Earth cycles: A historical perspective

Abstract

Introduction: thinking in cycles -- Ideas of geocycles from the ancient world to the renaissance -- Straightforward thinking about the earth -- Robert Hooke and the first testable-in-principle theory of geological cycles -- The founder of geology? James Hutton and the geostrophic cycle, and a French cyclist -- Charles Lyell: an earth always changing but ever the same -- Cycling in the landscape -- Mountains, basins, and sediments -- The earth, the solar system, cycles, and glaciation -- Cycles in the strata: cyclothems -- Sequence stratigraphy and eustasy -- The geomagnetic timescale and related matters -- Geochemical cycling -- Themes and variations.