Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
geological timescale', pp. 121-138, in Lewis and Knell, The Age of the Earth (2001),
pp. 121-138. She discusses the development of his ideas on mantle convection
currents in 'Arthur Holmes' unifying theory: from radioactivity to continental
drift', in D. R. Oldroyd (ed.), The Earth Inside and Out: Some Major Contributions
to Geology in the Twentieth Century (London: Geological Society of London
Special Publication 192, 2002), pp. 167-183.
A bibliography of Arthur Holmes' work is given in F. H. Stewart, 'Arthur
Holmes', Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 120 (1964), 3-11.
Holmes' first paper on radioactivity was 'The association of lead with ura-
nium in rock-minerals and its application to the measurement of geological time',
Proceedings of the Royal Society A85 (1911), 248-256; and he followed this
with others including these in which he constructed a geological timescale:
'Radioactivity and the measurement of geological time', Proceedings of the
Geologists' Association 26, part 5 (1915), 289-309; 'The measurement of geological
time', Nature 135 (1935), 680-685; 'The construction of a geological time-scale',
Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow 21, part 1 (1947) 117-152; 'A
revised geological time-scale', Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society
17, part 3 (1960), 183-216. Holmes also wrote a small popular book that is well
worth reading: The Age of the Earth (London & New York: Harper & Brothers,
1913). He later rewrote it (London: Ernest Benn, 1927) and it went through
several editions right up to 1937 when it was published in London by Thomas
Nelson & Sons.
The 2004 geological timescale is modified from F. M. Gradstein, J. G. Ogg,
A. G. Smith, W. Bleeker and L. J. Lourens, 'A new geologic time scale, with special
reference to Precambrian and Neogene', Episodes 27, part 2 (2004), 83-100.
Holmes' model for dating using the isotopic abundance of lead appeared in
'An estimate of the age of the Earth', Nature 157 (1946), 680-684. This together with
the papers by Gerling (1942) and Houtermans (1946) is reproduced in C. T. Harper
(ed.) Geochronology: Radiometric Dating of Rocks and Minerals (Stroudsberg PA:
Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Inc., 1973). Figure
13.6
is taken from A. Holmes, 'An
estimate of the age of the Earth', Geological Magazine 84 (1947), 123-126.
Primeval lead was introduced in 1939 by Alfred Nier, 'The isotopic composi-
tion of radiogenic leads and the measurement of geological time. II', Physical
Review 55 (1939), 153-163. Nier recalled his scientific work in 'Some reminis-
cences of isotopes, geochronology, and mass spectrometry', Annual Review of
Earth and Planetary Sciences 9 (1981), 1-18. A biographical memoir by John H.
Reynolds appears in Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences 74
(1998), 244-265.
