Theory's Criticism
A principal focus of Neptunism that provoked almost immediate controversy involved the origin of basalt. Basalts, particularly formed as sills, were differentiated from surface lava flows, and the two were not recognized as the same rock type by Werner and his students during this period. Lavas and volcanoes of obviously igneous origin were treated as very recent phenomena unrelated to the universal ocean that formed the layers of the earth. Werner believed that volcanoes only occurred in proximity to coal beds. Burning melted overlying basalts and wackes, producing basalts and lavas typically at low elevations. Basalt at higher elevations proved to Werner that they were chemical precipitates of the ocean.
A second controversy surrounding Neptunism involved the volumetric problems associated with the universal ocean. How could he account for the covering of the entire earth, and then the shrinking of the ocean volume as the primitive and transition mountains emerged and the secondary and tertiary deposits were formed? The movement of a significant volume of water into the Earth's interior had been proposed as early as Strabo, but it was not embraced by Werner because it was associated with conjecture. Nevertheless, with his views on basalt, he obviously did not believe that the interior of the earth was molten. Werner appears to have dodged the question for the most part. He thought that some of the water could have been lost to space by the passing of some celestial body. That interpretation, however, raised the related question of explaining the return of the waters reflected in the secondary rocks.
Read more about this topic: Abraham Gottlob Werner
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