Catastrophism is the view that Earth has been shaped by a series of random, violent, global-scale events such as meteorite impacts, fast-paced climate change, collisions with other celestial bodies, and large-scale volcanic activity.
Examples of catasrophism are the hypothesis that the moon was formed after the Earth collided with another planet of the size of mars, and the hypothesis that dinosaurs went extinct after the impact of an asteroid in the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula.
