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The behaviour of the Earth: Continental and seafloor mobility
C'retaceous Research (1989)10,275-276
Book Review The Behaviour of the Earth: Continental and Seafloor Mobility by C. Allegre, translated by D. Massachusetts/London; E27.95. -
K. van
Dam.
Harvard,
1988.
pp. xiif272.
Cambridge,
The history of the development of continental drift theory, culminating in the downhill flight of the plate tectonics bandwagon, is fast becoming a literary genre all of its own. Professor Allegre’s contribution was first published in French, as L’Ecume de la Terre, and is now available to an anglophone readership in this thoroughly competent translation. Allegre’s purpose is twofold; he expounds his own perception of the present state of understanding of lithosphere and mantle mobility, and he does so through an account of the diverse contributions of the physicists and geophysicists, chemists and geochemists, miscellaneous geologists, and of course a meteorologist, who have variously advanced (or in some cases impeded) the progress of whole-Earth Science. Photographs of a few of these individuals are thus interspersed with the maps, diagrams and graphs that illustrate aspects of the science. A small number of colour plates includes the indispensable Heezen and Tharp map of the world ocean floor. His intention to keep the discourse uncomplicated is, I think, admirably achieved. This is an easy and enjoyable book to read and one that I found full of nice insights. The matter of the blinkered reception of Wegener’s hypothesis, despite its foundation in an abundance of sound observational data, is of course familiar territory, and Allegre is not the first to castigate geophysical intransigence nor geological parochialism (naming names without compunction). But he surely breaks new ground in committing to print the legendary influence on subsequent attributions of scientific priority of the timing of Morgan’s presentation at the 1967 A.G.U. annual meeting (adjacent to the lunchbreak), and the refereeing delay on publication of NIorley’s Nature paper of 1964 (submitted at the beginning of 1963) -- the Hess/Dietz case of 1961 is better known, so perhaps a quarter century delay is regarded as proper before such matters should appear in print! There is also the observation that the offices of Pitman and Opdyke in Lamont were adjacent, giving Pitman the chance to contribute to the interpretation of the magnetic reversals data pinned to Opdyke’s wall. Allegre is right to record such matters, and he uses them in an unsensational manner to unfold the human background to the way in which the pieces of the total theory came to be assembled. Plate tectonics proper dates from Morgan’s wonderful reduction of the complexities of continental motions to the elegant simplicity of Euler rotations. (Incidentally, from my own recent experience I think that Allegre is over-dismissive of the continuing predictive power of this method.) But of course there were many further aspects of Earth Science waiting to receive the illuminating glow of tectonics-on-a-sphere, and chapters on marine stratigraphy, plate boundaries, island arcs and marginal seas, and mountain-building all follow in their turn. To bring us right up to date, 01’25-h671/89~i~30275+02
$03.0010
(‘ 1989 Academic
Press Limited
Allegre gives us the benefit of his own particular expertise in isotope geology in the last two chapters on the continental crust and plate dynamics (the last of which necessarily largely concerns the mantle). For the general reader, who will I think get a good deal out of this book, there is a Glossary of some 50 terms, from Acidic Rock to Unconformity. For the reader of this journal, I can thoroughly recommend this volume, which succeeds admirably in its twin goals. It is a gentle but persuasive account of present knowledge of the behaviour of the Earth, and an informative and perceptive account of the development of the unifying concept of plate tectonics that has so dramatically saved Earth Science from itself.
D. G. Smith BP Research Centre Sunbury-on- Thames Middlesex TW16 7LN U.K.
Book Review The Behaviour of the Earth: Continental and Seafloor Mobility by C. Allegre, translated by D. Massachusetts/London; E27.95. -
K. van
Dam.
Harvard,
1988.
pp. xiif272.
Cambridge,
The history of the development of continental drift theory, culminating in the downhill flight of the plate tectonics bandwagon, is fast becoming a literary genre all of its own. Professor Allegre’s contribution was first published in French, as L’Ecume de la Terre, and is now available to an anglophone readership in this thoroughly competent translation. Allegre’s purpose is twofold; he expounds his own perception of the present state of understanding of lithosphere and mantle mobility, and he does so through an account of the diverse contributions of the physicists and geophysicists, chemists and geochemists, miscellaneous geologists, and of course a meteorologist, who have variously advanced (or in some cases impeded) the progress of whole-Earth Science. Photographs of a few of these individuals are thus interspersed with the maps, diagrams and graphs that illustrate aspects of the science. A small number of colour plates includes the indispensable Heezen and Tharp map of the world ocean floor. His intention to keep the discourse uncomplicated is, I think, admirably achieved. This is an easy and enjoyable book to read and one that I found full of nice insights. The matter of the blinkered reception of Wegener’s hypothesis, despite its foundation in an abundance of sound observational data, is of course familiar territory, and Allegre is not the first to castigate geophysical intransigence nor geological parochialism (naming names without compunction). But he surely breaks new ground in committing to print the legendary influence on subsequent attributions of scientific priority of the timing of Morgan’s presentation at the 1967 A.G.U. annual meeting (adjacent to the lunchbreak), and the refereeing delay on publication of NIorley’s Nature paper of 1964 (submitted at the beginning of 1963) -- the Hess/Dietz case of 1961 is better known, so perhaps a quarter century delay is regarded as proper before such matters should appear in print! There is also the observation that the offices of Pitman and Opdyke in Lamont were adjacent, giving Pitman the chance to contribute to the interpretation of the magnetic reversals data pinned to Opdyke’s wall. Allegre is right to record such matters, and he uses them in an unsensational manner to unfold the human background to the way in which the pieces of the total theory came to be assembled. Plate tectonics proper dates from Morgan’s wonderful reduction of the complexities of continental motions to the elegant simplicity of Euler rotations. (Incidentally, from my own recent experience I think that Allegre is over-dismissive of the continuing predictive power of this method.) But of course there were many further aspects of Earth Science waiting to receive the illuminating glow of tectonics-on-a-sphere, and chapters on marine stratigraphy, plate boundaries, island arcs and marginal seas, and mountain-building all follow in their turn. To bring us right up to date, 01’25-h671/89~i~30275+02
$03.0010
(‘ 1989 Academic
Press Limited
Allegre gives us the benefit of his own particular expertise in isotope geology in the last two chapters on the continental crust and plate dynamics (the last of which necessarily largely concerns the mantle). For the general reader, who will I think get a good deal out of this book, there is a Glossary of some 50 terms, from Acidic Rock to Unconformity. For the reader of this journal, I can thoroughly recommend this volume, which succeeds admirably in its twin goals. It is a gentle but persuasive account of present knowledge of the behaviour of the Earth, and an informative and perceptive account of the development of the unifying concept of plate tectonics that has so dramatically saved Earth Science from itself.
D. G. Smith BP Research Centre Sunbury-on- Thames Middlesex TW16 7LN U.K.