Plate tectonics: a memoir
In 2003 the historian Naomi Oreskes published Plate Tectonics: an Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth. But what of those who were not insiders? How did it seem to them?
Oreskes’ errors
On 12 May 2025 the Earth Science historian Naomi Oreskes delivered a Royal Institution lecture with the title ‘Rethinking the origins of plate tectonics’. The advance publicity suggested that she was about to overturn the whole history of that theory. Was that true?
Open Access?
Posts by one of the major scientific publishers appearing recently on LinkedIn make the claim that it publishes papers Open Access without demanding Article Processing Fees. Is this really true?
VH-GEO and Renison Bell
In 1964, low level aeromagnetic surveys at Renison posed challenges not encountered in previous such surveys by the Bureau of Mineral Resources. Magnetic anomalies of hundreds and even thousands of nanotesla were much larger than any previously measured, and none of the topography previously flown was as extreme as that typical of western Tasmania.
The instrument that changed the world
Ways of measuring magnetic field developed during the 1930s were considered early in the Second World War as possible means of detecting submerged submarines. In the end they did rather more than that.
Tikopia
Volcanoes that look like volcanoes fascinate. Almost all appear in the catalogue of the Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program, but one at least does not.