The Continental Drift Controversy: Volume 1, Wegener and the Early Debate - Softcover

Frankel, Henry R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1316616045 ISBN 13: 9781316616048

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2017

Synopsis

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 first volume covers the period in the early 1900s when Wegener first pointed out that the Earth's major landmasses could be fitted together like a jigsaw and went on to propose that the continents had once been joined together in a single landmass, which he named Pangaea. It describes the reception of Wegener's theory as it splintered into sub-controversies and geoscientists became divided between the 'fixists' and 'mobilists'.
Other volumes in this set:

Volume 2: Paleomagnetism and Confirmation of Drift

Volume 3: Introduction of Seafloor Spreading

Volume 4: Evolution into Plate Tectonics

4 Volume Set

About this title

Book Description

This first volume of The Continental Drift Controversy covers the period in the early 1900s when Wegener first identified that the Earth's major landmasses could be fitted together like a jigsaw and went on to propose that the continents had once been joined together in a single landmass.

About the Author

Henry R. Frankel was awarded a Ph.D. 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 and the American Philosophical Society, Professor Frankel's research went on to yield new and fascinating insights into the evolution of the most important theory in the Earth sciences.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1316616045
• ISBN 13: 9781316616048
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 628