Arthur Holmes entered Imperial College in London in 1907. Holmes read physics under R.J. Strutt for his first degree. He then changed his major to geology and graduated the Associate of the Royal College of Science in 1910. From the years 1912 to 1920 Holmes was a demonstrator in geology at Imperial College. After that, he then became a chief geologist of an oil exploration company in Burma from 1920 to 1924. Holmes then became a professor in geology at the university of Durham in 1925. He was transferred to the Regius Chair of Geology at Edinburgh in 1943. Arthur Holmes was married twice, once to Margaret Howe in 1914, and after her death he married petrologist Doris L. Reynolds in 1939. Holmes passed away in 1965. …show more content…
He was the first earth scientist to grasp the mechanical and thermal implications of mantle convection. He also widely applied the newly developed method of radioactive dating to minerals in the first attempt to quantitatively estimate the age of Earth. Holmes was able to determine the age of minerals and the rocks they are in in 1913. Holmes also made major contributions to the theory of continental drift. It was Holmes in 1919 who suggested the mechanism that the continents are carried by the flow of the mantle on which they sit and that the mantle is flowing because it is convecting. Holmes theorized that convection currents move through the mantle the same way heated air circulates move through a