Concepts of natural law and time in the history of geology

Our contemporary conceptions of time in terms of geology have developed since the Renaissance. In addition to an adequate notion of the age of the earth, these ideas include different concepts of the nature of geological processes in history. Until the 19th century the different concepts of geological time were determined by views on cyclic processes and processes which have a direction, as well as sequences of events, with or without relations between their various phases. These different aspects of geological thought have finally been incorporated into evolutionary conceptions of geohistory.