Halliburton 2018. Softcover, 141 pages.
Very good condition. Neat and clean.
A history of some of the greatest geological minds introduces us to important geological controversies in this book Great Geologists. As author, Mike Simmons, says in the introduction to this book: The history of geoscience is marked by the work of exemplary scientists, who through their endeavours, changed the way we think about the Earth, its history, processes and resources. Having discovered that no one had attempted to collate the life stories of such scientists, Mike decided to compile a collection of short biographies and this eminently readable and fascinating book is the result. Mike selected 36 eminent scientists to represent the many people who have influenced the earth sciences, and in telling their stories, starting with Nicolas Steno in the mid-17th century and ending with several geologists still with us today, he also takes us on a journey through the development of thinking and ideas in geology. There were the ongoing tussles throughout the 18th and 19th centuries between those who believed in a creationist 6,000-year-old Earth and those who realised that much deeper time was needed to explain most geological phenomena. There were verbal battles and spats between those who believed in Uniformitarianism, such as Hutton and Lyell, and advocates of Catastrophism, proposed by Cuvier and others. In later years, similar ideological arguments centred on Wegeners theory of continental drift, which led to the concept of plate tectonics, as shown by the maps of seafloor spreading produced by Marie Tharp. She is one of only four women included in the book, since for many years geology was not considered a suitable subject for females to study. Other ideas, such as James Dwight Danas synclinal theory, may now be largely disproved and forgotten, but they played their part in the progression of the science of geology.
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