Message #175713

[Carolyn Silver]

Geophysics 5361/ Geology 4315: Plate Tectonics
Development of Plate Tectonics I
Conceptual Models of the Earth - 19th and Early 20th Century

Prior to the early to middle 19th century, most scientists were clerics and theologians who felt compelled to relate their observations to the Bible. This led to catastrophist theories explaining the separation of the continents.

By the middle to late 19th and early 20th century, geologists worked on the continents, mostly in mountain belts in an apparently intellectually mature discpline governed by the theories of organic evolution, uniformitarianism, and stratigraphy (Fundamental principles of geology). Continents were believed to be stationary. Deformation in mountain belts was thought to be due to vertical movements of the crust. Explanatory mechanisms for mountain building were lacking.