Samuel Warren Carey

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Samuel Warren Carey

Samuel Warren Carey AO (1911 – 2002) was an Australian geologist who was an early advocate of the theory of continental drift. His work on plate tectonics reconstructions led him to develop the theory of the expanding earth.

Carey served in World War II as a lieutenant in the special forces unit Z Force, developing a bold plan using small teams to mine ships in an enemy harbour. This operation (Scorpion) became obsolete but Carey secretly tested his plan by infilrating Townsville harbour, placing dummy limpet mines on American ships.

Sam Carey was a highly regarded contributor to geology and his many contributions to the emerging theories and proposals were often in advance of the accepted view. Maps and data produced from his field work in New Guinea were sought after by engineers and fellows. He backed the moving of continents proposed by Wegener and had decided on the mechanism for this when plate tectonics became the accepted view. Carey's expanding earth bears many resemblances to the current model, including supercontinents dividing and going adrift, zones of new crust being generated in deep oceanic ridges, and other phenomenae of a still active crust. His theory gave the 'mechanism' for this as an expanding earth; whereas the new theory of plate tectonics accounted for it with subduction.

Despite the eventual acceptance of the plate expansion and subduction paradigm over Carey's theory, he is widely regarded as making substantial contributions to the field of tectonics and considerable influence in the initial acceptance of continental drift over a static model. In 1946, he became the founding professor of geology at the University of Tasmania. He retired from this position 30 years later in 1976. He, and a small number of other researchers, continued to support and investigate expanding earth models.