Bailey Willis (1857-1949): Geological Theorizing and Chinese Geology

References

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• Willis , Bailey . 1906-13 . Research in China in Three Volumes and Atlas. Geographical and Geological Maps , i Washington. DC : The Carnegie Institute of Washington .
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• Willis , Bailey . 1949 . Friendly China: Two Thousand Miles Afoot among the Chinese , Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press .
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• Krauskopf , Konrad B. 1976 . 'Eliot Blackwelder, June 4, 1880-January 14, 1969' . Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences , 48 : 83 – 103 . On Blackwelder, see: and plate. Blackwelder attended Chicago University, where he was attracted from classics into geology by Rollin Salisbury. After two years teaching at Chicago, Blackwelder received the invitation to join the Willis expedition. Following his work in China, Blackwelder was at Wisconsin University, where he occupied a chair from 1910 to 1916. and then he was Head of Geology at The University of Illinois until 1919. In 1922, after a short period in the oil industry, he took over Willis's chair at Stanford, where he headed the Geology Department for twenty-three years until his retirement in 1945. Blackwelder's geological interests, like those of Willis, were catholic, but his chief concerns became geomorphology (glaciated and desert landscapes) and sedimentation. He rose to the Presidencies of the Geological Society of America (1940) and the Seismological Society (1947-49)
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• Willis , Bailey . 1906 . 'Among the Mountains of Shen-Si' . Bulletin of the Geographical Society of America , 38 : 412 – 24 .
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• Willis , Bailey . 1905 . “ 'Geological Research in Eastern Asia' ” . In Year Book No. 3, 1904 , 275 – 91 . Washington, DC : The Carnegie Institution of Washington .
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• Chorley , Richard J. , Dunn , Antony J. and Beckinsale , Robert P. 1964-73 . The History of the Study of Landforms or the Development of Geomorphology , London : Methuen . I: Geomorphology (1964); II: The Life and Work of William Morris Davis (1973)
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• The Wutai Geological Survey Team . 1953 . "A New Interpretation of the Stratigraphy of the Wutai System, Wutai Shan District' . Geological Memoir , 4 (32) (in Chinese)
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• Hayford , John F. 1909 . The Figure of the Earth and Isostasy from Measurements in the United States , Washington, DC : Government Printer .
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• Oreskes , Naomi . 1999 . The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science , Oxford and New York : Oxford University Press .
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• Wegener , Alfred . 1924 . The Origin of Continents and Oceans German edn , 3rd , Edited by: Skerl , J.G.A. 176 London : Methuen . (We reached the conclusion that Willis's theorizing was faulty before we noticed Wegener's comment.)
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• An , Shen Shi , ed. 1999 . Chinese Geomorphology , Beijing : China Cartographic Publishing House . (in Chinese)
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• Chamberlin , Thomas C. and Salisbury , Rollin D. 1905-06 . Geology: Processes & their Results , 3 vols , London : John Murray . H. Chapter 1
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• Willis , Bailey . 1907 . 'A Theory of Continental Structure applied to North America' . Bulletin of the Geological Society of America , 18 : 389 – 412 .
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• Willis , Bailey . 1922 . 'Role of Isostatic Stress' . Bulletin of the Geological Society of America , 33 : 371 – 74 .
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• Willis , Bailey . 1932 . 'Radioactivity and Theorizing' . American Journal of Science. 5th series , 23 : 193 – 226 .
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• Willis , Bailey . 1935 . The Living Globe' . Science , 82 : 428 – 33 .
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• Willis , Bailey . 1938 . 'Asthenolith (Melting Spot) Theory" . Bulletin of the Geological Society of America , 49 : 603 – 14 .
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• Willis , Bailey . 1939 . The Growth of Asia' . The Scientific Monthly , 48 : 487 – 92 .
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• This was one of the first monographs on the regional geology of China. The authors commented on the works of various foreign geologists, such as von Richthofen, Willis, Obruchev, and the Hungarian Ludwig von Loczy (1849-1920). See The Record of Study of Teachers and Students at the Geological Institute [Peking] (Peking: Peking Publishing House, 1916) (in Chinese).
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• 1996 . Dictionary of Chinese Strata , 46 – 47 . Beijing : Geological Publishing House . The 'Taishan Complex' (now called the Taishan Group') has been dated radiometrically to 2740-2788 Ma and is thus currently classified as Neo-Archaean, a unit that had not been proposed in Willis's day. See: (in Chinese)
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• Sun , Y.C. 1924 . 'Contributions to the Cambrian Fauna of China' . Palaeontologica Sinica, Series B , 1 When Sun's monograph was published, Grabau was most gratified and invited his Chinese colleagues to dinner to celebrate the publication of the first major work written by a Chinese geologist. See:
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• Jing-yi , Yang . 1984 . "A Brief Biography of A.W. Grabau' . Studies in the History of Natural Science , 3 : 83 – 89 . 88 (in Chinese)
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• Sun , Y.C. 1937 . 'A Report on the Age of the Gu Shan Stage' . Geological Review , 2 : 95 – 97 . At a meeting of the Geological Society of China in Beijing on 19 December 1936, Sun showed that the fossils in the Gu-shan strata had been investigated by Bergeron, Monke, Walcott, Sun, Resser, and others, and he decided that they belonged to the Middle Cambrian. He also mentioned that he visited the Gu-shan beds with students from Peking University in 1924 and found that they had a basal conglomerate. More important was the discovery that, in the four fossil zones, none from the second was discovered in the third. The species Bergeronia ketteleri from the third and fourth zones was similar to the Upper Cambrian European type Prepeltura, and to the North American Dicellocephalus, also Upper Cambrian. So part at least of the Gu-shan strata was Upper Cambrian (in Chinese)
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• Hao , Lu Yan and Ting , Dong Nan . 1952 . 'A New Observation on the Type Section of the Cambrian in Shandong Province' . Geological Memoir , 32 : 104 – 105 . 171 The first task of Lu and his co-workers was to re-examine the Mantou Formation, by correlating it with parts of the Middle Cambrian in the Taizi Basin in northeast China, for they thought that the upper part of the Mantou Shale was similar to Middle Cambrian strata in that part of the country. Establishing the fossil zones in Zhangxia, the type locality for the Zhangxia Formation, was one of the tasks. Within some limestone beds an obvious break was found between the limestone and the Maozhuang oolitic limestone; yet there appeared to be numerous Middle Cambrian fossils such as Anomocarella and Nepaidea. Lu et al. named the limestone above the break as the Xuzhuang Formation. See: (in Chinese)
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• Wen , Xiang Li . 1981 . The Cambrian of China (The Stratigraphy of China, Part 4) , 54 Beijing : Geological Press . Based on: (in Chinese)
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• 2000 . Twenty Years of Studies in the Stratigraphy of China (1979-1999) , 14 – 16 . Beijing : China Science and Technology Press . For details of the Chinese claims, with illustrations of the sections and fossils, see: Luo Huilin, Jiang Zhiwen, Wu Xiche, Song Xueliang, Ouyang Liu. Xing Yusheng, Liu Guizhi, Zhang Shishan and Tao Yonghe. Sinian-Cambrian Boundary Stratotype Section at Meishucun, Jinning, Yunnan, China ( Yunnan: People's Publishing House, 1984) (in Chinese and English). The authors of this work contend (pp. 134-36) that the Meishucun fauna is older than the bottom of the Tommotian in Siberia, regarded in Russia as at the base of the Cambrian. However, more recent Chinese opinion is that correlation with Tommotian is correct and the following stage correlations for the Lower Cambrian are recommended: China Siberia North America Longwangmiaoan Toyonian Wancoban Tsanglangpuan Botomian Dyeran Qiongzhusi Atdabanian Montezuman Meishucunian Tommotian Begadean. See: (in Chinese)
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• Pumpelly , Raphael . 1867 . Geological Researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan, During the Years 1862 to 1865, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, xv , 67 Washington, DC : The Smithsonian Institution . In using the term thus for a structural feature, Pumpelly was probably thinking in terms of the theories of the influential French geologist, Léonce Élie de Beaumont, which were still popular in Europe when he was a student at Freiberg
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• Grabau , Amadeus W. 1922 . The Sinian System' . Bulletin of the Geological Society of China , 1 : 44 – 88 . This paper discusses the various localities where von Richthofen and the Americans worked, and how they interpreted what they saw. The stratigraphie details will not be entered into here. Grabau spent the first half of his career at Renssalaer Institute and Columbia University and then took up a chair at Peking University in 1920. He has a prominent memorial in the University's gardens
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• Lee , J.S. 1922 . 'The Nature and Extent of a Stratigraphie Break in the Cambro-Ordovician Limestones of Northern Anhui, and its Bearing upon the Systematic Classification of the Cambrian-Ordovician' . Bulletin of the Geological Society of China , 1 : 89 – 96 . (in English)
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• Lee , J.S. 1924 . 'Geology of the Gorge District of the Yangtze (from Ichang to Tzekui), with Special Reference to the Development of the Gorges' . Bulletin of the Geological Society of China , 3 : 351 – 91 . 360 (in English)
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• Kao , C.S. , Hsiung , Y.H. and Kao , P. P. 1934 . 'Preliminary Notes on Sinian Stratigraphy of North China' . Bulletin of the Geological Society of China , 13 : 243 – 73 . 244 (in Chinese)
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• The All-China Commission on the Stratigraphy of China, The Precambrian of China (Report of the First All-China Conference on Stratigraphy) Beijing Science Press, 1962, pp. 73-74.
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• Liu , Hong Yun . 1995 . “ 'Review and Perspectives of the Study of the Sinian System in China' ” . In Retrospect of the Development of Geosciences Disciplines in China , Edited by: Hongzhen , Wang . 135 – 40 . Beijing : China University of Geosciences Press . (The date for the beginning of the Cambrian has subsequently been modified.)
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• Chinese Bureau of Coalfield Geology . 1991 . Selected Works of Wang Zhu-quan , 43 Beijing : Coal Industry Press . (in Chinese)
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• Kieh , Yang . 1936 . On a Kind of Conical Fossil in Metamorphic Limestone in the Nantai Horizon, Wutai Shan, Shanxi' . Geological Review , 1 : 213 – 14 . (in Chinese)
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• Kieh , Yang . 1935 . 'Un Fossile dans le Marbre du Sud de Nantai (Woutaichan, Chansi)' . Bulletin of the Geological Society of China , 14 : 303 – 07 . (in French)
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• Xing-Yuan , Ma . 1956 . On the Fundamental Characters of the Geological Structures in Wutai Shan , Beijing : Geological Publishing House . (in Chinese). 8" Willis et al. (note 3). I. 108
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• Regional Survey Team. Geological Bureau of Shanxi Province. Introduction to Geological Maps ( Pingxingguan Sheet, 1:200,000) (1967), p. 594 (in Chinese).
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• Chao , Y.T. and Huang , T.K. 1931 . On the Study of the Geology of Qinlingshan and Sichuan, Peking . Geological Memoir, Series A , : 228 (in English) and p. 48 (in Chinese), and Plate XIX
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• Grabau , Amadeus W. 1924 . 'Migration of Geosynclines' . Bulletin of the Geological Society of China , 3 : 207 – 349 . Here Grabau argued that the great majority of geosynclines had been transformed into mountain ranges, while the bordering former lands had subsided to form new ones. Hence: 'migration of geosynclines'
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• 1992 . Selected Works of Huang Jiqing , 205 – 17 . Beijing : Geological Publishing House . (in Chinese). Huang's ideas seem to have some analogy to the contemporary ideas about 'tectonic cycles' then popular in North America, as a derivative of the ideas of Dana and the ideas of W.M. Davis on cycles of erosion. (See:
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• Lee , J.S. 1939 . 'Continental Drift' . Geological Magazine , 76 : 289 – 93 . Lee thought that as the Earth cooled and contracted, and denser matter sank towards its centre, its angular velocity would necessarily increase, thereby generating forces urging the Earth's crust to move from the polar towards the equatorial regions. Subsequently, a short article setting out the theory was published in English: The idea seems to have been similar to those expressed by Frank Taylor at the New York symposium in 1926, and subsequently in his Theory of Continental Drift (1928)
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• Lee , J.S. 1926 . The Fundamental Cause of Evolution of the Earth's Surface Features' . Bulletin of the Geological Societv of China , 5 : 259 – 61 .
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• Ampferer , Otto . 1906 . 'Über das Bewungsbild, von Faltengebirgen' . Jahrbuch der kaiserlich-königlichen geologischen Reichanstalt , 56 : 539 – 622 .
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• Dennis , John G. 1982 . Orthodoxy and Creativity in Theories of Mountain Building before 1922' . Geologische Rundschau , 71 : 421 – 26 .
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