Samuel Warren Carey
Samuel Warren Carey AO ( born 1 November 1911 in Campbelltown, † March 20 2002 in Hobart ) was an Australian geologist and an early proponent of the theory of continental drift. His attempts an explanation led him to develop a theory of the expanding Earth.
World War II
Carey served in World War II as a lieutenant in the special unit Z Force, which operated behind the Japanese lines, and developed a plan to mine by small groups of ships in enemy harbors (Operation "Scorpion "). He was allowed by his superiors with his unit to test the plan in an air attack on the use of American units in Townsville port and thereby secured harmless test mines on American ships. After the discovery of the mines Carey was despite his assurance that the mines were not dangerous imprisoned. At the behest of his superiors, he was soon dismissed it, but only under the condition that he left the special unit.
Carey as a geologist
After the war, Carey was a highly respected geologist who has made important contributions in the field of tectonics, the considerable influence in enforcing the idea of Mobilism had (engineers used maps and data that were developed during his fieldwork in New Guinea). He defended the theory of continental drift by Alfred Wegener, and provided along with Harry Hammond Hess, Robert S. Dietz and Bruce C. Heezen pioneering work in developing various aspects of plate tectonics. His model, which he had developed in the late 40s and early 50s, had a lot in common with the currently valid model, such as the creation of new crust in deep oceanic areas in terms of a kind of sea floor spreading. For now, he represented also the idea that a kind of subduction offsets the seafloor spreading and thus the radius of the Earth remains constant. However, 1953 was not published his work about as general theories of continental drift were not taken seriously.
However, 1958 was Carey out an influential anthology of theories leading scholar, which then returns to the continental drift on tectonic processes. He rejected, however, here the process of subduction and explained that the seafloor spreading theory of earth expansion implies ( a thought that was represented in the short term to Heezen ). However, the scientists are here the theories of Hess and Dietz followed, which introduced the ocean floor spreading and subduction in the early 60s as a mature scientific concepts and the idea of Earth expansion is considered therefore to be outdated. In 1946 he became professor of geology at the University of Tasmania. 30 years later, he resigned from this position. He and a small group of researchers concerned themselves more with the expansion theory.
Publications
- The Expanding Earth. 448 pages, Elsevier, Amsterdam 1976.
- Theories of the Earth and Universe. 206 pages, Stanford University Press, 1988.
- Earth Universe Cosmos. University of Tasmania in 1996.