Hutton's work became the basis of modern
geology, inspired Charles Darwin and prefigured plate tectonics,
volcanology, geobiology and the Gaia Hypothesis, a late - 20th - century view of the planet as a single self - regulating organism.
Dr Tom Knott, Professor Mike Branney and Dr Marc Reichow, from the University of Leicester's Department of
Geology's
Volcanology Group, conducted the research with a team of international collaborators from the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and Idaho State University, USA.