ABSTRACTS
Students of Earth history may be forgiven for thinking that the major features of the Earth have been satisfactorily explained by contemporary theories. The textbooks, and especially the media, tend to side with the consensus and promote the view that the hard questions have been answered and all we have to do now is to fi ll in the details. The publications of research geologists, however, reveal a different picture. Sometimes concepts and models that are accepted as “standard” come under intense critical scrutiny.