Utility of cartographic history to historical studies of the earth sciences

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
David I. Spanagel
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Continental Drift ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Seafloor Mapping ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Analytical Approaches

Attention to the histories of geography and of cartography can enable the historian of earth sciences to frame fruitful historical research questions. This paper briefly analyzes various nineteenth-century representations of geological and geographical information on maps of North American interior regions, as well as several examples drawn from the twentieth century geological debate surrounding continental drift/plate tectonics ideas (during the pre- and post-seafloor mapping eras). The purpose of reviewing these examples is to demonstrate how one might utilize analytical approaches and concepts developed by historians of cartography to interpret and trace the broader consequences of maps in the history of the earth sciences.

Continental Drift—The Road to Plate Tectonics

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. W. Rogers ◽  
M. Santosh
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Continental Drift ◽  
Early History ◽  
World War ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

Alfred Wegener never set out to be a geologist. With an education in meteorology and astronomy, his career seemed clear when he was appointed Lecturer in those subjects at the University of Marburg, Germany. It wasn’t until 1912, when Wegener was 32, that he published a paper titled “Die Entstehung der Kontinente” (The origin of the continents) in a recently founded journal called Geologische Rundschau. This meteorologist had just fired the opening shot in a revolution that would change the way that geologists thought about the earth. In a series of publications and talks both before and after World War I, Wegener pressed the idea that continents moved around the earth independently of each other and that the present continents resulted from the splitting of a large landmass (we now call it a “supercontinent”) that previously contained all of the world’s continents. After splitting, they moved to their current positions, closing oceans in front of them and opening new oceans behind them. Wegener and his supporters referred to this process as “continental drift.” The proposal that continents moved around the earth led to a series of investigations and ideas that occupied much of the 20th century. They are now grouped as a set of concepts known as “plate tectonics.” We begin this chapter with an investigation of the history of this development, starting with ideas that preceded Wegener’s proposal. This is followed by a section that describes the reactions of different geologists to the idea of continental drift, including some comments that demonstrate the rancorous nature of the debate. The next section discusses developments between Wegener’s proposal and 1960, when Harry Hess suggested that the history of modern ocean basins is consistent with the concept of drifting continents. We finish the chapter with a brief description of seafloor spreading and leave a survey of plate tectonics to chapter 2. Although Wegener is credited with first proposing continental drift, some tenuous suggestions had already been made. We summarize some of this early history from LeGrand (1988).

scholarly journals A historical account of how continental drift and plate tectonics provided the framework for our current understanding of palaeogeography

2018 ◽  
Vol 156 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. MEINHOLD ◽  
A. M. CELÂL ŞENGÖR
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Continental Drift ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Mountain Belts ◽  
State Of Research ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
Shallow Seas

AbstractPalaeogeography is the cartographic representation of the past distribution of geographic features such as deep oceans, shallow seas, lowlands, rivers, lakes and mountain belts on palinspastically restored plate tectonic base maps. It is closely connected with plate tectonics which grew from an earlier theory of continental drift and is largely responsible for creating and structuring the Earth's lithosphere. Today, palaeogeography is an integral part of the Earth sciences curriculum. Commonly, with some exceptions, only the most recent state of research is presented; the historical aspects of how we actually came to the insights which we take for granted are rarely discussed, if at all. It is remarkable how much was already known about the changing face of the Earth more than three centuries before the theory of plate tectonics, despite the fact that most of our present analytical tools or our models were unavailable then. Here, we aim to present a general conspectus from the dawn of ‘palaeogeography’ in the 16th century onwards. Special emphasis is given to innovative ideas and scientific milestones, supplemented by memorable anecdotes, which helped to advance the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics, and finally led to the establishment of palaeogeography as a recognized discipline of the Earth sciences.

Two Visions of the Earth

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Oreskes
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Continental Drift ◽  
Geological Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Face ◽  
Bohr Atom ◽  
Similar Theory

Plate tectonics is the unifying theory of modern geology. This theory, which holds that the major features of the earth’s surface are created by horizontal motions of the continents, has been hailed as the geological equivalent of the “theory of the Bohr atom in its simplicity, its elegance, and its ability to explain a wide range of observation,” in the words of A. Cox. Developed in the mid-1960s, plate tectonics rapidly took hold, so that by 1971, Gass, Smith, and Wilson could say in their introductory textbook in geology: . . . During the last decade, there has been a revolution in earth sciences . . . which has led to the wide acceptance that continents drift about the face of the earth and that the sea-floor spreads, continually being created and destroyed. Finally in the last two to three years, it has culminated in an all-embracing theory known as “plate tectonics.” The success of plate tectonics theory is not only that it explains the geophysical evidence, but that it also presents a framework within which geological data, painstakingly accumulated by land-bound geologists over the past two centuries, can be fitted. Furthermore, it has taken the earth sciences to the stage where they can not only explain what has happened in the past, and is happening at the present time, but can also predict what will happen in the future. . . . Today moving continents are a scientific fact. But some forty years before the advent of the theory of plate tectonics, a very similar theory, initially known as the “displacement hypothesis,” was proposed and rejected by the geological fraternity. In 1912, a German meteorologist and geophysicist, Alfred Wegener, proposed that the continents of the earth were mobile; in the decade that followed he developed this idea into a full-fledged theory of tectonics that was widely discussed and debated and came to be known as the theory of continental drift. To a modern geologist, raised in the school of plate tectonics, Wegener’s book, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, appears an impressive and prescient document that contains many of the essential features of plate tectonic theory.

John Tuzo Wilson: a Canadian who revolutionized Earth Sciences

2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. v-viii ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Polat
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Continental Drift ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Wilson Cycle ◽  
Geologic Record

John Tuzo Wilson (1908–1993) was one of the greatest Canadian scientists of the 20th century. His contributions to Earth Sciences, leading the formulation of the theory of plate tectonics, have revolutionized our understanding of how the planet Earth works and evolved over the past 4 billion years. This 50th anniversary special issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences is dedicated in honour of John Tuzo Wilson, who inspired tens of thousands of students all around the world to study the Earth. This special issue contains 12 papers dealing with various aspects of the “Wilson Cycle” in the geologic record, plate tectonics, mantle plumes, and how John Tuzo Wilson accepted “continental drift” and formulated the theory of plate tectonics. The contributions have mostly been made by geoscientists who directly or indirectly associated with John Tuzo Wilson and have contributed significantly to the plate tectonics paradigm.

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