Fifty years ago Jason Morgan and I proposed what is now known as the theory of plate tectonics, which brought together the ideas of continental drift and sea floor spreading into what is probably their final form. I was twenty-five and had just finished my PhD. The success of the theory marked the beginning of a change of emphasis in the Earth sciences, which I have spent the rest of my career exploring. Previously geophysicists had principally been concerned with using ideas and techniques from physics to make measurements. But the success of plate tectonics showed that it could also be used to understand and model geological processes. This essay is concerned with a few such efforts in which I have been involved: determining the temperature structure and rheology of the oceanic and continental lithosphere, and with how mantle convection maintains the plate motions and the long-wavelength part of the Earth’s gravity field. It is also concerned with how such research is supported. Expected final online pu...

中文翻译：

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一位地质学家反思长期职业

五十年前，我和杰森摩根提出了现在众所周知的板块构造理论，该理论将大陆漂移和海底扩张的思想结合成可能是它们的最终形式。我 25 岁，刚刚完成博士学位。该理论的成功标志着地球科学重点转变的开始，我在余下的职业生涯中一直在探索。以前地球物理学家主要关注使用物理学的思想和技术进行测量。但是板块构造的成功表明它也可以用于理解和模拟地质过程。本文涉及我参与的一些此类工作：确定海洋和大陆岩石圈的温度结构和流变学，以及地幔对流如何维持板块运动和地球重力场的长波长部分。它还关注如何支持此类研究。预计最终上线...