2012 Articles

Volume II: Paleomagnetism and Confirmation of Drift (H.R. Frankel)

Kent, Dennis V.

This is the story of the formative years – the decade of the 1950s – of paleomagnetism as a scientific discipline in conjunction with a focus on the big questions of the day – the origin of the geomagnetic field, polar wander, continental mobility. The exposition is meticulously documented with referral to primary published literature and enlivened by extensive referral to real-time correspondence and retrospective views based on the author’s interviews and written exchanges with many of the principals dating back to the early 1980s. Some of the themes that emerge from the account is the everimportance of serendipidity and the ability of top scientists to identify tractable aspects of a big problem, adjust the scope and direction of the research as needed, and recognize applications to seemingly oblique problems.