Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
al Society of London.
His textbook went on to become a bestseller and the geological bible not only
for an entire generation of geologists but also for the British physicists who in the
1950s would take up rock magnetism and use it to discover plate tectonics. In Bri-
tain, to refer to the topic one had only to say “Holmes”—no explanation neces-
sary.
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In chapter 21, Holmes turned to the age-old dilemma of geology: whether the
continents and oceans have been “stable or otherwise during geological time.”
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