Looks to me like you've actually answered your own question; maybe without knowing it??? See HERE.
What we have are opposing views:
Not everyone agrees on the processes at work upon our planet. The new theory of uniformitarianism currently prevails, but the ancient concept of catastrophism is still alive and kicking.
Uniformitarianism/Gradualism: A theory that says the natural processes that change the Earth in the present have operated in the past at the same gradual rate, and that geological formations and structures can be interpreted by observing present-day actions.
Catastrophism: A theory that says the geological features of the Earth were formed by a series of sudden, violent catastrophes rather than a gradual evolutionary process. Since the 1830s conventional geological theory has revolved around the concept of uniformitarianism (or gradualism) - that the processes of the Earth have always been the same as we can observe today. The originator of these ideas was Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726-1797), although it took the efforts of Charles Lyell (1797-1875) and his Principles of Geology (1830) to enable the theory to become widespread. This new gradualist viewpoint, involving time-spans of millions of years, gave rise to the modern ideas of continental drift, the ice ages and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.