Timeline of the development of tectonophysics (before 1954)

Christian creationism was popular until the 19th century, and the age of the Earth was thought to have been created circa 4,000 BC. There were stacks of calcareous rocks of maritime origin above sea level, and up and down motions were allowed (geosyncline hypothesis, James Hall and James D. Dana). Later on, the thrust fault concept appeared, and a contracting Earth (Eduard Suess, James D. Dana, Albert Heim) was its driving force. In 1862, the physicist William Thomson (who later became Lord Kelvin) calculated the age of Earth (as a cooling black body) at between 20 million and 400 million years. In 1895, John Perry produced an age of Earth estimate of 2 to 3 billion years old using a model of a convective mantle and thin crust. Finally, Arthur Holmes published The Age of the Earth, an Introduction to Geological Ideas in 1927, in which he presented a range of 1.6 to 3.0 billion years. Wegener had data for assuming that the relative positions of the continents change over time. It was a mistake to state the continents "plowed" through the sea, although it isn't sure that this fixist quote is true in the original in German. He was an outsider with a doctorate in astronomy attacking an established theory between 'geophysicists'. The geophysicists were right to state that the Earth is solid, and the mantle is elastic (for seismic waves) and inhomogeneous, and the ocean floor would not allow the movement of the continents. But excluding one alternative, substantiates the opposite alternative: passive continents and an active seafloor spreading and subduction, with accretion belts on the edges of the continents. The velocity of the sliding continents, was allowed in the uncertainty of the fixed continent model and seafloor subduction and upwelling with phase change allows for inhomogeneity. The problem too, was the specialisation. Arthur Holmes and Alfred Rittmann saw it right . Only an outsider can have the overview, only an outsider sees the forest, not only the trees . But A. Wegener did not have the specialisation to correctly weight the quality of the geophysical data and the paleontologic data, and its conclusions. Wegener's main interest was meteorology, and he wanted to join the Denmark-Greenland expedition scheduled for mid 1912. So he hurried up to present his Continental Drift hypothesis.), Alexander von Humboldt (1801 and 1845) (cited in Schmeling, 2004 • The vertical movement of Scandinavia after the ice age is accepted (recent average uplift c. 1 cm/year). This implies a certain plasticity under the crust . • The alpine geology with its theory of thrusting (as geosyncline hypothesis; today's thrust tectonics) accepted horizontal movements. cited in • 1848 Arnold Escher shows Roderick Murchison the Glarus thrust at the Pass dil Segnas. But Arnold Escher does not publish it as a thrust as it contradicts the geosyncline hypothesis. • Eduard Suess proposed Gondwanaland in 1861, as a result of the Glossopteris findings, but he believed that the oceans flooded the spaces currently between those lands. And he proposed the Tethys Sea in 1893. He came to the conclusion that the Alps to the North were once at the bottom of an ocean . • The idea of continental drifting shows up for the first time. John Henry Pepper merges Antonio Snider-Pellegrini's map, Evan Hopkins' proof of northward shifting of the continents of his neptunist book and his plutonism ( and cited in ). • 1884, Marcel Alexandre Bertrand interpretes the Glarus thrust as a thrust. • • Hans Schardt demonstrates that the Prealps are allochthonous. • • • • 1907, resolution of the "Highlands Controversy": thrust faults get established: Lapworth, Peach and Horne working on parts of the Moine Thrust, Scotland. • • • Director-Generals of the British Geological Survey: Roderick Murchison (1855–1872) and Archibald Geikie (1881–1901) • Although Wegener's theory was formed independently and was more complete than those of his predecessors, Wegener later credited a number of past authors with similar ideas: Franklin Coxworthy (between 1848 and 1890), Roberto Mantovani (between 1889 and 1909), William Henry Pickering (1907) and Frank Bursley Taylor (1908). • 1912–1929: Alfred Wegener develops his continental drift hypothesis. (, ) • In the 1920s Earth scientists refer to themselves as drifters (or mobilists) or fixists . Terms introduced by the Swiss geologist Émile Argand in 1924 . • Moreover, most of the blistering attacks were aimed at Wegener himself, an outsider (PhD in astronomy) who seemed to be attacking the very foundations of geology. == Controversy ==