Arthur Holmes - Continental Drift

Continental Drift

Holmes championed the theory of continental drift promoted by Alfred Wegener at a time when it was deeply unfashionable with his more conservative peers. One problem with the theory lay in the mechanism of movement, and Holmes proposed that Earth's mantle contained convection cells that dissipated radioactive heat and moved the crust at the surface. His second famous book Principles of Physical Geology, ending with a chapter on continental drift, was published in 1944. Part of the model was the origin of the seafloor spreading concept. His later measurements of the age of the Earth (4,500±100 Ma) were based on measurements of the relative abundance of uranium isotopes by Alfred O. C. Nier.