INTRODUCTION/MAIN Introduction/Main BACKGROUND Seafarer's Challenge Why This Interest Continental Drift Oppositions to Drift Craftsman's Approach EMPIRICAL MODEL The Empirical Model Expansion Basics Model Construction Expansion Basics Model Construction Model Demonstration Riverbed Formation Video Demonstration CONCLUSIONS Conclusions Summary of Evidence The Mid-Oceans Crests Making Mountains & The Pacific Ocean Moon Expulsion Earthquakes An Impact Vision EXPANSION CARTOGRAPHY Expansion Cartography The Big Picture Waterworld Inland Evidence EXPAND HOW? Expand How? Owen's Plasma Core Continental Shelves EPILOGUE Epilogue BOOK INFO Book Info / Feedback

CAREY'S BOOK JACKET QUOTE In science, the latest theory is never the final word. In this sweeping, masterly book -- part treatise, part history, part memoir -- a geologist who has left an indelible stamp on his science goes beyond the customary bounds of science to trace the evolution of beliefs about the earth and universe. S. Warren Carey reviews the history of geology from earliest times, showing how new insights have time and again had to fight for acceptance against entrenched scientific dogma. Drawing on his work from six decades, the author probes the weaknesses of the plate-tectonic theory of the earth, geology's currently reigning paradigm. He shows that fixed notions inherited from discredited theories continue to infect much contemporary geological thought. Discussion of mountain-building among English-speaking geologists, for example, retains a fixation on compressional tectonics that arose in theory based on a shrinking earth. In this light, the author explains at length the well-developed alternative theory of an expanding earth: its history and variations, its basis in the geologic evidence, its defense from dogmatic attacks, and its disrepute in the English-speaking scientific community. He goes on to show how expansion theory provides sound hypotheses of mountain-building, the evolution of the ocean floor, the continental movements. The book takes the reader beyond plate tectonics to an expansionary explanation of the planet's entire face. In a final section, planetary expansion is tied to the independently known expansion of the universe. The logical consequences of this step displace the Big Bang dogma of the universe's instantaneous creation from nothing, revealing an endless, timeless cosmos that grows by adding mass and energy in self-cancelling equilibrium -- the null universe. The result of this stunning grand tour -- from atomic physics to mineral chemistry, fossil studies, continental motions, planetary evolution, and finally to cosmological research on the size of space and time -- is to show the educated layreader and the earthscience specialist alike geology's true reach. The book is illustrated with more than 100 maps and line drawings. Ref 5 Top | to Why this Interest / An Expansion History