<Li> Sequences of strata often become eroded, distorted, tilted, or even inverted after deposition </Li> <Li> Strata laid down at the same time in different areas could have entirely different appearances </Li> <Li> The strata of any given area represented only part of Earth's long history </Li> <P> The Neptunist theories popular at this time (expounded by Abraham Werner (1749--1817) in the late 18th century) proposed that all rocks had precipitated out of a single enormous flood . A major shift in thinking came when James Hutton presented his Theory of the Earth; or, an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land Upon the Globe before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March and April 1785 . It has been said that "as things appear from the perspective of the 20th century, James Hutton in those readings became the founder of modern geology". Hutton proposed that the interior of Earth was hot, and that this heat was the engine which drove the creation of new rock: land was eroded by air and water and deposited as layers in the sea; heat then consolidated the sediment into stone, and uplifted it into new lands . This theory, known as "Plutonism", stood in contrast to the "Neptunist" flood - oriented theory . </P>

What are the time divisions of the geologic time scale