Arthur Holmes was an English geologist who made two major contributions to the understanding of geology.
10 Facts About Arthur Holmes
2.
Arthur Holmes pioneered the use of radiometric dating of minerals, and was the first earth scientist to grasp the mechanical and thermal implications of mantle convection, which led eventually to the acceptance of plate tectonics.
3.
Arthur Holmes was born in Hebburn, County Durham, near Newcastle upon Tyne, the son of David Holmes, a cabinet-maker, and his wife, Emily Dickinson.
4.
Arthur Holmes obtained his Doctorate of Science in 1917, and in 1920 he joined an oil company in Burma as chief geologist.
5.
Arthur Holmes failed, and he returned to England penniless in 1924.
6.
Arthur Holmes had been accompanied in Burma by his three-year-old son, who contracted dysentery and died shortly before Holmes's departure.
7.
Arthur Holmes married his first wife, Margaret Howe, in 1914.
8.
Arthur Holmes estimated the oldest Archean rocks to be 1,600 Ma, but did not speculate about the Earth's age.
9.
Arthur Holmes championed the theory of continental drift promoted by Alfred Wegener at a time when it was deeply unfashionable with his more conservative peers.
10.
One problem with the theory lay in the mechanism of movement, and Arthur Holmes proposed that Earth's mantle contained convection cells that dissipated radioactive heat and moved the crust at the surface.