Comments on Foundation
papers
Bowen (1922)
Bowen (1922)
is a short paper where he presented his famous reaction
series for the first time. This reaction series
was a compact summary of Bowen’s argument that
fractional crystallization of basalt leads to a granitic
residual liquid. The
Wager & Deer (1939) memoir describes the
fractional crystallization trend of the Skaergaard
basaltic magma, as revealed by the successive layers
of cumulates. This
study had a huge impact mainly because the calculated
residual liquid was strongly enriched in iron. It
was not a granite! Much later, Tuttle & Bowen (1958)
determined the melting relations in the system albite-orthoclase-quartz-H2O,
which showed that felsic rocks of a very wide range
of compositions, if partly melted, would produce a
granitic melt. These results also indicated that the
final stages of fractional crystallization of a wide
range of feldspar-quartz mixtures would produce a granitic
melt. However,
the issue of what would happen if a basalt were fractionally
crystallized remained too complex for a model-system
study. Thus, the conclusions of the Skaergaard
study remained standing, and a different mechanism,
melting of felsic crustal rocks, became recognized
as the most likely origin for granites. Bowen
would have been the senior author on the Tuttle and
Bowen GSA Memoir, but he died from an overdose of sleeping
pills. Tuttle wrote it after Bowen died and became
the senior author.
For much of Bowen’s career, he had been in a
big argument with Fenner, a colleague of his at the
Geophysical Laboratory (Carnegie Institution of Washington),
over the effects of fractional crystallization of basaltic
magma. In contrast to Bowen’s continuing arguments
that this would lead to a silica-rich (granitic) residual
liquid, Fenner argued, on the basis of petrographic
study of partly crystallized basalts, that it would
lead to an iron-rich residual liquid. Bowen and Schairer
then determined the MgO-FeO-SiO2 phase diagram, which
strongly supported Fenner's idea. It is a classic
paper, with detailed descriptions of phase-equilibrium
principles that are wonderful material for students.
However, there is not a single word in that paper about
the Bowen-Fenner controversy! It seems clear that Bowen
had hoped to use that study to discredit Fenner's idea. Certainly,
Bowen must have realized that the claim he had held
throughout his career, that granitic magmas are produced
by fractional crystallization of basaltic magma, was
wrong. However, none of his writings reveal any
hint of uncertainty.
Nevertheless, he left behind
a wonderful legacy of absolutely superb and beautifully
executed experimental studies that were critical to
the resolution of a major controversy. His experimental
data provided inspiration and a solid foundation
for studies of more complex systems over a wide range
of pressures by another generation.–Dean Presnall
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Bowen, N.L., 1928, The
Evolution of the Igneous Rocks, Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 334 pp.
-
Bowen, N.
L., 1922, The reaction principle in petrogenesis,
J. Geology, 30, 177-198.
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Tuttle, O.F., and N.L. Bowen,
1958, Origin of granite in the light of experimental
studies in the system NaAlSi3O8-KAlSi3O8-SiO2-H20,
Geol. Soc. Am. Mem. 74, 151 pp.
-
Wager, L.R., and W.A.
Deer, W. A., 1939, Geological
investigations in East Greenland Part III. The
petrology of the Skaergaard Intrusion, Kangerdlugssuaq,
East Greenland. The
Scoresby Sound Committee’s 2ND
East Greenland Expedition in 1932 to King Christian
IX’s Land Leader: E Mikkelsen Plus The British
East Greenland Expedition 1935-1936 Leader: L.R.
Wager. Medd. om Grønland, 105 (4), 346 +
27 plates + One map. Back
Wetherill (1956)
This paper set out the basics of concordia-discordia
plots and remains the basis of obtaining accurate U-Pb
ages even today.–Ajoy Baksi Back
Patterson (1956)
Using the uranium-lead method, this paper calculates
the age of the Earth and it is basically unchanged
today.–Ajoy Baksi Back
Von
Herzen
(1959)
This paper by Dick Von Herzen in Nature (1959) is rarely referenced, but it is based on heat
flow measurements in the Pacific Ocean. Dick noted
that the heat flow on the East Pacific Rise is higher
than the surrounding region and a similar pattern had
been observed for the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. He speculated
on how these patterns might be related to convection
cells, rising up at the ridge. Also, he noted the curious
near equality in heat flow values between the continents
and oceans despite the differences in the radioactive
content of oceanic and continental crusts.–Carol
Stein Back
Morley & Larochelle (1962)
I interviewed Vine, Matthews and Larry
Morley extensively for my book The
road to Jaramillo.
Morley had clear priority in time of conceptualization
over Vine and Matthews and he also had a more complete
version of the theory. I thus renamed the Vine-Matthews
hypothesis, the Vine-Matthews-Morley hypothesis. Morley's
paper was turned down flat by two journals, and the
referee for one them sent a scathingly pejorative critique.
I tried to get a copy of Morley's original manuscript
but it had been burned in a fire that destroyed much
of his stuff.
Details: in February 1963,
Morley submitted his hypothesis in the form of a Letter
to
Nature. Two months later he was notified that
they "did
not have room to print his Letter." He then submitted
it to Journal of Geophysical Research in April.
He got no answer until September, which was after the
publication of the Vine-Matthews paper in Nature.
The editor of Journal of Geophysical Research apologized
for the very tardy response, which he said was due
to his summer-long absence. He said that the paper
had gone to an anonymous referee who had said that "such
speculation makes interesting talk at cocktail parties,
but it is not the sort of thing that ought be published
as serious science."
Following
the second rejection Morley gave an oral presentation
to the Royal Society of Canada in Quebec, June 4th,
1964. His hypothesis was not published until late 1964
in an article written with Andre Larochelle who told
me explicitely that he played no role in the formulation
of the hypothesis and that the idea had been exclusively
Morley's. The
fire at Morley's home occurred 5th December, 1978 and
destroyed all the correspondence from both Nature and Journal
of Geophysical Research.
For further details about other aspects
of this story see The
road to Jaramillo: Critical years of the Revolution
in Earth Science, William Glen, 1982.–Bill
Glen Back
Merrihue (1966)
This paper s ets out the basics of
40Ar/39Ar dating especially the
stepheating technique.–Ajoy Baksi Back
York (1969)
A classic paper with almost 2000
citations. It forms the basis of all isochron fits,
evaluating the statistics thereof.–Ajoy Baksi Back
Cox (1980)
Cox (1980)
is a simply titled and readily readable paper that
argues effectively why we get such uniformity in the
type of eruptive products observed in flood basalts.
The origin of basaltic magmas had been a cause for
great debate during the sixties and seventies, and
several bench-mark papers had already been delivered
on the subject.
The insight that Cox’s work
offers is achieved using a classical petrological approach.
Major element variation diagrams are used to asses
the influence of crystallizing mineral assemblages
upon residual liquids, and then to demonstrate that
the uniformity of flood basalt compositions are primarily
the result of the buffering of chemical change during
ascent and ponding of the melt prior to eruption. Cox
also uses the then ‘new-fangled’ computerized
numerical modelling approach to assess major element
fractionation of basaltic rocks. However, most importantly,
he then tests his modelled results against real data
from basalts he collected in Lesotho, Nuanetsi and
Parana, thus demonstrating that the favoured model
holds true in nature. In effect, this paper is a lesson
in using the classical scientific approach.
The paper also outlines the idea of ‘underplating’ based
entirely upon the same petrogenetic arguments. Cox
states: ‘In
areas of flood vulcanism a potentially large new contribution
to the crust is made by underplating, the volumes of
concealed cumulates being at least as large as the
amount of erupted surface lava’. The ramifications
of this observation have had significant impact upon
our understanding of the uplift associated with many
LIPs, and not least upon the ongoing plume/alternatives
debate.
This paper is also remarkable in that
it pre-dates access to the analytical techniques we
enjoy today, and instead makes maximum use of major
element analytical data, married with long experience
and considerable insight: To paraphrase a comment made
to me by Cox during my PhD studies ‘A shiny machine
is perhaps no substitute for careful and elegant thought’.
Whether the reader is plume-advocate or plume-skeptic,
this paper offers insight into why flood basalt provinces
are as they are.
On a personal note, Cox was my PhD
supervisor and in his latter years a supportive friend.
He was highly respected in the field of flood basalt
volcanism. He had an uncanny way of identifying key
issues, researching them, and then delivering his results
and thoughts in disarmingly simple language. He died
tragically in a boating accident in 1998. He had literally
just retired, and we (ex-students and colleagues) were
trying to arrange a special function for him – just
to say thanks, and celebrate his contribution as a
scientist and mentor. We did get together as planned,
but instead it was a wake. There is a small band of
ex-Cox PhD students who have since achieved some degree
of success in the science – which he would have
certainly shared and enjoyed, but sadly there are no
more pints to be had down the Eagle and Child,
where a few beers would ensure that talk about petrology,
water colour painting and boating would mix seamlessly.– Mike
Widdowson Back
Halls (1982)
Halls (1982) is important for the
following reasons:
- it represented a paradigm shift in our
understanding of the importance of regional dyke
swarms in geodynamic processes. Prior to this time,
dyke swarms were poorly understood and mostly ignored
by the general geology community.
- it was used to build
interest for the first international dyke swarm conference
(in 1985 in Toronto, Canada). The success of this
first conference has led to a series of conferences
generally every 5 years: 1990 (in Adelaide, Australia),
1995 (Jerusalem, Israel), 2001 (KwaZulu-Natal, South
Africa), 2005 (Rovaniemi, Finland), and the next
is scheduled for Varanasi, India in February 2010.
- its
insights led to the current
understanding of regional dyke swarms and their links
with Large Igneous Provinces, mantle plumes, and
analogues on other planets.– Richard
Ernst Back
Press
(1986)
This book and its descendants (three
editions so far and versions for Fortran 77, Pascal,
C, Fortran 90, and C++) is certainly one of the most
influential publications in science in the last several
decades. It deserves at least an "Hono(u)rable
Mention". It may not quite be science, but it
is very important. – Bruce Julian Back
Renne (1997)
Obtained the right age of the Vesuvius
79 AD eruption material, and drives the final nail
into the coffin of fundamentalists. Renne et al. obtained
a ~2000-year age using a system with a half-life of
over 1 billion years. –Ajoy
Baksi Back
Czamanske
(1998)
This was the first paper to link "no
uplift" to "no plume" – Alexei
Ivanov Back
Oreskes (1999)
Oreskes (1999) documents how, in the early 20th century, American
Earth scientists vociferously opposed the new and highly
radical notion of continental drift. Yet 50 years later
the same idea was heralded as a major scientific breakthrough.
Today continental drift is accepted as a scientific
fact. This insightful book, based on archival sources,
looks at why American geologists initially rejected
the idea so adamantly while their counterparts in Europe
were relatively receptive. Back
Trumpy (2001)
Trumpy (2001)
reviews the great advances of alpine geologists who,
in the early 20th century, fully documented the horizontal
movements that created this chain but were unable or
afraid to challenge the mainstream view and formulate
the Plate Tectonics theory.– Luca Ferrari Back
Murakami
(2004); Oganov (2004)
The
CaIrO3-type phase of the MgSiO3 phase
was discovered in 2004 using the laser-heated diamond
anvil cell (LHDAC) technique by a group at the Tokyo
Institute of Technology and, independently, by researchers
from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH
Zurich) and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and
Technology who used a combination of quantum-mechanical
simulations and LHDAC experiments. The TIT group's
paper appeared in the journal Science. The ETH/JAM-EST
collaborative paper appeared two months later in the
journal Nature. This simultaneous discovery
was preceded by S. Ono's experimental discovery of
a similar phase, possessing exactly the same structure,
in Fe2O3.
His data was stored on a common computer accessible
to K. Hirose, and the possibility of data misuse has
become an issue of contention between the two scientists.– Wikipedia Back
Green
(2005)
I quote from Green's paper: I
conclude that the saga of ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism
is probably in its young adulthood or, perhaps, still
only at the end of its childhood. It has been a relatively
slow revolution, with its principal punctuations
being Ernst (1963), Ernst (1978), Chopin (1984) and
Smith (1984), Sobolev and Shatsky (1990), and Dobrzhinetskaya
et al. (1996). In each case, a powerful new set of
observations was added to the fabric of metamorphic
petrology: The first two were due to initial applications
of new experimental advances, the third and fourth
were field-based (but with experimental backing required
for the stability range of the high pressure polymorphs
discovered), and the fifth, based on microstructures,
required subsequent experimental verification to be
viable.– Alexei Ivanov
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last updated 28th October, 2008 |