PLATE TECTONICS

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PLATE TECTONICS http//gly.fsu.edu/parker/Academ
y/ Instructor Bill Parker

• Department of Geological Sciences
• Office 207 Carraway Bldg
• Phone [phone]
• email wparker_at_mailer.fsu.edu

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Plate Tectonics A Scientific Revolution
Vive la Revolucion!
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• A Fight Between
• Disciplines
• Generations
• Geographic Locales
• Philosophies
• Personalities

• What was at stake
• How direct research
• How teach classes
• How apply for grants

• Driven By
• Data
• Technology
• Philosophy
• Travel
• Personalities

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Old School
Mobile Belts Geosyncline Theory
Eugeosynclines Miogeosynclines
Zugogeosynclines
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ISOSTASY Dynamic buoyant balance of lithosphere
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OROGENIES Mountain building events
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The Trouble With Maps
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Continental Jig-saw Puzzle
Leonardo da Vinci and Francis Bacon wondered
about the possibility of the American and African
continents having broken apart, based on their
shapes.
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Eduard Suess 1831-1914 U. Vienna
geologist Gondwanaland
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Alfred Wegener 1880-1930 German meteorologist,
climatologist Proposed Continental Drift and
Pangaea
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Continental Fit
Ancient Glaciers
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Mesosaurus small, lake-dwelling reptile 240 Mya
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Glossopteris extinct tree with tongue-shaped
leaves 250-300 Mya
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Although the hypothesis of moving continents
seems fantastic to many students of the Earth, it
has stimulated numerous investigations that are
resulting in substantial increase of geologic
information. Even if the hypothesis eventually
should be disproved, its influence has been
beneficial Longwell, et al., 1948
Convergent lines of evidence derived from the
methods of geophysics, geochemistry, geology, and
biology have made a virtual certainty of
horizontal lithospheric motions on a scale and at
a rate that would have seemed to border on
fantasy if they had been suggested little more
than a decade earlier. Strahler, 1971
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Mechanism?
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Many found it humorous
Continental Drip Hypothesis (AKA Sherwin Williams
Model)
Pangooy
and the concept almost died with Wegener in 1930.
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Arthur Holmes 1890-1965 Edinburgh
geologist, proposed mantle convection as
mechanism for Continental Drift in 1940s
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Harry H. Hess Princeton Professor of
oceanography, WWII ships captain used early
sonar to image deep ocean floor. Combined new
knowledge of deep ocean with Holmes convection
idea Seafloor Spreading Geopoetry
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• Where did these new ideas come from, and why were
  they accepted?
• New Data
• New Technology
• New Philosophy (paradigm)
• Travel

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The value of the absurd hypothesis
Yves Rossy