Granite Wars: The Debates That Built a Science

About this episode

This episode explores the historical debates surrounding granite and its impact on geosciences with Dr. Mike Ackerson.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Mike Ackerson (Smithsonian) for the kick-off of a deep-dive series on granites and granitoids. This one goes into the weeds: the 250-year history of how arguing about granite shaped nearly every major idea in the geosciences. We trace the great controversies from the 1700s to today: 🌊 Neptunism vs. Plutonism — Did granite precipitate out of a global ocean, or crystallize from molten rock? How James Hutton's fingers of granite at Glen Tilt helped kill the ...

People in this episode

Hosts: Chris, Jesse

Guest: Dr. Mike Ackerson

Topics covered

• granite
• geosciences
• Neptunism
• Plutonism
• geological history
• scientific debate

Keywords

• granite
• geology
• Neptunism
• Plutonism
• James Hutton
• geoscience history
• scientific controversies

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Smithsonian

Books & works: Granite Wars

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