Leonardo’s legacy – scientific illustrations.
The origin of modern stratigraphy can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci and his drawings.
Pioneer work by the Danish polymath Nicholaus Steno in northern Italy, during the 17th century, established the simple fact that older rocks are overlain by younger rocks if the sequence has not been inverted. His law of superposition of strata is fundamental to all stratigraphic studies. In addition, Steno established in experiments that sediments are deposited horizontally and rock units can be traced laterally, often for considerable distances; remarkably simple concepts to us now, but earth shattering at the time. But what has this got to do with da Vinci?
Leonardo de Vinci (1452-1519) is famous for many things, and his contributions to science are refreshingly modern when we look back at them. In his art, da Vinci essentially rediscovered geological perspective, some 200 years before Steno, during the Renaissance. In his drawing of the hills of Tuscany, da Vinci portrayed a clear sequence of laterally-continuous, horizontal strata displaying the concept of superposition. Through studying rocks and landscapes, helped him to not only to create a very realistic painting, but also helped in gaining a greater understanding for how the earth works, something da Vinci was passionate about.
More over, about a century after Steno, Giovanni Arduino recognised, again using superposition, three basically different rock suites in the Italian part of the Alpine belt. A crystalline basement of older rocks, deformed during the Late Paleozoic Variscan orogeny, was overlain unconformably by mainly Mesozoic limestones deformed later during the Alpine orogeny; these in turn were overlain unconformably by poorly consolidated clastic rocks, mainly conglomerates. These three units constituted his primary, secondary and tertiary systems; the last term has been retained and formalised for the period of geological time succeeding the Cretaceous.
Image Credit: "The Hills of Tuscany”, da Vinci's oldest known work (dated to 1473) is considered one of the first realistic landscape-views. Sourced from http://bit.ly/1FXD2e7 on 03/07/15.
More Info: Rosenberg, G.D. 2001. An artistic perspective on the continuity of space and the origin of modern geologic thought. Earth Sciences History 20, 127-55. http://bit.ly/1JGqoVX http://bit.ly/1FXD2e7 http://bit.ly/1KxiTU0
