Early History of the North Atlantic Ocean and its Margins

Details Early History of the North Atlantic Ocean and its Margins Early History of the North Atlantic Ocean and its Margins

Nov 1967

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1967natur.216..464h&link_type=abstract

Nature, Volume 216, Issue 5114, pp. 464-467 (1967).

Mathematics

Logic

1

Scientific paper

THE formation of the Atlantic Ocean in late geological history was conceived (as a scientific hypothesis) in the second half of the nineteenth century when sufficient became known of the stratigraphical framework of Earth history. Suess (1885-1904) surveyed the striking similarities which suggested continuity of structure and stratigraphy of the opposing margins of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, and he postulated that foundering of part of a once more extensive Laurasian continent gave rise to the Atlantic Ocean. Against geophysical evidence this view survived until recently (for example, Beloussov). On the other hand, from speculation about the reasons for the distribution and shape of the continents and oceans, and especially about the origin and influence of the Moon, an Atlantic fission of Laurasia was successively postulated, notably by Owen in 1857, Snider in 1859, Fisher in 1881 and 1889 (possibly the first to suggest Atlantic separation by convection), Pickering in 1907, Taylor in 1910 (who first detailed a scheme for the opening of the Arctic and separation of Greenland from both Europe and America involving strike-slip between Greenland and Ellesmere Island) and Baker in 1911. Wegener (1912-1928), in spite of resort to a feeble mechanism for drift, by bringing palaeoclimatic and other evidence to bear, succeeded in gaining widespread attention and support. It needed only the addition of palaeomagnetic evidence to finally convince most scientists. Continental drift was so challenging a concept that most attention had been absorbed in the questions of its general validity and mechanism. Its exploitation to explain earlier events in Earth history was left to those who related the long history of erogenic activity to substantial continental movement. Alternatively, it has been suggested that continental drift may have been a process characteristic of the last 5 per cent of Earth history. But most ``pre-drift'' reconstructions even recently have been static in not being related stratigraphically.

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