The Continental Drift Controversy: Volume 4, Evolution into Plate Tectonics

Henry R. Frankel

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781107019942
• eBook ISBN:
  9781139369183
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geology & Earth Sciences

The 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 fourth volume explains the discoveries in the mid 1960s which led to the rapid acceptance of seafloor spreading theory and how the birth of plate tectonics followed soon after with the geometrification of geology. Although plate tectonics did not explain the cause or dynamic mechanism of drifting continents, it provided a convincing kinematic explanation that continues to inspire geodynamic research to the present day.

Table of contents

• Cover
• THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT CONTROVERSY
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1: Reception of competing views of seafloor evolution, 1961–1962
• 2 The origin of marine magnetic anomalies, 1958–1963
• 3 Disagreements over continental drift, ocean floor evolution, and mantle convection continue, 1963–1965
• 4 Further work on the Vine–Matthews hypothesis and development of the idea of transform faults, 1964–1965
• 5 Continuing disagreements over the Vine–Matthews hypothesis, transform faults, and seafloor evolution, 1965
• 6 Resolution of the continental drift controversy
• 7 The birth of plate tectonics
• References
• Index