Katastrophentheorie georges cuvier biography

For the idea that Earth-like planets have been affected in the past by short-lived, violent galaxy-wide events, see Neocatastrophism.

Geological theory of abrupt, severe change

In geology, catastrophism is the theory that the Earth has largely been shaped by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope.^[1] This contrasts with uniformitarianism (sometimes called gradualism), according to which slow incremental changes, such as erosion, brought about all the Earth's geological features.

The proponents of uniformitarianism held that the present was "the key to the past", and that all geological processes (such as erosion) throughout the past resembled those that can be observed today. Since the 19th-century disputes between catastrophists and uniformitarians, a more inclusive and integrated view of geologic events has developed, in which the scientific consensus accepts that some catastrophic events occurred in the geologic past, but