An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The doctrine that certain vast geological changes in the Earth’s history were caused by sudden, short-lived, violent events rather than gradual evolutionary processes.

Catastrophism explains the differences in → fossil forms encountered in successive → stratigraphic levels. This doctrine is associated with the French naturalist Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Catastrohism is contrasted to the → uniformitarianism.

See also: → catastrophe; → -ism.