Plate tectonics and modern regional geophysics

Abstract

Plate tectonic theory, with the passage of time, may prove to be as important to geology as the theory of relativity has been to modern physics. The development of this theory, and its acceptance by the various academic and industrial communities in Australia is characteristic of our provincialism. Research in this field commenced in Australian Universities in about 1966?7, and the subject has been included in undergraduate courses at most Universities since the early 1970's. I believe that most academics and students now have at least a superficial understanding of the basic concepts and corollaries of the theory, although, I must add, frequently not of the geometrical and geophysical core principles of plate?plate motion, nor of the full power of its mathematical and geological predictors.