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 second volume provides the first extensive account of the growing paleomagnetic case for continental drift in the 1950s and the development of Apparent Polar Wander Paths that showed how the continents had changed their positions relative to one another – more or less as Wegener had proposed. Paleomagnetism offered the first physical measure that continental drift had occurred and helped determine the changing latitudes of the continents through geologic time.
• The most thorough account ever written of the most fundamental theory in the geosciences • Includes material from first-hand interviews with many of the leading scientists involved • Frankel's accessible writing style will appeal to Earth scientists of all disciplines, as well as historians and philosophers of science
Contents
Introduction; 1. Geomagnetism and paleomagnetism: 1946–1952; 2. British paleomagnetists begin shifting their research toward testing mobilism: summer 1951 to fall 1953; 3. Launching the global paleomagnetic test of continental drift: 1954–1956; 4. Runcorn shifts to mobilism: 1955–1956; 5. Enlargement and refinement of the paleomagnetic support for mobilism: 1956 through 1960; 6. Earth expansion enters the mobilist controversy; 7. Development and criticism of the paleomagnetic case for mobilism: late 1950s and early 1960s; 8. Major reaction against the paleomagnetic case for mobilism and early work on the radiometric reversal time scale: 1958–1962; References; Index.
Reviews
'A well constructed and gripping narrative, which preserves the complex scientific detail, but invites one into this fascinating world and helps the reader patiently to find a way through its labyrinth. Frankel is a wonderful guide and worthy of your trust.' Mott Greene, University of Puget Sound and University of Washington
'This volume … is a complete account and benefits from the fact that many of those who were principals in the drama are still alive … Fascinating and full of humor, but very serious. A better book on the subject will probably never be written.' Neil D. Opdyke, University of Florida
'Tracing an exhaustive and comprehensive history, Frankel illuminates how different were geological and geophysical perspectives on continental drift, providing fascinating insights on the erratic and complex fashion in which science advances.' Jim Briden, University of Oxford
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
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