How We Got Plate Tectonics
Naomi Oreskes, editor, Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth 2003, Westview Press, 452 pp. This book, comprising an introduction by Oreskes and seventeen papers, provides multiple first-person accounts of the mid-20 th century revolution in earth science. Together, they provide an overview of plate tectonics, an engaging view of the excitement of a quickly developing field, and some reflections on the nature of scientific discovery. [Looking back over this, I see I got rather carried away while writing this up. It was hard not to, because I liked the book so much. If you don’t want the rather long description of the book’s contents, just skip down and read the last couple paragraphs.] “[C]onsider the history of the concept of continental drift,” writes Jack Oliver in his contribution to this volume. “It was first proposed in A.D. 1596 by Abraham Ortelius, the famous Flemish cartographer of German a...