Preface
Man's understanding of how this planet is put together and how it
evolved has changed radically during the last 30 years. This great
revolution in geology - now usually subsumed under the concept of
Plate Tectonics - brought the realization that convection within the
Earth is responsible for the origin of today's ocean basins and continents, and that the grand features of the Earth's surface are the product
of ongoing large-scale horizontal motions. Some of these notions were
put forward earlier in this century (by A. Wegener, in 1912, and by
A. Holmes, in 1929), but most of the new ideas were an outgrowth of
the study of the ocean floor after World War II. In its impact on the
earth sciences, the plate tectonics revolution is comparable to the
upheaval wrought by the ideas of Charles Darwin (1809-1882),
which started the intense discussion on the evolution of the biospere
that has recently heated up again. Darwin drew his inspiration from
observations on island life made during the voyage of the Beagle
(1831-1836), and his work gave strong impetus to the first global
oceanographic expedition, the voyage of HMS Challenger (18721876). Ever since, oceanographic research has been intimately associated with fundamental advances in the knowledge of Earth. This
should come as no surprise. After all, our planet's surface is mostly
ocean.
This book is the result of our conviction that to study introductory
geology and oceanography and environmental sciences, one needs a
summary of the tectonics and morphology of the sea floor, of the
geologic processes active in the deep sea and in shelf seas, and of the
climatic record in deep-sea sediments.
Our aim is to give a brief survey of these topics. We have endeavored to write for all who might be interested in the subject, including
those with but little background in the natural sciences. The decade of
the 1980s was characterized by an increasing awareness of man's dependency on natural resources, including the ocean as a weather machine, a waste bin, and a source of energy and minerals. This trend, we
believe, will persist as resources become ever more scarce and as the
impact of human activities on natural cycles escalates in the coming
decades. An important part of this awareness will be an appreciation
Man's understanding of how this planet is put together and how it
evolved has changed radically during the last 30 years. This great
revolution in geology - now usually subsumed under the concept of
Plate Tectonics - brought the realization that convection within the
Earth is responsible for the origin of today's ocean basins and continents, and that the grand features of the Earth's surface are the product
of ongoing large-scale horizontal motions. Some of these notions were
put forward earlier in this century (by A. Wegener, in 1912, and by
A. Holmes, in 1929), but most of the new ideas were an outgrowth of
the study of the ocean floor after World War II. In its impact on the
earth sciences, the plate tectonics revolution is comparable to the
upheaval wrought by the ideas of Charles Darwin (1809-1882),
which started the intense discussion on the evolution of the biospere
that has recently heated up again. Darwin drew his inspiration from
observations on island life made during the voyage of the Beagle
(1831-1836), and his work gave strong impetus to the first global
oceanographic expedition, the voyage of HMS Challenger (18721876). Ever since, oceanographic research has been intimately associated with fundamental advances in the knowledge of Earth. This
should come as no surprise. After all, our planet's surface is mostly
ocean.
This book is the result of our conviction that to study introductory
geology and oceanography and environmental sciences, one needs a
summary of the tectonics and morphology of the sea floor, of the
geologic processes active in the deep sea and in shelf seas, and of the
climatic record in deep-sea sediments.
Our aim is to give a brief survey of these topics. We have endeavored to write for all who might be interested in the subject, including
those with but little background in the natural sciences. The decade of
the 1980s was characterized by an increasing awareness of man's dependency on natural resources, including the ocean as a weather machine, a waste bin, and a source of energy and minerals. This trend, we
believe, will persist as resources become ever more scarce and as the
impact of human activities on natural cycles escalates in the coming
decades. An important part of this awareness will be an appreciation