answers: James Hutton
context: on uniformitarian principles about the geological processes he saw, and challenging some of Lyell's ideas. He speculated about the Earth expanding to explain uplift, then on the basis of the idea that ocean areas sank as land was uplifted, theorised that coral atolls grew from fringing coral reefs round sinking volcanic islands. This idea was confirmed when the "Beagle" surveyed the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and in 1842 he published his theory on "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs". Darwin's discovery of giant fossils helped to establish his reputation as a geologist, and his theorising about the causes of their </s> age of the Earth and allowed for further correlations to be drawn from similarities found in the makeup of the Earth's crust in various countries. In early nineteenth-century Britain, catastrophism was adapted with the aim of reconciling geological science with religious traditions of the biblical Great Flood. In the early 1820s English geologists including William Buckland and Adam Sedgwick interpreted "diluvial" deposits as the outcome of Noah's flood, but by the end of the decade they revised their opinions in favour of local inundations. Charles Lyell challenged catastrophism with the publication in 1830 of the first volume of his book </s> James Hutton James Hutton (; 3 June 1726 – 26 March 1797) was a Scottish geologist, physician, chemical manufacturer, naturalist, and experimental agriculturalist. He originated the theory of uniformitarianism—a fundamental principle of geology—that explains the features of the Earth's crust by means of natural processes over geologic time. Hutton's work established geology as a science, and as a result he is referred to as the "Father of Modern Geology". Through observation and carefully reasoned geological arguments, Hutton came to believe that the Earth was perpetually being formed; he recognised that the history of Earth could be determined by understanding how
question: who is considered the father of modern geology