The Geological History of the Pacific Ocean*

Greǵory, J. W.

doi:10.1038/125750a0

Cited by 15 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…Holtedahl (1929) was also suspicious of continental drift. Writing after the 1927-1928 Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, he stressed the geological similarities of South Georgia and Tierra del Fuego, but eschewed a drift explanation for the Scotia Arc, aligning himself more (1929, p 104) with the views expressed by Gregory (1929) in his Presidential Address. Holtedahl drew comparisons with features in the Northern Hemisphere that he had described previously (Holtedahl 1920) in terms of ocean formation by the subsidence of continental areas.…”

Section: The Beginnings Of the Continental Drift Debatementioning

confidence: 97%

“…An extensive review of these putative structures was given by Schuchert (1932) who reproduced as a starting point (1932, figure 1) Melchior Neumayr's palaeogeographical map from 1887. The vast 'Brazil-Ethiopian Continent' which Neumayr showed occupying the Jurassic South Atlantic as far south as the Falkland Islands had been extended by Gregory (1922Gregory ( , 1929 to include South Georgia and its Mesozoic fossils (Figures 6a and 6b), but it was reduced in Schuchert's (1932) Permian palaeogeography to a much more restricted 'bridge' linking Brazil and West Africa. Schuchert proposed another land bridge running from Tierra del Fuego to Graham Land via South Georgia and the South Orkney Islands, but cutting obliquely across the Scotia Sea to avoid the actively volcanic South Sandwich Islands for which there was no evidence of a continental basement.…”

Section: The Beginnings Of the Continental Drift Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The majority view undoubtedly favoured Holtedahl, and was influentially articulated by Gregory (1929) in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society of London. Therein, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the other islands of the Scotia Arc were regarded as vestiges of a foundered continent that had once occupied the South Atlantic region.…”

Section: The Beginnings Of the Continental Drift Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

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Geological exploration of South Atlantic islands and its contributions to the continental drift debate of the early 20th century

Stone

2015

Proceedings of the Geologists' Association

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The geological character of the South Atlantic islands was only slowly established during the first half of the 20 th century. That same period was marked by a generally dismissive view of continental drift but, as the continental nature of the islands became apparent, their 'oceanic' setting was utilised by both sides of the 'drift' debate to support their respective positions. So islands such as the Falklands archipelago and South Georgia were cited either as fragments detached from larger continental bodies during drift, or as the last surviving vestiges of a huge continental landmass that had subsided beneath the water of the South Atlantic. The appreciation of the Scotia Arc as a dynamic geological construct arising from lateral tectonics, and the Falkland Islands as representative of an itinerant continental fragment, were features of some early accounts of the region, but such ideas were generally discounted by the geological establishment of the day. This paper reviews the early, pioneering contributions to the geological understanding of the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Scotia Arc region, assessing their contemporary reception and tracing their influence on the developing continental drift controversy. Though commonly dismissed or ignored at the time, many of the 'pro-drift' ideas expressed were subsequently rediscovered by proponents of plate tectonics as that revolution swept through geology in the late 1960s.

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Section: The Beginnings Of the Continental Drift Debatementioning

confidence: 97%

Section: The Beginnings Of the Continental Drift Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Beginnings Of the Continental Drift Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

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Geological exploration of South Atlantic islands and its contributions to the continental drift debate of the early 20th century

Stone

2015

Proceedings of the Geologists' Association

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“…The rejection of continental drift by the geological mainstream has been well- Newman 1995;Oreskes 1999) and the majority view at the end of the 1920s was illustrated by Gregory (1929) Carey (Australia), whilst many of those geologists active in the South Atlantic region also viewed the process as an attractive explanation for the regional geology (Stone 2015). For the Falkland Islands, the most radical proposal came from Adie (1952a) who aligned structural and sedimentological trends to support the rotation of a Falkland Islands continental block through about 180° from an original position adjacent to the east coast of South Africa (Fig.…”

Section: The Historical Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Geology reviewed for the Falkland Islands and their offshore sedimentary basins, South Atlantic Ocean

Stone¹

2015

Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Socie

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The position of the Falkland Islands adjacent to the South American continental margin belies the close association of their geology with that of South Africa. A Mesoproterozoic basement is unconformably overlain by a Silurian to Devonian succession of fluvial to neritic and shallow marine, siliciclastic strata. This is disconformably succeeded by a largely Permian succession that, near its base, includes a glacigenic diamictite and, thence, passes upwards into a succession of deltaic and lacustrine strata. The lithological succession and the character of its deformation bear striking similarities to the Cape Fold Belt and Karoo retroarc foreland basin. Swarms of Early Jurassic dykes were coeval with the Karoo magmatism and the initial break-up of Gondwana; Early Cretaceous dykes were intruded during the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. Offshore sedimentary basins surrounding the archipelago contain Late Jurassic to Palaeogene successions and are currently the focus of hydrocarbon exploration. Best known is the North Falkland Basin, a classic failed rift. To the SE, the passive margin, Falkland Plateau Basin may also be rift-controlled, whilst the South Falkland Basin is a foreland basin created at the boundary of the South American and Scotia plates. The role of the Falkland Islands during the breakup of Gondwana remains controversial. Compelling evidence from the onshore geology favours rotation of an independent microplate from an original position adjacent to the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Alternative interpretations, justified largely from offshore geology, favour extension of the Falkland Plateau as a fixed promontory from the South American margin.

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“…Such thinking carried through to Gregory's (1929) Durant & Farrow (1999), between the various 'continental foundering' models: the Falklands and South Georgia had been variously identified as the southern limit of Gregory's Flabellites Land, the northern limit of Tyrrell's South Atlantic landmass, and the eastern limit of Ferguson's 'Greater Patagonia'.…”

Section: Epilogue: the Regional Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

The mineral prospecting expeditions to the South Atlantic islands and Antarctic Peninsula region made by the Scottish geologist David Ferguson, 1912–1914

Stone

Faithfull

2013

SJG

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Synopsis David Ferguson’s mineral prospecting expeditions to South Georgia (1912), the Falkland Islands and the South Shetland Islands (1913–1914), on behalf of the Christian Salvesen whaling company of Leith and now largely forgotten, were early examples of commercially motivated terrestrial exploration in the South Atlantic region. Prior geological knowledge was very limited and Ferguson complemented his unsuccessful prospecting work with attempts to understand the regional geology of the areas that he visited. These interpretations were based on relatively cursory fieldwork undertaken in an arduous environment, and did not prove robust; but the well-documented specimen collections that Ferguson accumulated provided the basis for excellent and much-cited petrographical accounts by G. W. Tyrrell of Glasgow University. Ferguson had studied geology at the university and the influence of his mentor there, Professor J. W. Gregory, is apparent. In turn, Gregory utilized Ferguson’s observations in support of a subsided ‘South Atlantic continent’, opposing the ‘displacement hypothesis’ for that region formalized by Alfred Wegener from 1912 onwards. Ferguson’s field notebooks and most of his rock specimens are now held by Glasgow University (Archive Services and Hunterian Museum, respectively) but he distributed representative specimen collections widely, and these are extant in several other British museums. Specimens were also supplied to, and discussed with, William Speirs Bruce who, following the 1902–1904 Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, took a keen interest in Ferguson’s discoveries.

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The Geological History of the Pacific Ocean*

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

Geological exploration of South Atlantic islands and its contributions to the continental drift debate of the early 20th century

Geological exploration of South Atlantic islands and its contributions to the continental drift debate of the early 20th century

Geology reviewed for the Falkland Islands and their offshore sedimentary basins, South Atlantic Ocean

The mineral prospecting expeditions to the South Atlantic islands and Antarctic Peninsula region made by the Scottish geologist David Ferguson, 1912–1914

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