Holmes primary contribution was his proposed theory that convection occurred within the Earth's mantle, which explained the push and pull of continent plates together and apart. He also assisted scientists in oceanographic research in the 1950s, which publicized the phenomenon known as sea floor spreading.
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Arthur Holmes proposed that convection of the mantle is the driving mechanism for continental drift: rifts represent regions of mantle upwelling, whereas ...
He pioneered the use of radiometric dating of minerals, and was the first earth scientist to grasp the mechanical and thermal implications of mantle convection, ...
Currents of heat and thermal expansion in the Earth's mantle, he suggested, could force the continents toward or away from one another, creating new ocean floor ...
Arthur Holmes suggested that this thermal convection was like a conveyor belt and that the upwelling pressure could break apart a continent and then force ...
... mantle convection, which led eventually to the acceptance of plate tectonics. In 1943, he was appointed to the position of Regius Chair of Geology at the ...
Jan 27, 2011 · Holmes major contribution was the hypothesis that the radioactive decay occurring in the mantle of Earth would generate heat, and thereby ...
Figure 1.10. Arthur Holmes' (1931) depiction of mantle convection as the cause of continental drift, thirty years prior to the discovery of seafloor spreading.