Henry R. Frankel

Continental Drift Controversy: Volume 4, Evolution into Plate Tectonics (eBook, PDF)

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

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.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, B, BG, CY, CZ, D, DK, EW, E, FIN, F, GR, HR, H, IRL, I, LT, L, LR, M, NL, PL, P, R, S, SLO, SK ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 26. April 2012
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781139369183
• Artikelnr.: 38447612

Autorenporträt

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.

Inhaltsangabe

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.