Origin of Ice Ages: An Ice Shelf Theory for Pleistocene Glaciation in Nature, 201, 4915, 1964 pp. 147–149
London: Macmillan & Sons, 1964. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL PAPER WRAPS OF WILSON’S “ICE SHELF” HYPOTHESIS, HIS “SURGE” THEORY OF ICE AGES, a groundbreaking argument regarding how ice sheets fail. Although later modified by subsequent research, Wilson’s work is considered of import in 20th-century paleoclimatology because it sharpened the scientific question enough to provoke the empirical test that reframed the questions at issue, thus reframing the debate.
A.T. Wilson, a pioneering geochemist and glaciologist from New Zealand, proposed that ice ages aren't driven by slow orbital cycles but by periodic surges of the East Antarctic ice sheet — instability causing it to slide out and form a vast floating ice shelf over the Southern Ocean, triggering abrupt climate change, sea-level rises, and global cooling.
While some aspects of Wilson’s specific Antarctic surge hypothesis were later discredited by researchers, he is widely recognized as one of the very first scientists to understand the potential for massive ice sheets to fail quickly. This insight became a vital foundation for modern studies of abrupt and rapid climate change.
In the 1920s, a Serbian geophysicist and astronomer, Milutin Milankovi , developed the astronomical theory that cyclical changes in Earth's orbital movements drive long-term climate patterns and trigger Ice Ages. Wilson’s work offered a concrete alternative at a moment when Milankovitch's orbital-forcing theory had fallen out of favor and no other mechanism had gained traction.
Crucially, the two theories predicted different signatures in the climate record: Milankovitch implied fixed ~23k/41k/100k-year cycles, while Wilson's surge mechanism implied no such regular periodicity. That sharp, testable contrast helped motivate the push to find a long, reliably dated paleoclimate archive capable of distinguishing between them. Item #1700
CONDITION & DETAILS: London: Macmillan & Co. Nature, Volume 201, No. 4915. Original Wraps. (10 x 7 inches; 250 x 175mm). Original paper wraps. There is a small, quite faint arrival date stamped on the front wrap; no other marks whatsoever. Slight scuffing at the upper edge of the front wrap. Withal, very good + condition.
Price: $140.00