College. He held that post from 1825 to 1845, serving as Professor of Natural Theology and Geology from 1845 until his death in 1864. In 1845, Hitchcock became President of the College, a post he held until 1854. As president, Hitchcock was responsible for Amherst's recovery from severe financial difficulties. He is also credited with developing

2080-403: The moment of Creation. In 1809, Augier's more famous compatriot Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who was acquainted with Augier's "Botanical Tree", included a branching diagram of animal species in his Philosophie zoologique . Unlike Augier, however, Lamarck did not discuss his diagram in terms of a genealogy or a tree, but instead named it a tableau ("depiction"). Lamarck believed in

2132-558: The professional quality of the report and underlying work. The rules and guidelines codified in National Instrument 43-101 were introduced after a scandal in 1997 where Bre-X geologists salted drill core samples at a gold exploration property in Busang, Indonesia. The falsified drilling results misled Bre-X investors and upon discovery of the fraud, the company collapsed in the largest gold mining scam in history. In Europe exists

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2184-464: The professional title of EurGeol (European Geologist ) awarded by the European Federation of Geologists . Geologists may belong to a number of professional societies promoting research, networking, and professional development within the field. Tree of life (science) The tree of life or universal tree of life is a metaphor , conceptual model , and research tool used to explore

2236-427: The public community. The investigation of a country's natural resources is often a key role when working for government institutions; the work of the geologist in this field can be made publicly available to help the community make more informed decisions related to the exploitation of resources, management of the environment and the safety of critical infrastructure - all of which is expected to bring greater wellbeing to

2288-417: The section, Darwin put his concept in terms of the metaphor of the tree of life: The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all

2340-424: The terms Bacteria , Archaea and Eukarya for the three domains of life. It was the first tree founded on molecular phylogenetics and microbial evolution as its basis. The model of a tree is still considered valid for eukaryotic life forms. Trees have been proposed with either four or two supergroups. There does not yet appear to be a consensus; in a 2009 review article, Roger and Simpson conclude that "with

2392-449: The thought of Charles Darwin , successfully promoted the doctrine of uniformitarianism . This theory states that slow geological processes have occurred throughout the Earth's history and are still occurring today. In contrast, catastrophism is the theory that Earth's features formed in single, catastrophic events and remained unchanged thereafter. Though Hutton believed in uniformitarianism,

2444-454: The transmutation of life forms, but he did not believe in common descent; instead he believed that life developed in parallel lineages (repeated, spontaneous generation) advancing from more simple to more complex. In 1840, the American geologist Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864) published the first tree-like paleontology chart in his Elementary Geology , with two separate trees for the plants and

2496-466: The tree of life are TimeTree , for phylogeny and divergence times, and the Open Tree of Life , for phylogeny. Although tree-like diagrams have long been used to organise knowledge, and although branching diagrams known as claves ("keys") were omnipresent in eighteenth-century natural history , it appears that the earliest tree diagram of natural order was the 1801 "Arbre botanique" (Botanical Tree) of

2548-412: The vertical axis divisions labelled I – XIV each represent a thousand generations. From A, diverging lines show branching descent producing new varieties, some of which become extinct, so that after ten thousand generations descendants of A have become distinct new varieties or even sub-species a , f , and m . Similarly, the descendants of I have diversified to become the new varieties w and z . The process

2600-605: Was named after him. Since he had done geological research on the Holyoke Range , one of the mountains there, Mount Hitchcock , was named after him. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1834. From 1856 to 1861, Hitchcock was the State Geologist for Vermont. In 1841, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society . His collections, a bust and portrait can be viewed at

2652-453: Was natural theology, which attempted to unify and reconcile science and religion, focusing on geology. His major work in this area was The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences (1851). In this book, he sought out ways to re-interpret the Bible to agree with the latest geological theories. For example, knowing that the earth was at least hundreds of thousands of years old, vastly older than

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2704-458: Was published in his 1879 book The Evolution of Man . It traces all life forms to the Monera , and places Man (labelled " Menschen ") at the top of the tree. In 1990, Carl Woese , Otto Kandler and Mark Wheelis proposed a novel "tree of life" consisting of three lines of descent for which they introduced the term domain as the highest rank of classification. They suggested and formally defined

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