Timeline of the development of tectonophysics (before 1954)

The evolution of the Earth Sciences is closely linked to the history of the Continental drift hypothesis. The Continental drift hypothesis had many flaws and scarce data. The fixist, the Contracting Earth and the Expanding Earth concepts had many flaws as well. Wegener had data for assuming that the relative positions of the continents change over time. It was a mistake to state the continents "plowed" through the sea. He was an outsider with a PhD in Astronomy attacking a established theory between geophysicists. The geophysicists were right to state that the Earth is solid, and the mantle is crystalline and inhomogeneous, and the ocean floor would not allow the movement of the continents. But excluding one alternative, substantiates the opposite alternative: passive continents and an active seafloor spreading and subducting, with accreation belts on the edges of the continents. The velocity of the drifters, was allowed in the uncertainty of the fixists and a convection at c. 1 cm/year allows for inhomogeneity.

The problem too, was the specialisation. A. Holmes and A. Rittmann saw it right (Rittmann 1939). Only an outsider can have the overview, only an outsider sees the forest, not only the trees (Hellman 1998b, p. 145). But A. Wegener did not have the specialisation to correctly weight the geophysical data and the paleontologic data, and its conclusions.

Introduction

• Abraham Ortelius (1597), Francis Bacon (Francis 1620), Antonio Snider-Pellegrini (Snider-Pellegrini 1858), and others had noted earlier that the shapes of continents on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean (most notably, Africa and South America) seem to fit together. (Brusatte 2004, p. 3)
• Catastrophism (e.g. Christian Fundamentalism, William Thomson) vs. Uniformitarianism (e.g. Charles Lyell, Thomas Henry Huxley) (Hellman 1998a).
  • Term coined by William Whewell.
  • Uniformitarism is the prevailing view in the U.S. (Oreskes 2002).
• Pratt's isostasy is the prevailing view (Oreskes 2002):
  • Airy-Heiskanen Model; where different topographic heights are accommodated by changes in crustal thickness.
  • Pratt-Hayford Model; where different topographic heights are accommodated by lateral changes in rock density.
  • Vening Meinesz, or Flexural Model; where the lithosphere acts as an elastic plate and its inherent rigidity distributes local topographic loads over a broad region by bending.
• A cooling and contracting Earth is the prevailing view.
  • H. Jeffreys was the most important contractionist (Frankel 1987, p. 211), (Jeffreys 1924) - (Jeffreys 1952)
• H. Wettstein (Wegener 1929, p. 2-3), E. Suess, Bailey Willis and Benjamin Franklin allow horizontal move of the Earth's crust.
  • Willis, Bailey; Willis, R. (1929). Geologic Structures. McGraw-Hill book company, inc. p. 131. the evidences of movement noted in rock structures are so numerous and on so large scale that it is clear that dynamic conditions exist from time to time.
  • Wettstein, H. (1880). Die Strömungen der Festen, Flüssigen und Gasförmigen und ihre Bedeutung für Geologie, Astronomie, Klimatologie und Meteorologie. Zuerich. p. 406.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Suess, E. (1875). Die Entstehung der Alpen. W. Braumüller. A mass movement, more or less horizontal and progressive, should be the cause underlying the formation of our mountain systems. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help) (Holmes 1929).
  • Benjamin Franklin (1782), "The History of Continental Drift - Before Wegener". The crust of the Earth must be a shell floating on a fluid interior.... Thus the surface of the globe would be capable of being broken and distorted by the violent movements of the fluids on which it rested.
• Although Wegener's theory was formed independently and was more complete than those of his predecessors, Wegener later credited a number of past authors with similar ideas: Franklin Coxworthy (between 1848 and 1890), Roberto Mantovani (between 1889 and 1909), William Henry Pickering (1907) and Frank Bursley Taylor (1908). (Wegener 1912, p. 185)
  • 1912-1929: Alfred Wegener develops his continental drift hypothesis. (Wegener 1912, Wegener 1929)
• The vertical movement of Skandinavia after the ice age is accepted (recent uplift c. 1 cm/year). This implies a certain plasticity under the crust. (Flint 1947)
• In the 1920's Earth scientists refer to themselves as drifters (or mobilists) or fixists. (Frankel 1987, p. 206)
• Moreover, most of the blistering attacks were aimed at Wegener himself, an outsider (PhD in Astronomy) who seemed to be attacking the very foundations of geology.