A geological theory stating that major changes to the Earth's surface were caused by sudden, violent, large-scale events rather than gradual processes.
From 'catastrophe' + '-ism,' a suffix indicating a theory or system of beliefs. This term emerged in the 18th century during debates about how to explain geological features.
In the 1800s, catastrophism battled against uniformitarianism—one camp said Earth changed through sudden disasters, the other said slow, steady processes shaped it, and it turned out both are actually true, just at different scales.
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