bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
GSC Exploratory Wells in the West 1873-1875
Authors: Kupsch Walter
Published: April 2015

Although the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) was founded in 1842, it was not until 1872, two years after the transfer of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) lands to the Dominion of Canada, that the first GSC geologist, Director Alfred R. C. Selwyn, came to the western interior. One year later a drilling program he had been promoting in Ottawa saw two wells brought to completion and a third one started.

During the period 1873-1875 five wells were drilled by or for the GSC at: Fort Garry (the first to be spudded and at 37 feet the shallowest), Shoal Lake, Rat Creek, Fort Carlton, and Fort Pelly (the deepest at 501 feet and the last to be abandoned). The main objective was to locate sources of water and coal for the future transcontinental railroad then planned to follow a northwesterly route from Winnipeg to Edmonton.

Four wells were drilled with a rotary, diamond sieamdrill which had been used in the hard, coal-bearing rocks of Nova Scotia but proved unsuitable for penetrating the glacial drift, loose sands, and soft clays of the prairies.

Besides having to deal with technical problems related to the transport of heavy equipment, a GSC drilling party became embroiled in a dispute between Government and Natives over land rights. After encountering an Indian blockade led by Chief Mistiwassis the crew retreated behind the stockade of HBC's Fort Carlton to drill a 175-foot well in August and September 1875.

In 1874 an agreement was made between the GSC and John Henry Fairbank, Canada's most prominent oilman, for the drilling of a well at Fort Pelly. A percussion steamdrill, then in common use in the Petrolia, Ontario, oil fields, was the equipment of choice. Work at a drill site north of the fort in the Swan River valley started 25 August 1874 but on 30 October winter forced suspension. The stored equipment was used again the following year when drilling resumed on 6 July. The contracted 500 foot depth was exceeded by 1 foot on 9 October 1875 when the well was abandoned.
Franz Joseph Märter, Travel Companion of Johann David Schöpf in a Journey From Philadelphia to Florida and the Bahamas in 1783-1784
Authors: Carozzi Albert , Carozzi Marguerite
Published: April 2015

Two years before Johann David Schöpf (1752-1800) published his Beyträge … (1787), Franz Joseph Märter (1753-1827) sent letters from Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and East-Florida to Ignaz von Born, describing plants, animals, and geological features of the newly independent states. These letters were speedily printed in Physikalische Arbeiten … in Vienna (1785). A last letter sent from the Bahamas appeared in the same periodical in 1786.

Märter's geological observations are translated and analyzed here for the first time. His descriptions of various rocks along the Schuylkill River, upstream from Philadelphia (granites, limestones, marble quarries, widespread weathered iron ores), and his interpretation of the fossiliferous sandstones in the Appalachian mountains are very similar to those by Schöpf. So are Märter's observations of shell banks, either exposed in ditches many miles from the sea, or in cliffs at Yorktown, Virginia, and Wilmington, North Carolina, as well as his description of granite and of a large coal mine near Richmond, Virginia. Finally, both travelers noticed that the rocky cliffs in the Bahamas consisted of limestone formed by Muschelsand [beachrock]. We established that Märter and Schöpf traveled together from Philadelphia to the Bahamas (November 1783 to March 1784). But neither acknowledged the influence, or at least the presence of the other, probably for political reasons.
Emil Böse's Search For an Ancient Landmass
Authors: Young Keith
Published: April 2015

In 1923 Emil Böse reported on the "Vestiges of an Ancient Continent in northeast Mexico". In searching for evidence for this ancient landmass (the Coahuila Peninsula) in 1920 Böse had traversed parts of Coahuila under most difficult circumstances. His first trip to Las Delicias from the south, although he reached Las Delicias, was geologically unsuccessful. His second, longer trip took him west 185 km from Cuatro Cienegas and then 150 km to the southeast, the latter 100 km with no water. He travelled with mules. On the second trip he was able to obtain the evidence of Aptian rocks overlying unconformably Permian rocks. This evidence he needed to define the ancient landmass from which sediments were supplied to the Tithonian and Neocomian rocks of the La Mula Basin and other parts of northeastern Mexico.
Wandering With William Bartram: The Section At Silver Bluff, South Carolina
Authors: Fallaw W. , Snipes David , Van Price
Published: April 2015

In his famous book, William Bartram (1791) described a stratigraphic section at Silver Bluff on the Savannah River in Aiken County, South Carolina, as dark, laminated clay containing belemnites, overlain by clays, sand, marl, and a shelly bed containing numerous oysters. There are now no known occurrences of marine megafossils in outcrops along the Savannah in Aiken County. The wording of Bartram's description of Cretaceous outcrops along the Cape Fear River in North Carolina indicates that the lower part of the Silver Bluff section was described from notes made on the Cape Fear and from his father's diary. The description of the upper beds at Silver Bluff may have been transferred from the Cape Fear, where fossiliferous Pliocene beds overlie the Cretaceous. It is probable, however, that it was from notes made at an Eocene locality in Georgia, most likely Shell Bluff on the Savannah River.
Theory and Reality: The Success and Failure of the Deductive Method in Coral Reef Studies-Darwin to Davis
Authors: Stoddart D.
Published: April 2015

W. M. Davis's monograph The Coral Reef Problem (1928) and his voluminous other publications on coral reefs present his unambiguous support for Darwin's evolutionary model of the development of reef types through slow subsidence of reef foundations. Davis claimed to find unequivocal support for his views in the features of now-elevated reefs. Since his deductions, expressed in sequential block diagrams, were based on his incorrect belief that elevated reefs eroded rapidly, he was compelled to reject paleontological evidence that many elevated reefs are old. Thus to support his theoretical position he systematically misrepresented the geomorphic history of, for example, the Lau Islands, Eua, the Loyalty Islands, Jaluit Atoll and Mangaia. Not surprisingly this work did not impress contemporaries who had experience of these reefs in the field.
Bruce Wade: Tennessee's Forgotten Geologist
Authors: Brister Ronald
Published: April 2015

A burst of intense geological exploration and interpretation of the eastern Mississippi Embayment marked the first three decades of the 20th century. Bruce Wade, a Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins-trained geologist, played a central role in the interpretation of the stratigraphy and paleontology of the Cretaceous deposits of West Tennessee. He discovered and described the perfectly preserved and extensive fauna of the Coon Creek fossil site, made detailed county stratigraphic studies, and is credited with discovering the first fossil insect preserved in amber reported from North America. Wade served in World War I and later worked in the oil industry in Mexico as an exploration geologist in the early 1920's. His promising career was cut short by a severe illness which left him confined in hospitals for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 84 in relative obscurity.
Edwin James-Chronicler of Geology in The American West
Authors: Merriam D.
Published: April 2015

Edwin James (1797-1861) was born in Weybridge, Addison County, Vermont, just 5 months after James Hutton, founder of modern geology, died in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edwin was the youngest of 13 children born to Deacon Daniel James and wife Mary. He studied medicine with his older brother in Albany, New York, after graduating from Middlebury College (Vermont) at the age of 19. While studying medicine, he became interested in geology and was influenced by Amos Eaton of the Rensselaer School. Upon completing his medical studies. James accepted a position in the spring of 1820 as a botanist/geologist with the Maj. Stephan H. Long Expedition. He was the first man to reach the summit of James' Peak, now named Pike's Peak, and made notes on the geology of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. In 1823 "An Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains Performed in the Years 1819 and '20," written mostly by James, was published in Philadelphia (2 vols.) and London (3 vols.). This major work, from a Wernerian viewpoint, and five other lesser ones were published between 1820 and 1827. They were the sum total of his geological contributions, but included in the "Account" is the first geological map of the trans-Mississippi region. In 1823 he was commissioned an assistant surgeon in the U.S. Army; after leaving the Army in 1833 he later settled near Burlington, Iowa, where he was engaged in agriculture until his death in 1861.
Erasmus Haworth and the Completion of Geologic Reconnaissance in Kansas
Authors: Buchanan Rex
Published: April 2015

Although Kansas geology was the subject of formal study by state geological surveys in 1864 and 1865, no state survey existed from 1866 to 1889, years that marked some of the most exciting paleontological and mineral resource discoveries in the state's history. In 1889, the state legislature recreated the Geological Survey, placing it at the University of Kansas, though it provided no additional appropriation for the survey's operation. Erasmus Haworth, Samuel W. Williston, and E. H. S. Bailey formed that university incarnation of the Survey, which was essentially limited to their field and laboratory work, along with the volunteer labor of students, mostly from the University of Kansas. Though the Survey received no funding from the state until 1895, it was far from stillborn. Survey scientists published regularly in the University Quarterly, and eventually collected their results in a series of volumes that provided the first detailed, consistent treatment of the state's geology. The members of that Survey formed three separate but equal departments, but Haworth was clearly the leader of the band. He was largely responsible for the production of those first volumes, which included the first photographic plates and geologic maps published by the state survey; these figures were strongly influential in the Survey's presentation of scientific information. Haworth became official director of the Survey in 1895 and led the Survey until 1915, when he left to work with his son Henry as a geological consultant. Among Haworth's credits was much of the field work on geologic structures that led to the discovery of the El Dorado oil field in south-central Kansas.
Development of The Stratigraphic Column in Kansas
Authors: Berkstresser, Jr. C.
Published: April 2015

Scientific exploration of what is now Kansas began at the start of the 19th Century. Explorers who touched or crossed present-day Kansas included Lewis and Clark (1804), Pike (1806), Nuttall (1809-1810), Long (1819-1820), Nicollet (1838-1839), and Frémont (1842, 1844, 1845). Their contributions are now of historical interest only.

Dr. F. A. Wislizenus crossed the area in 1846 and identified the Carboniferous near present-day Ottawa and the Cretaceous near the great bend of the Arkansas River. F. B. Meek and F. V. Hayden in 1856 identified rocks of Tertiary age, probably in north-central Kansas. Maj. Frederick Hawn collected fossils that were identified by Meek as being of Permian age. In 1858 Hawn and G. C. Swallow published just 13 days before Meek and Hayden presented their paper. In the same year Swallow and Hawn presented the first stratigraphic column for Kansas. This column also introduced the term Quaternary, and included Cretaceous, Permian, and Carboniferous; it incorrectly included Triassic but omitted Tertiary.

By 1904 C. S. Prosser and J. W. Beede reclassified the Carboniferous rocks near Cottonwood Falls, and identified these as Pennsylvanian. C. E. Siebenthal introduced the term Mississippian in 1907 for rocks in the southeastern corner of the state. He also assumed that rocks of Cambrian and Ordovician ages were present in the subsurface. In southwestern Kansas, outcrops along the Cimarron River have been variously mapped as Cretaceous, Triassic, Jurassic; they now are considered Triassic.
From Charles Darwin's Portfolio: An Early Essay on South American Geology and Species
Authors: Herbert Sandra
Published: April 2015

This work is an analysis and edition of a previously unpublished essay by Charles Darwin entitled "Reflection on reading my Geological notes." The original draft of the essay appears to have been written in 1834, that is, during Darwin's voyage on H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836). In the essay Darwin developed a theory of the geological formation of South America that included a narrative framework for the history of life on the continent. His treatment of the history of life is not yet transmutationist, but it is highly sequential.
The Rogers-Hotchkiss Geological Maps of Virginia and West Virginia
Authors: Lessing Peter
Published: April 2015

During the years 1835 to 1841, the first geological survey of Virginia, and what is now West Virginia, was conducted under the leadership of William Barton Rogers. His geological work was produced in seven annual reports presented to the Board of Public Works, which were reprinted in 1884 as a single volume by his widow. However, the first geological map from Rogers' survey of Virginia was only published in 1876 by Jedediah Hotchkiss.

Rogers gave his geological map to Hotchkiss in 1873 for use in Hotchkiss' book published 3 years later. During the following 10 years, this geological map was produced 13 more times, mostly by Hotchkiss, and each version is slightly different. Some changes are obvious, such as scale, base map, or cross sections, whereas other modifications are subtle, including stratigraphic units, title, or colors. Three versions are hand colored; the others are lithographs. The known versions, by date, are two in 1874, one circa 1875, five in 1880 and one circa 1880, one in 1881, one in 1882, and three in 1884. Interestingly, none of these 14 versions modified Rogers' original geology, although Rogers modified his original stratigraphic nomenclature. A fifteenth version, apparently done without Rogers' knowledge for the Union army in 1862, is the hand colored geological map by Thomas S. Ridgway.
Georgiy Nikolaevich Frederiks (1889-1938), Paleontologist, Stratigrapher, Tectonicist—Biography and Bibliography
Authors: Talent John , Archbold N. , Machlin Victor
Published: April 2015

In a brief career, 1911-early 1930s, Georgly Nikolaevich Frederiks swiftly became a leading authority on the paleontology and stratigraphy of the Late Paleozoic of the USSR. Tireless in field and laboratory, he contributed importantly to unraveling the structure of the Urals, and established an international reputation as a paleontologist and stratigrapher, notably for his numerous contributions on Late Paleozoic stratigraphy and paleontology, especially brachiopods. One of the most impressive Soviet paleontologist-geologists of the inter-war era, Frederiks, like so many of the intelligentsia in the USSR, was believed by many to have perished in one of Stalin's 'corrective labor camps'. He was in fact shot, like legions of others, on the charge of conspiring to kill the leaders of the USSR and for personally planning to kill Stalin. His career and fate exemplify what befell the cream of the intelligentsia in the USSR during the Stalin epoch.
Studies of the History of Geology in the Soviet Union in the Second Half of the 20th Century
Authors: Tikhomirov Vladimir
Published: April 2015

The earth scientists of Russia have long been interested in the history of geological knowledge. V. I. Vernadsky (1863-1945) and V. A. Obruchev (1861-1956) saw the necessity and actively supported research into the history of science in Russia. During the 1930-1940s M. S. Shatsky (1895-1960) published analyses of the ideas of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), R.I. Murchinson (1792-1871), and A. D. Archangelsky (1879-1940). He followed these with a series of papers devoted to the history of the evolution of theoretical and applied geology.

In the early 1950s several works investigating actualistic and uniformitarian methods were published in the USSR. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the new fields of paleogeography and lithology evolved and a new branch of geology resulted from the prospecting and exploration of radioactive materials.

In 1967, an International Committee on the History of Geological Knowledge was proposed by Soviet geologists and established at the 23rd International Geological Congress at Yerevan. It is presently known as "INHIGEO," a Commission of the International Union of Geological Sciences. INHIGEO now has 126 members from 35 countries. From 1967 to 1992, INHIGEO sponsored seventeen international symposia. One or two were held at each of the International Geological Congresses, which regularly convene every fourth year, and additional symposia have been held at frequent intervals.

The complex process of the evolution of the natural sciences in Russia may be subdivided into separate periods. Since the late 1960s, geophysics has grown in importance and several major fields of geophysics have emerged. In addition, a general theory of the Earth has taken shape, geoecological studies have begun, and a theoretical history of geology and other earth sciences has evolved.

The last quarter of this century has witnessed the publication of two multi-volume series: "Geological knowledge in the USSR," comprising 52 books and "Sketches on the history of geological knowledge," with 28 issues. These works outline the history of geological knowledge in the USSR from about 1965 to 1990.
The Eye and the Rock: Art, Observation and the Naturalistic Drawing of Earth Strata
Authors: Montgomery Scott
Published: April 2015

The first naturalistic drawings of geologic phenomena, particularly rock formations, are assumed by historians to have occurred early in the 19th century, when geology matured as a science. No less than three centuries earlier, however, the Netherlandish master, Jan Van Eyck, drew exposures of natural rock whose features are so remarkably accurate as to permit modern-day geologic analysis of their lithology, fossil content, sedimentary structures, and depositional environment. Van Eyck clearly studied, drew, and painted a specific outcrop "in the field," long before such practice had become common in art or science. As the first modern geologic "observer," Van Eyck greatly extended an existing tradition of naturalism with regard to organic phenomena (esp. plants, insects, human figures) fully into the realm of inorganic reality. In this, he far surpassed other scholar-artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, who have been credited with similar achievements. Van Eyck's achievement proved exceptional. It was matched neither by later artists, scientists, or illustrators until the late 18th-early 19th century, when conventions in travel literature and landscape inspired new attention to the drawing of rock materials. The reasons for this historical gap have everything to do with the limitations of observation in early geological study, which show important parallels to those in art.
Theories of Terrestrial Mass Extinction by Extraterrestrial Objects
Authors: D'Hondt Steven
Published: April 2015

Theories of mass extinction by extraterrestrial objects have been intermittently proposed by European and North American scientists for at least 250 years. Until the late twentieth century, such theories usually treated biological extinction as a single aspect of global cataclysm. Proposed ultimate causes of mass extinction have included the passage of planetesimals close to Earth, impacts of comets or asteroids, and transient increases in cosmic radiation.

These theories have consistently extrapolated from astronomical observations to suggest that extraterrestrial objects had affected Earth at some time in the past. However, until the late twentieth century, none of these theories proposed definitive tests of temporal coincidences between mass extinctions and and the terrestrial effects of extraterrestrial objects. Harold Urey's (1973) cometary impact hypothesis was the first to propose such a test. The impact-extinction theory of Luis Alvarez and his colleagues (1980) was the first to provide direct evidence of such a coincidence. Such tests were probably not possible before the middle of the twentieth century. The failure of earlier theories to generate sustained scientific interest can be most simply attributed to their lack of such evidence.

Theories of extraterrestrially caused mass extinction have almost always combined hypotheses of ultimate and proximate causes of extinction. The stability of these combinations has varied greatly from category to category and age to age. In general, these combinations evolved much more rapidly when they were presented and discussed in mainstream scientific literature. Despite their ubiquity, hypotheses of proximate causes have served a limited role in the reception of these theories. Scientific critics of these theories have consistently required hypotheses of proximate causes to appear plausible. However, the recent history of impact theories indicates that an ultimate cause of mass extinction may be widely accepted without definitive proof of the proximate cause of extinction.
Newton Horace Winchell, The George Armstrong Custer Expedition of 1874, and the "Discovery" of Gold in the Black Hills, Dakota Territory, U.S.A.
Authors: Morey G.
Published: April 2015

Rumors circulated for years about the fabulous wealth to be found in the Black Hills, an area in Dakota Territory, U.S.A., ceded to the Sioux Nation in 1868. Although the Sioux Nation was determined to keep all outsiders out, the U.S. government decided to send an expedition into the hills during the summer of 1874, partly to map them for military purposes and partly to quell rumors about gold and other economic commodities.

The expedition was led by Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer (1839-1876) of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. Newton Horace Winchell (1839-1914), director of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, was invited to join as chief geologist. His official reason for participating was to collect geologic specimens together with skins of animals for a newly formed Museum of Natural History. Prospectors also accompanying the expedition purportedly found gold at several places. Their finds were described in official dispatches written by Custer and in unofficial accounts prepared by newspaper reporters accompanying the expedition. Upon his return from the field, Custer emphasised the discoveries and their economic potential. At about the same time Winchell told reporters that the reports and the newspaper accounts were greatly exaggerated and that he had personally seen no trace of gold. Controversy continued over the next several months, mainly in the newspapers. In late 1874, Custer suggested that Winchell never saw gold because he never looked for it. Custer's view prevailed as pressure mounted to open the Black Hills to exploration. In the summer of 1875, the government sent a second expedition to the hills primarily to resolve the differing views of Custer and Winchell. That expedition found considerable evidence for economic quantities of gold, an act that further inflamed the Sioux. Consequently, many fled the reservation for parts of Montana and in January 1876 the Army was ordered to force the Native Americans back onto the reservation. That campaign led to the Battle of the Little Big Horn and to the death of Custer and his Seventh Cavalry on 21 June 1876. Although Winchell continued to serve as Minnesota State Geologist for 28 years and lived until 1914, he never again mentioned his role in the discovery of gold in the Black Hills.
Fashioning a Professional Dialogue in Oceanography: The U.S. Navy and the Ocean Science Community, 1924-1960
Authors: Weir Gary
Published: April 2015

Since the Great War of 1914-1918 the relationship between naval officers and ocean scientists in the United States has illustrated well the unpredictable effect of cultural barriers on constructive professional dialogues. The customs and practices attending an academic or industrial laboratory differ dramatically from those absorbed by midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy or officers on board combat ships. Each group lives in a nearly discreet, culturally constructed world. During the course of this century the communication and understanding necessary for these communities to work together toward a common goal required social and political insight as well as extensive entrepreneurship and careful cultural translation.

Confronting a poverty of resources after World War One the Navy and the civilian oceanographic community formed a common practice to pool both resources and skill in an effort to perform meaningful ocean research. When the possibility of another war loomed large in the 1930s, they turned to determined cultural translators. The latter, drawn from both communities, converted the primitive common practice and considerable cultural obstacles of the interwar period into a fluid wartime professional dialogue. Fortified by success in World War II, key translators brought the dialogue to maturity after 1945.
Becoming A Geologist: Florence Bascom and Johns Hopkins, 1888-1895
Authors: Arnold Lois
Published: April 2015

Florence Bascom (1862-1945) was a petrologist and field geologist at Bryn Mawr College who provided a basic description and interpretation of major areas of Pennsylvania and surrounding regions. This paper is the second of a two-part study that explores the question of how Bascom became a geologist. The first part dealt with Bascom's early history in Wisconsin, from the time she went to Madison at the age of 12 to her completion of a Master of Science degree in Microscopic Lithology under Roland D. Irving (1847-1888) at the University Of Wisconsin in 1887.

This second part of the study begins with Bascom's experience teaching at Rockford Seminary in Illinois, where she was exposed to Mary E. Holmes (1850-1906). who had obtained a doctorate in paleontology from the University of Michigan. It then details the extension of Bascom's education from a limited laboratory-based experience to involvement in field work with George Huntington Williams (1856-1894) at Johns Hopkins University in the years 1891-1893. Johns Hopkins did not officially admit women to graduate study then. Nevertheless, on the basis of combined field and laboratory research in the Monterey district of Pennsylvania, Bascom received the first doctorate granted to a woman at the University. She was then hired as an Assistant in Geology by Edward Orton (1829-1899), at Ohio State University, a highly unusual appointment at that time. In addition to teaching, she was engaged in field and laboratory work at Ohio State until 1895, when she was hired by Martha Carey Thomas (1857-1935) at Bryn Mawr.
R. M. Kleinpell's Zones And Stages: An Oppelian Biostratigraphic Solution To A Challenge In The Search For Petroleum In California
Authors: Berry William
Published: April 2015

Robert M. Kleinpell (1905-1986) brought new concepts into oil exploration in California in the late 1920s that enhanced oil recovery. He used basic biostratigraphic principles developed by Albert Oppel (1831-1865) in a study of the ammonite-bearing Jurassic successions in Europe to solve a challenge that faced California's petroleum industry in the 1920s. That challenge was how to recognize a specific stratigraphic position in a sequence of unseen and seemingly unfossiliferous, homogenous California Tertiary strata being perforated by oil-well drilling equipment and how to identify oil-bearing strata from well to well. Kleinpell's insightful use of relevant biostratigraphic principles led to recovery of many millions of barrels of petroleum from California's Tertiary stratigraphic succession. Despite considerable economic success, rarely have geologists outside California's petroleum industry recognized the significance of Kleinpell's economically rewarding application of scientific principle. Furthermore, rarely have American geologists noted the similarity between biostratigraphic practice of most Europeans and that of Kleinpell.
Of Men and Mining Education: The School of Mines at the University of Sydney
Authors: MacLeod Roy
Published: April 2015

Colonial Australian science grew by a process of transplantation, adaptation, and innovation in response to local conditions. The discovery of gold in 1851, and the location of vast resources of other minerals, transformed the colonies, as it did the imperial economy. In this process, the role of mining engineering and mining education played a significant part. Its history, long neglected by historians, illuminates the ways in which the colonial universities sought to guide and direct this engine of change, conscious both of overseas precedent and local necessity. This paper considers the particular circumstances of New South Wales, and the role of the University of Sydney, in seizing the day—and producing a degree—that lasted nearly a century.
Speculations About the Earth: the Role of Robert Hooke and Others in the 17th Century
Authors: Drake Ellen , Komar Paul
Published: April 2015

Among his 17th century contemporaries Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was exceptional in his investigations of the terraqueous globe by experimentation and development of instrumentation for ocean exploration and in forming hypotheses concerning the origin of the earth's surface features. Most theories of the earth written at that time were concerned with bringing observations of nature into concordance with Biblical accounts of Creation, the Deluge, and the final Conflagration. In contrast, Hooke's hypotheses, published posthumously in 1705 in his Discourses of Earthquakes, were essentially unhampered by religious considerations or by other forms of Medievalism. Because he was a product of the 17th century and because these Discourses were presented over a period of 30 years, Hooke naturally made references to all-pervasive Biblical concepts and furthermore his ideas showed some changes as time went on. But his approach was generally scientific and is considered more sophisticated than purely Baconian. His system of the earth was not only unlike those of his contemporaries but in essence was the pre-continental-drift paradigm within which most present-day geologists over age 40 were reared; many of his insights were startlingly modern. Hooke's role was significant in the development of science and especially in the progress of earth science.
Nineteenth Century Earthquake Investigations in California
Authors: Rodda Peter , Leviton Alan
Published: April 2015

In 1850 Philip Thomas Tyson observed that earthquakes of great energy must have occurred in very recent geological periods in the Coast Range of California. A few years later, in 1856, Dr. John Boardman Trask, San Francisco physician, California's first unofficial state geologist, and a founder of the California Academy of Natural Sciences, began to compile data on California quakes. His first contribution to seismology was a summary paper on California earthquakes from 1812 to 1855, which was followed by annual compilations on earthquake activity through 1865. Trask's papers were read at meetings of the California Academy of Natural Sciences and were published in the Proceedings of the Academy. Trask made a determination of the probable direction of motion and velocity of several earthquakes by the imaginative use of the telegraph and other means of communication. After 1866 Trask pursued other interests, and the Academy's concern for earthquakes waned. In the 1880s the center for earthquake studies shifted to the University of California at Berkeley. Edward Singleton Holden, President of the University, in 1887 published the first comprehensive catalog of California earthquakes, and subsequently revived the annual compilations. More importantly, in the same year, Holden established at the University the first seismographic stations in the Western Hemisphere, one at Berkeley, and one at the University's new Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, near San Jose. Although this marks the beginning of the modern period of California earthquake studies, it was the disastrous San Francisco earthquake of April, 1906 that rattled the complacent public and scientific communities alike and launched a new era of seismology.
Where Is Cope's Face?
Authors: Stewart T.
Published: April 2015

Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897) willed his body to science. This accounts for a published description of his skull 10 years after his death, the emergence of his skeleton from obscurity 17 years ago, and now the mystery of his face. In this instance "face" means the one which, around 1914, H. H. Wilder of Smith College reconstructed in clay on the face of Cope's skull.
Walcott's Discovery of Middle Ordovician Vertebrates
Authors: Yochelson Ellis
Published: April 2015

Paleozoic fish remains were identified by T. W. Stanton in 1890 at Canon City, Colorado, but it remained for Walcott to recognize the significance of their great antiquity. After a hurried trip in December 1890, he was able to date them authoritatively as Middle Ordovician (Trentonian) by the presence of associated and overlying marine invertebrates. Fieldwork by S. W. Loper the following year, and by Walcott in 1892, added additional vertebrate specimens and verified Walcott's conclusions as to age. Walcott's 1892 paper, which significantly pushed back the record of antiquity of vertebrate life, was well known to European authorities but was essentially ignored by them because the age of the beds was questioned; the fossils were assumed to be similar to the fish described from the "Old Red" and therefore, Devonian. Further, discovery of these remains in sandstone somehow led to the assumption, common for many years, that vertebrates originated in fresh water. In spite of initial skepticism, Walcott's fossils were eventually accepted as the oldest occurrence of vertebrates and remained so for more than 80 years. Among the many specimens collected by Loper in 1891 are excellent examples of Dictyorhabdus priscus. Of the three genera described by Walcott in 1892, that one was moved by later workers from Vertebrata to Problematica, but it may indeed be a vetebrate.
The Debate Over Multiple Glaciation in the United States: T.C. Chamberlin and G.F. Wright, 1889-1894
Authors: Schultz Susan
Published: April 2015

In 1893 James D. Dana remarked that the concept of multiple glaciation had been advanced by midwestern geologists, while geologists who had done most of their fieldwork in the Northeast advocated a unified glacial period. Midwestern geologists interpreted the lobate terminal moraine ranging across much of the United States from Long Island to the Rockies as the boundary of the most recent ice sheet, and more southerly extramorainal drift as evidence of at least one earlier ice incursion, separated in time by a substantial, warmer interglacial interval or intervals, from the ice sheet that had deposited the terminal moraine. Geologists working east of Ohio, where the discrepancy between the terminal moraine and the extramorainal drift was less marked, tended to see the advance and retreat of the ice sheet as a single event, with minor oscillation and pauses of the ice front. The chief disputants in this debate were T. C. Chamberlin, professor of geology at the University of Chicago and head of the USGS Pleistocene Division, and G. Frederick Wright, former field geologist with the USGS and professor of theology at Oberlin College, but other prominent American geologists including Dana, W J McGee, R. D. Salisbury, Warren Upham, and Frank Leverett also took part. The debate was greatly enlivened by underlying motives much more complex than the midwestern versus northeastern division suggested by Dana. Among these less objective factors were personal animosities, Chamberlin's patronal attitude toward science and its presentation to the public, Wright's introduction of man into the North American Pleistocene, and resentment of a perceived arrogance on the part of government science.
German Women Paleobotanists From the 1920S to the 1970S—Or Why Did This Story Start So Late?
Authors: Mohr Barbara , Vogt Annette
Published: April 2015

This study documents women paleobotanists and their achievements from the late 1920s to the early 1970s in Germany. More than forty women were involved in paleobotanical research and related fields during this period. After they had finished their degrees, about two thirds of them left the field for private, political, and/or economic reasons. Several of them, however, had a successful career or were even leaders in their field. Compared with other disciplines and neighbouring countries, the unusually late entry of women students into this discipline from the 1930s on is explained by the close affiliation of the discipline with Paleozoic geology and mining in Germany before 1945. It is significant that of the thirteen women who finished a degree in the field before 1945, about two thirds studied Quaternary pollen analysis and vegetation history. Only a minority was involved in pre-Quaternary paleobotany.

After World War II, the number of women scientists increased noticeably only when Tertiary palynology/paleobotany became more important sub-disciplines of paleobotany, a pattern which was similar in both parts of the newly divided country. During the period between 1945 and 1955, the number of women students in West Germany was significantly higher than in the East. This is partly explained by the policies of the East German communist party, which put restrictions on women students from a middle-class background. Between 1955 and 1973 the number of women students in East Germany exceeded those in the West. This was due to the East German party policy of activating the female working force, especially in fields which had been traditionally occupied by men, such as geology, mining, and engineering.
A Classification of Scientific Evidence in Geology
Authors: Galvin Cyril , Engineer Coastal
Published: April 2015

All facts are not equal, nor are they equally theory-laden. Facts can be separated into a three-level, five-part classification. The three levels are first-, second-, and third-order evidences, going from most certain to least certain evidence. First-order evidence may be either a simple fact (one based directly on a measurement of length, time, or mass, or on an expert's identification) or a derivative fact (an induction from simple facts). Second-order evidence may be a simple inference (from insufficient first-order evidence) or a derivative inference (from the cumulative indication of simple facts, derivative facts, and simple inference). Third-order evidences are hypothetical explanations, known as theories to their proponents. Scientific examples of the five classes are as follows: Elevations, clast sizes, and rock types employed by J Harlen Breli to explain the Channeled Scablands are simple facts. The understanding of the Basin and Range of western North America as an extensional terrane is a derivative fact. The ocean bottom topography on maps by Heezen and Tharp are simple inferences. The thicknesses of the crust under Lake Mead or Lake Bonneville are derivative inferences. Many theories are third-order evidences, although successful theories can graduate to become first-order derivative facts, with sufficient first-order support. This classification developed from close readings of Oreskes's The Rejection of Continental Drift and Victor Baker's essay-review of that book in Earth Sciences History.
On The Origins Of Knowledge Of The Sea Tides From Antiquity To The Thirteenth Century
Authors: Cartwright David
Published: April 2015

This is an exhaustive survey of the first written records concerning sea-tides and hypotheses for their cause, covering a period from 500 B.C.E. to 1250 C.E. Seamen of antiquity must have gained practical knowledge of tides by experience, but they left no written record. Despite some early Greek references to the subject, the Hellenic civilisation knew little about tides until the reports of travellers like Pytheas and Posidonius (135-51 B.C.E.), Many of the first informed writings are now lost but their gist is known to us, allowing for personal bias and distortion, through Geography by Strabo (ca. 63 B.C.E.-ca. 25 C.E.). Arab astrologers were impressed by the evident relationship to the Moon; they wrote seminal treatises, later translated and copied widely in western Europe. Nevertheless, some non-lunar hypotheses from Greek poetry, involving ocean currents, undersea caverns, and whirlpools, survived through translations for many centuries. During the Medieval period knowledge in Europe was preserved by Christian monks and extended by their observations. Meanwhile, understanding in China developed to the construction of the first known tide-table for predicting the times and heights of a tidal bore, around 1000 C.E.
Josiah D. Whitney and William P. Blake: Conflicts in Relation to California Geology and the Fate of the First California Geological Survey
Authors: Testa Stephen
Published: April 2015

Josiah D. Whitney and William P. Blake shared common social and educational backgrounds and pursued similar professional career paths at a time when employment in geology was undependable. Their professional paths crossed numerous times over the course of five decades in what initially was an amicable professional relationship that evolved by 1860 into competition for state geologist and director of the first California Geological Survey, and California commissioner for the London International Exhibition. Beyond simple competition, Whitney and Blake disagreed over important mainstream geological and ethnological issues germane to California during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The primary issues evolved around the potential economic value of oil and the Bodie Mining District, earthquakes and seismic risk, origin of the Yosemite Valley, the significance of the Calaveras Skull and the antiquity of man, the age of the gold-bearing rocks of California, and formation of the College of California. Both men were influential, however, Blake's contributions to the early geologic understanding of California were more optimistic and compatible with California's needs, while correctly forecasting the state's potential growth and providing insight into the geology and mineral and agricultural resources of the region. Despite Whitney's contributions while serving as director, his personal disposition and pessimistic views sealed the fate of the first geological survey of California.
Gold is Where You Find It: Placer Mining in North Carolina, 1799-1849
Authors: Hines Elizabeth , Smith Michael
Published: April 2015

The accidental discovery of a seventeen-pound gold nugget by a trio of adolescents in Cabarrus County, North Carolina in 1799 spurred a fitful gold rush that spread throughout the southeastern United States. From the early 1800s to 1849 the search for the precious metal fomented exploration and various industries along the gold-bearing regions of the Piedmont and eastern Appalachian Mountains from Alabama to Maryland. The focus of the nascent gold industry was off-season, haphazard placer mining by individuals and small family groups who used primitive medieval mining techniques and backbreaking physical labor. By the 1820s, the part-time, untrained farmers, slaves, and "boomers" had depleted the easily found nuggets and lodes in the "branch" streams. New techniques and innovations in machinery were developed by a set of diverse, yet interconnected, events and individuals to bring forth the golden metal. Thus, the gold fields of the Southeastern United States were a proving ground for the placer mining techniques and technology that fostered economic and industrial expansion in the agriculturally dominated region, as well as substantially contributing to the wealth of the new nation. This fifty-year period of placer mining innovation and practical application in the Southern gold fields provided the skills and basic equipment that promoted the whirlwind of mining frenzy that was the 1849 California Gold Rush.
From Interwar to Cold War: Selling Field Science in the United States, 1920s Through 1950s
Authors: Korsmo Fae , Sfraga Michael
Published: April 2015

A comparison of why proposed science programs succeed or fail to attract public financial support in the American political arena, this article examines three cases ranging from the 1920s to the 1950s: a unique, multi-disciplinary proposal emerging from the U.S. Navy's 1924 conference on oceanography, U.S. participation in the Second International Polar Year of 1932-1933, and U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958. Each proposal emphasized societal benefits and applications of the earth, ocean, or atmospheric sciences. Each began from the bottom up, i.e., people trained and working in the scientific disciplines originated the idea and expressed their support through reports, letters, and participation in committees or conferences. However the proposals experienced different fates. While the promoters of the International Geophysical Year succeeded in gaining relatively substantial federal support, and the backers of the Second International Polar Year gained a modest amount, the U.S. Navy failed to persuade the Coolidge White House to request congressional appropriations for an oceanographic program. The concepts and tools from policy analysis can help to explain why the proposals experienced different outcomes.
Nothing New Under the Earth: The Geology of Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Authors: Breyer John , Butcher William
Published: April 2015

Voyage an centre de la Terre (1864, 1867: Journey to the Centre of the Earth) by Jules Verne (1828-1905) has been a bestseller in both French and English for well over a century. Literary scholars, however, have taken an almost exclusively intrinsic approach to studying the novel, without referring to its sources or writing. The source of the science has not been documented. Louis Figuier (1819-1894), a contemporary and compatriot of Verne, was a prolific writer on scientific and technological matters for the general public. His La Terre avant le déluge (1863: The World before the Deluge) sold an "unprecedented" 25,000 copies in four French editions in less than two years. Much of the scientific information in Verne's novel was taken directly from this work. Verne incorporates scientific details and concepts treated by Figuier in La Terre in the Journey and describes and discusses them in nearly identical language. Exact numbers are duplicated and lengthy lists are reproduced in the same order. The borrowing is widespread and blatant. Verne, nonetheless, exhibits considerable skill in integrating the material borrowed from Figuier into the Journey and interpreting it in specifically literary terms.