Introduction
Pioneers of Marine Geology: Identifying the Basic Questions
Marine geology is a young offshoot of geology, a branch of science which begins
with James Hutton (1726-1797) and his Theory of the Earth (Edinburgh, 1795).
Among other things, Hutton studied marine rocks on land. Changes of sea level
("encroachment of the ocean", and "the placing of materials accumulated at the
bottom of the sea in the atmosphere above the surface of the sea") was a central tenet
of his "Theory". Thus, the question of what happens at the bottom of the sea was
raised at the beginning of systematic geologic investigation. This question had to be
attacked if the marine deposits on land were to be understood. Hutton was not alone
in these concems. A few years before the Theory of the Earth appeared, the great
chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) distinguished two kinds of marine
sedimentary layers, that is, those formed in the open sea at great depth, which he
called pelagic beds, and those formed along the coast, which he termed littoral beds.
"Great depth" for Lavoisier was everything beyond wave base. Lavoisier supposed
that sediment particles would settle quietly in deep water and reworking would be
much less in evidence here than near the shore.
Marine geology starts in earnest with geologists going to sea and looking for the
processes which helped produce the marine rocks with which they were familiar on
land. Such work, obviously, began in the intertidal and in easily accessible shallow
waters, and it was undertaken by a great many investigators. The German geologist
Johannes Walther (Fig. 0.1.2) was very familiar with the observations resulting from
this work and was himself a pioneer in these types of studies. Firmly rooted in
classical geology, he set an outstanding example of applying uniformitarianism, that
is, Hutton's doctrine that observable processes are sufficient to explain the geologic
record (Lithogenesis of the Present, Jena, 1894, in German). In his book Bionomie
des Meeres (Jena, 1893), he gave an account of marine environments and the ecology
of their inhabitants, with emphasis on shell-forming organisms and the deposits they
produce. Research on marine sedimentation in the following four decades is summarized in P. D. Trask (ed.) Recent Marine Sediments (AAPG, Tulsa, 1939). This
symposium spans the range of sedimentary environments, from beach to deep sea,
and many of the articles were written by pioneers in marine geology.
As marine geologic studies progressed and moved further out to sea, there was a
gradual change of emphasis in the set of problems to be solved. The sea floor itself
became the focus of attention, not for the sake of the clues it would yield for the
Pioneers of Marine Geology: Identifying the Basic Questions
Marine geology is a young offshoot of geology, a branch of science which begins
with James Hutton (1726-1797) and his Theory of the Earth (Edinburgh, 1795).
Among other things, Hutton studied marine rocks on land. Changes of sea level
("encroachment of the ocean", and "the placing of materials accumulated at the
bottom of the sea in the atmosphere above the surface of the sea") was a central tenet
of his "Theory". Thus, the question of what happens at the bottom of the sea was
raised at the beginning of systematic geologic investigation. This question had to be
attacked if the marine deposits on land were to be understood. Hutton was not alone
in these concems. A few years before the Theory of the Earth appeared, the great
chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) distinguished two kinds of marine
sedimentary layers, that is, those formed in the open sea at great depth, which he
called pelagic beds, and those formed along the coast, which he termed littoral beds.
"Great depth" for Lavoisier was everything beyond wave base. Lavoisier supposed
that sediment particles would settle quietly in deep water and reworking would be
much less in evidence here than near the shore.
Marine geology starts in earnest with geologists going to sea and looking for the
processes which helped produce the marine rocks with which they were familiar on
land. Such work, obviously, began in the intertidal and in easily accessible shallow
waters, and it was undertaken by a great many investigators. The German geologist
Johannes Walther (Fig. 0.1.2) was very familiar with the observations resulting from
this work and was himself a pioneer in these types of studies. Firmly rooted in
classical geology, he set an outstanding example of applying uniformitarianism, that
is, Hutton's doctrine that observable processes are sufficient to explain the geologic
record (Lithogenesis of the Present, Jena, 1894, in German). In his book Bionomie
des Meeres (Jena, 1893), he gave an account of marine environments and the ecology
of their inhabitants, with emphasis on shell-forming organisms and the deposits they
produce. Research on marine sedimentation in the following four decades is summarized in P. D. Trask (ed.) Recent Marine Sediments (AAPG, Tulsa, 1939). This
symposium spans the range of sedimentary environments, from beach to deep sea,
and many of the articles were written by pioneers in marine geology.
As marine geologic studies progressed and moved further out to sea, there was a
gradual change of emphasis in the set of problems to be solved. The sea floor itself
became the focus of attention, not for the sake of the clues it would yield for the