Abstract
PROF, ARTHUR HOLMES, of the University of Durham, who succeeds Prof. Jehu as regius professor of geology in the University of Edinburgh, has an international reputation in the fields of petrology and geophysics. His name became closely linked with the classic pioneer work on radioactive minerals while he was still a junior member of staff at the Imperial College, South Kensington. He applied this new kind of quantitative data to a re-assessment of the age of the earth, and deduced the approximate period of time spanned by each of the geological ages in sequence-from Pre-Cambrian time to the present day. His contribution to both descriptive and interpretative petrology is voluminous and impressive. His later work incorporates many thought-compelling reviews of conventional hypotheses concerning the thermal history of the earth, the physical state of the earth's interior, the nature and variability of magma, and the origin of igneous rocks. His contributions to geology have profoundly influenced the scope and trend of contemporary work in the field of petrogenesis, and in close co-operation with Dr. Doris L. Reynolds he has in recent years amassed data demonstrating the effectiveness of alkali-metasomatism, transfusion by emanations from deep-seated sources, and granitization-as processes transcending in importance those accommodated within the framework of conventional petrogenetic theory.
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Prof. Arthur Holmes, F.R.S. ; Appointed to Chair of Geology at Edinburgh. Nature 151, 637 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151637b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151637b0