ABSTRACT
The one thing upon which we can all agree is that just a short while ago a major revolution occurred in the science of geology. Geologists switched from accepting a static earth-picture to endorsing a vision of an earth with its surface constantly in motion. (See Cox 1973, Hallam 1973, Marvin 1973, Wilson 1970.) It is true that early in this century the German geologist Alfred Wegener (1915) argued that the continents as we today find them have ‘drifted’ to their positions from other positions widely different. However, other than amongst a number of scientists drawn almost exclusively from the southern hemisphere, his ideas fell on deaf-or more precisely, contemptuous-ears. Then in the mid 1960s, almost literally overnight, the geological community swung around and embraced the hypothesis of continental drift, or what we shall see is perhaps more accurately called ‘plate tectonics’.
