The Continental Drift Controversy: Volume 1, Wegener and the Early Debate

Henry R. Frankel

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781139368445
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geology & Earth Sciences

Resolution of the sixty year debate over continental drift, culminating in the triumph of plate tectonics, changed the very fabric of Earth science. This four-volume treatise on the continental drift controversy is the first complete history of the origin, debate and gradual acceptance of this revolutionary theory. Based on extensive interviews, archival papers and original works, Frankel weaves together the lives and work of the scientists involved, producing an accessible narrative for scientists and non-scientists alike. This first volume covers the period in the early 1900s when Wegener first pointed out that the Earth's major landmasses could be fitted together like a jigsaw and went on to propose that the continents had once been joined together in a single landmass, which he named Pangaea. It describes the reception of Wegener's theory as it splintered into sub-controversies and geoscientists became divided between the 'fixists' and 'mobilists'.

Table of contents

• Cover
• THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT CONTROVERSY
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1: How the mobilism debate was structured
• 2: Wegener and Taylor develop their theories of continental drift
• 3: Sub-controversies in the drift debate: 1920s-1950s
• 4: The mechanism sub-controversy: 1921-1951
• 5: Arthur Holmes and his Theory of Substratum Convection: 1915-1955
• 6: Regionalism and the reception of mobilism: South Africa, India, and South America from the 1920s through the early 1950s
• 7: Regional reception of mobilism in North America: 1920s through the 1950s
• 8: Reception and development of mobilism in Europe: 1920s through the 1950s
• 9: Fixism's popularity in Australia: 1920s to middle 1960s
• References
• Index