Read more
This book explains the rapid acceptance of seafloor spreading theory and the ensuing birth of plate tectonics with the geometrification of geology.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Reception of competing views of seafloor evolution, 1961-2; 2. Explaining the origin of marine magnetic anomalies, 1958-63; 3. Continuing disagreements over continental drift, the evolution of ocean floors, and mantle convection, 1963-4; 4. Further work on the Vine-Matthews hypothesis and development of the idea of transform faults, 1964-5; 5. Resolution of the continental drift controversy; 6. Plate tectonics introduced; References; Index.
About the author
Henry Frankel was awarded a PhD from Ohio State University in 1974 and then took a position at the University of Missouri, Kansas City where he became Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department (1999–2004). His interest in the continental drift controversy and the plate tectonics revolution began while teaching a course on conceptual issues in science during the late 1970s. The controversy provided him with an example of a recent and major scientific revolution to test philosophical accounts of scientific growth and change. Over the next thirty years, and with the support of the United States National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society and his home institution, Professor Frankel's research went on to yield new and fascinating insights into the evolution of the most important theory in the Earth sciences.
Summary
This fourth volume of The Continental Drift Controversy 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. Plate tectonics continues to inspire geodynamic research to the present day.
