Great Geologists | 75
Georges Cuvier and Alcide d’Orbigny and an anticipation of
aspects of modern sequence stratigraphy.
In 1899, Chamberlin challenged Lord Kelvin’s famous
calculation of the age of the Earth as being only 20–30 million
years, based on the time of cooling from a molten origin.
With his cold, planetisimal origin of the Earth in mind, he
argued that some unknown source of heat energy within the
Earth would alter Kelvin’s calculations substantially. This was
a prescient anticipation of heat from radioactive decay that in
the coming decades would establish the immense age of the
Earth.
At time of his death in 1928, he had contributed to around
250 publications including the textbook Geology (co-authored
with Rollin Salisbury), which was the de facto standard
English-language geological textbook of the early 20th
century until the publication of Principles of Physical Geology
by Arthur Holmes in 1944. He was the recipient of the first
Penrose Medal of both the Society of Economic Geologists
(1924) and the Geological Society of America (1927).
Chamberlin had a great physical and intellectual presence
and the ability to argue eloquently. He could be damning in
his criticism of his scientific opponents, which takes us back
to his “method of multiple hypotheses” — did he practice
what he preached? Perhaps not, he was certainly dogmatic
in his defence of his planetisimal theory. As Robert Dott, Jr.
remarked in a biographic article “the great T.C. Chamberlin
was human after all.”
REFERENCES
This essay has drawn upon information from the following
sources:
Chamberlin, R.T. 1932. Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin 1843-
1928. National Academy Biographical Memoirs, 15, 307-407.
Dott, R.H. 2006. Rock Stars: Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin
(1843-1928). GSA Today, October 2006, 30-31.
Dott, R.H. Jr. 1992. T.C. Chamberlin’s hypothesis of
diastrophic control of worldwide changes of sea-level: a
precursor of sequence stratigraphy. In: Dott, R.H. Jr. (ed.)
Eustasy: The Historical Ups and Downs of a Major Geological
Concept. Geological Society of America Memoir, 180, 31-42.
Greene, M.T. 1982. Geology in the Nineteenth Century.
Cornell University Press. 324pp.
Hallam, A. 1983. Great Geological Controversies. Oxford
University Press, 244pp.
Le Grand, H.E. 1988. Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories.
Cambridge University Press. 313pp.
Oldroyd, D.R. 1996. Thinking About the Earth. The Athlone
Press, 410pp.
Oreskes, N. 1999. The Rejection of Continental Drift. Oxford
University Press. 420pp.
Powell, J.L. 2015. Four Revolutions in the Earth Sciences.
Columbia University Press, 367pp.
Memorial plaque commenorating Chamberlin at the University of Wisconsin.
Appropriately, it is place on a large glacial erratic boulder.