Although Earth is billions of years old, geology—literally meaning the study of Earth—is a relatively new science, having grown from seeds of natural science and natural history planted during the Enlightenment era of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1807, the founding of the Geological Society of London, the first learned society devoted to geology, marked an important turning point for the science (some say its nascence). In the beginning, geologic studies were mainly confined to the study of minerals (mineralogy), strata (stratigraphy), and fossils (paleontology), and hotly debated issues of the day included how well new geologic findings fit.
