Geophysics and world affairs: A plea for geoscience

The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics was founded in the hopeful year of 1919, when the scientists of the world, largely under Anglo‐French leadership, had ceased their highly regimented and destructive efforts in the art of war, and had naturally returned to their constructive efforts in the art of peace, that is, so far as peace and justice may be acquired through the invention and production of new gadgets, the alleviation of physical disease, and the further elaboration of a highly mathematical and a mechanistic but none too natural philosophy. The American Geophysical Union was organized in 1919 to serve as the American Committee of the International Union, and also, through its Executive Committee, to serve as the Committee on Geophysics of the National Research Council. It is important, especially at this time, that we should appreciate both the national and international responsibilities of our Executive Committee; the difficulty and delicacy of these responsibilities being even more complicated in time of war by the fact that several of our officers are also employed by the Government of the United States. In 1920 membership in the American Geophysical Union numbered 56, five of whom were ex‐officio, and it has steadily increased to 1327. Thus the American Geophysical Union is today primarily an American Society of Geophysicists whose Executive Committee officially represents American geophysics, both in this country and abroad. Like its international parent, the American Geophysical Union is made up of Sections or Associations representing Geodesy, Seismology, Meteorology, Terrestrial Magnetism and Electricity, Oceanography, and Volcanology, and the Section of Hydrology was added in 1930. In 1940, after much careful deliberation, a new Section of Tectonophysics was added, in spite of the fact that this Section does not exist in the International Union. This necessity for the eighth branch to the candlestick came through the increasing interest and accomplishments of those students of earth‐science who were coordinating the experimental and observational data derived from the study of the deformation of the crust of the Earth, both as to cause and effect. Tectonophysics is of particular interest to the structural and economic geologist, and our new Section will serve a unique and useful purpose in encouraging and supporting experimental and theoretical investigations of the deformation of rocks and all closely related phenomena. This statement is well supported by the excellent program which the new Section has submitted for this meeting.