The Origin of the Continents
The Origin of the Continents
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DOI：
10.1038/115873a0
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发表时间：
1925-06
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
A. Holmes
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Holmes
Dr. R. H.拉斯特尔在5月2日《自然》杂志第646页上发表的一篇有趣的文章，提出了一个可能是最困难的问题，或者说是一组问题，而这些问题是哲学家尚未解决的。在考虑大陆的起源时，需要解释的要点是，大陆块仅限于地球表面的三分之一多一点，而且它们的分布明显不对称。以前流行的“四面体”假说，除了它的描述不足，迄今已失败无望时，面临的原则，isoelectric。它清楚地暗示了一个横向分异的过程，在这个过程中，地球上的花岗岩储量可能强烈地集中在所谓的四面体的角和沿着边，而对应于海洋区域的面的内部基本上没有花岗岩。否则，四面体的形式将是不稳定的，因此是暂时的。然而，没有人成功地设计出任何可行的过程，这种过程是由地球收缩引起的，它会导致大陆岩石的侧向集中。
DR. R. H. RASTALL'S interesting article in NATURE of May 2, p. 646, raises what is perhaps the most difficult problem or group of problems that geophysicists have yet to solve. In considering the origin of the continents, the essential points to be explained are the restriction of the continental blocks to little more than one-third of the earth's surface and the marked asymmetry of their distribution. The formerly popular “tetrahedral” hypothesis, apart from its descriptive inadequacy, has hitherto failed hopelessly when confronted with the principle of isostasy. It clearly implies a process of lateral differentiation whereby the earth's store of granite could become strongly concentrated at the corners and along the edges of the alleged tetrahedron, leaving the interior of the faces, corresponding to the oceanic areas, substantially free from granite. Otherwise the tetrahedral form would be unstable and therefore temporary. No one, however, has succeeded in devising any workable process arising out of the earth's contraction which would lead to such lateral concentration of the continental rocks.