The Continental Drift Controversy: Volume 3, Introduction of Seafloor Spreading

This book describes the expansion of the land-based paleomagnetic case for drifting continents and recounts the golden age of marine geoscience.

Henry R. Frankel (Author)

9781316616123, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2016

494 pages, 24 b/w illus. 13 maps
24.5 x 17 x 2.5 cm, 0.85 kg

Praise for the 4-volume collection: '… an unparalleled study of remarkable depth, detail and quality of a key development in our ideas about how the Earth functions … because Frankel draws on his extensive oral historical work with the key players in the development of plate tectonics, this is a study which can never be repeated in terms of its proximity to the events narrated, so many of those key players now being deceased.' Progress in Physical Geography

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 third volume describes the expansion of the land-based paleomagnetic case for drifting continents and recounts the golden age of marine geology and geophysics. Fuelled by the Cold War, US and British workers led the way in making discoveries and forming new hypotheses, especially about the origin of oceanic ridges. When first proposed, seafloor spreading was just one of several competing hypotheses about the evolution of ocean basins.

Introduction
1. Extension and reception of paleomagnetic/paleoclimatic support for mobilism, 1960–6
2. Reception of the paleomagnetic case for mobilism by several notables, 1957–65
3. Seafloor spreading, the first version: Harry Hess develops seafloor spreading
4. Another version of seafloor spreading: Robert Dietz
5. The Pacific as seen from Scripps Institution of Oceanography: Menard's changing views about the origin and evolution of the ocean floor
6. Fixism and Earth expansion at Lamont Geological Observatory
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Earth sciences [RB], Earth sciences, geography, environment, planning [R]