American Intransigence: The Rejection Of Continental Drift In The Great Debates Of The 1920'S

Historians of the early debate on the Wegenerian continental drift hypothesis all point to the 1926 symposium of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists as instrumental in turning American geologists against Alfred Wegener. Many of them believe that the anti-Wegener papers presented in this symposium were cogent enough to warrant rejecting all forms of mobilism. I argue herein that neither of the above contentions is well founded. Drift was discussed extensively in the United States before 1926, the symposium in New York was inconsequential compared with the publication in 1928 of what purported to be papers given at New York, and the final contemptuous rejection of drift was sparked by a concerted effort of a few mandarins of the geological community who were deaf to the judgments of foreigners. The coup de grace was administered by Bailey Willis and Charles Schuchert in coordinated articles published in the Geological Society of America Bulletin in 1932.