Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
'The distribution of earthquakes occur near the shores of
the Pacific, in the East and West Indies, in the mid-Atlantic
and under the Himalayas. If these deep-seated disturbances
are not in some way a result of currents operating far down
in the zone of flowage, it is difficult to conceive a mechanism
that could be responsible for them.'
'But surely all this is just speculation?'
'Discussion and speculation are justified if they do no more
than stimulate a search for the more elusive pieces of the
jigsaw puzzle we are doing our best to put together. If the sus-
pected currents in the substratum form part of the completed
picture, we must look carefully for possible evidence of their
existence.'
And so the discussion continued late into the evening -
Holmes erecting 'wickets to be bowled at' , something he was
fond of doing and which he hoped would stimulate new ideas
and ways of thinking about the problems, and others trying to
knock them down. Holmes himself had little doubt that his
theories were close to the truth, but it was to be another thirty
five years before his and Wegener's ideas were shown to be fun-
damentally correct, and even longer before Holmes himself was
given full credit for them. Not until 1985 did Robert Muir Wood
write:
As it took Wegener, the dreamer, to conclude that the continents were
drifting, so it took Holmes, the critic of geology, to place continental drift
for the first time on a scientific foundation. No longer were the continents
to be driven by forces weaker than the slightest breeze. There was a mighty
engine deep in the Earth, powered by radioactivity.
A handsome man in his early forties with thick dark hair
brushed back o¬ his high forehead; well dressed in tweed plus-
fours, shirt, tie and matching tweed cap even when out in the
field, Arthur created quite an impression on Doris Reynolds that
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search