Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History of the Modern Theory of the Earth

摘要

Two scientific revolutions of the twentieth century changed forever our understanding of Earth. The first revolution was radiometric dating, which established the immensity of geologic time and opened the way to quantification of geologic processes. The second revolution was plate tectonics, the subject of this book, which has provided a simplifying paradigm by which Earth's major surface features can be understood in a mechanistic sense, thereby opening the way to the quantification and testing of hypotheses. The plate tectonic revolution did not arrive overnight, nor did it flow from a single discover)' or a single insight. It came about as the result of many people working on many things, from paleomagnetism and heat flow in the oceanic crust, to magnetic signatures of the sea floor, gravity anomalies, and seismology of events along the mid-ocean ridge. The grand pattern emerged slowly. Of course there were leaders; some, like Harry Hess, Tuzo Wilson, and Sir Edward Bullard, are deceased, but others, like Fred Vine, Tanya Atwater, Xavier le Pichon, Dan McKenzie, and Bill Dickinson are alive, active, and able to recount the histories of their roles as the grand paradigm emerged.