S WARREN CAREY; PART 1

                           S. Warren Carey and an expanding earth

S. Warren Carey, the Tasmanian  Devil, Part 1

I am going to describe the work of one of the most important geotectonic thinkers of the early and middle years of the 20^th century.  S (Sam) Warren Carey was a professor at the University of Tasmania; although he had visiting appointments at prestigious universities elsewhere.  He is sometimes described as an early advocate of continental drift – but that, while true, requires an asterisk, and a big one.  Carey certainly believed that the sialic continents of the earth had once been together and have separated subsequently, creating ocean basins in between.  However, Carey knew nothing (or cared not much) of mantle convection.  Instead, he proposed that the earth once had a much smaller diameter – about half as big as now, if you must know – and had a complete sialic shell!  Then, as the earth expanded, the sialic shell broke into pieces and moved apart, creating relatively young oceanic crust in between.

This was not as wild an idea in 1930, say, as it seems today.  After all, the astrophysics people had shown that the universe itself is expanding.  So, people mused, what if Newton’s “universal constant, K – as featured in his equation F = K(m1Xm2)/r² was actually a variable)?  If gravitational attraction decreases, do objects get farther apart?  Would the earth expand as a consequence?

Well, as it happens, probably not – but Carey had good reason to think otherwise, before Vine and Mathews and the plate tectonics scientific revolution.  It can be shown (has been shown) that Carey’s specific model doesn’t work - but that is a topic in itself, which I may get into someday.

So if Carey was so wrong, why do I maintain that he was an important figure in geoscience?  That will be argued extensively in my next blog.  However, note that terms defined by Carey on the basis of his expanding earth hypothesis are in common use today.  Who has not heard of “oroclines” – bent linear crustal features – first defined by the Tasmanian Devil?  Less commonly used are “rhombochasm” (the Atlantic Ocean basin could be so described}, or “sphenochasm” – the Arica depression in the western edge of South America could be one of these – although I doubt it.

Here is Dr. Carey, pleading his own case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Othb0xsvZb4&list=PLRA8S2qijlkE9bJe69VlglZuU-ppoxVAU&index=2&t=0s&app=desktop