The Changing Landscape of Plate Tectonics
Geophysicist W. Jason Morgan
This talk gives a historical account of the developing science of plate tectonics, given by Geophysicist William Jason Morgan.
Although I'll admit I chose to include it as much for the introduction as for the interesting talk that follows. You see, while most introductions have me pushing fast-forward, once in a while I’m stopped by something that resonates and I’ll pay attention. The introduction to this video is an example. Professor Jerry Mitrovica* delivers an enjoyable listen, while beautifully illustrating what a serious scientist is all about.
* Incidentally, he gives a great lecture in his own right:
Jerry Mitrovica exemplifies the ‘scientific way’ - the passionate curiosity driven need to learn about our planet, based on honestly assessing all evidence and facts at hand, while striving to attain better information for yet more accurate understanding, always moving forward.
When listening to Mitrovica please notice his willingness to search out and examine the shortcomings and mistakes in his own, thinking, work and conclusions. His respect for colleagues, even his “competitors” along with a respect for their substantive work - It’s because honestly learning about our planet as accurately as possible is the cornerstone to their work and careers. (Why isn’t that aspect being loudly enunciated by writers?)
Listening to Mitrovica got me to wondering yet again, how the hell have we come to this sad state of accepted willful ignorance? (I mean listen to him next to the malicious string of slander Lindzen and Singer, et al. are limited to spitting out in their videos - who would you buy a used car from?) Over the past five decades huge swaths of our population have been brainwashed into believing scientists are bad people with bad intent and untrustworthy.
Why? Because their preacher told them so! Shouldn’t we be asking why such a failure of vision and communication was allowing to happen?
How did today’s fantasy thinking become so normalized? You know, I'm talking about that mind boggling willful ignorance going around. Founded on the notion that ‘you’ somehow have figured out “God” and that ‘you’ petty, scared, self-centered human, have miraculously been assigned with doing God Almighty’s bidding. The EGO and hubris at work is blinding, but they are getting away with it.
It’s ludicrous. Yet here we are. America has elected a showboat celebrity incapable of reading or seriously thinking beyond his own self-aggrandizement, worst, it's being normalized more than exposed and rejected.
I’ll never figure out why/how Liberal Democratic minded people never confronted that “Jesus-Is-The-Only-Way” brainwashing that was going on under our noses for the past half century. Nor recognizing the threat to civil sanity it poised. It’s not like their intentions weren’t pretty clearly outlined (echo’s of Mein Kampf), a Christian Nation come hell or high water. Just listen to Christian Radio. I doubt they actually believed it could happen.
But then Democrats, liberals, “enlightened rationalists” were so easy to whip everywhere it mattered, how could they stop. Hell look at who they willingly made president, smart people with monstrous blindspots did this, and are happy with it. Praise be the Lord.
Actually, guess that’s not true. I do know why.
Pretty near everyone drank Hollywood Ronny Reagan’s KoolAid: “Greed is Good" - “Too Much is Never Enough” - “Profits are more important than people” mentality.
I can say this because I watched it happening. Every thinking person in the ’60s and ‘70s learned about what humanity was doing to life sustaining planet and its oceans, atmosphere, fresh water and landscapes. If you had the brains to do math, you had the brains to figure out exponential numbers, and their real world consequences, but most refused to see the results of the math in real life terms.
We made ourselves numb, apathetic towards reality, getting lost in media daydreaming and avarice, so we learned to ignore that we lived on a finite planet - during a point in global history when humanity was poised to overrun Earth’s ability to sustain us.
What Evaaa - we were off to the races and the party while the getting was good.
But I digress, it’s our Mother Earth’s Evolution I’m supposed to be focusing on this month. Back to thinking about Plate Tectonics and what it means.
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(on the history of the science of Plate Tectonics)
The Changing Landscape of Plate Tectonics
Geophysicist W. Jason Morgan
Harvard Museum of Natural History, Published on Mar 12, 2018
W. Jason Morgan, Professor Emeritus, Princeton University;
(Rises,Trenches, Great Faults, and Crustal Block - Morgan 1968)
Visiting Scholar, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
(Rises,Trenches, Great Faults, and Crustal Block - Morgan 1968)
Visiting Scholar, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
With introduction by Jerry Mitrovica.
Plate tectonic theory, a milestone in twentieth-century science, has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of Earth’s geological history, the formation of its surface features, and its earthquake movement.
Geophysicist W. Jason Morgan—who introduced plate tectonics at a 1967 meeting of the American Geophysical Union—will discuss how the theory came about, highlighting both the role of ocean exploration in the 1950s and 1960s and early observations of seafloor spreading and ocean magnetic anomalies.
He will also touch on the advances made in understanding Earth’s movements since the development of space geodesy instruments and technologies.
Presented by Harvard Museum of Natural History in collaboration with the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
Recorded - February 22, 2018
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James Hutton (1726-1797)
William Smith (1769-1839)
Alfred L. Wegener (1880 - 1930)
Fredrick J. Vine (1939 - )
Marie Tharp (1920 - 2006)
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