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The impetus for publishing this set of articles was the realization that, year after year, I and my students at Stanford were making copies (with varying degrees of legibility and legality) of the same classic articles on plate tectonics and geomagnetic reversals. At first we did this because there was so little material on the subject available, but even after the appearance of several excellent textbooks on plate tectonics and paleomagnetism, we still found ourselves using many of the original articles as supplementary reading. Students somehow seem to sense more acutely the excitement of discovery when they are given a sense of participation by having the scientist himself describe it to them. As scientists, most of us, when we write about our research, almost completely depersonalize it. Although there may be good reasons for this, it is a rather odd thing to do because we almost always feel a deep sense of personal involvement in our research. As some anomalous data fall into place or as a new idea begins to stir, the individual scientist, working perhaps late at night, experiences a feeling that surely is similar to the elation of the composer as he first hears new music in his mind, or to the exhilaration of the athlete as he breaks a record. Yet our science, as we write about it, tends to be science with the scientists left out. The effect is that we inadvertently may leave students with the impression that science is a routine, matter-of-fact business, which it surely isnt t. In the present book I have tried to put the scientists back into the scientific story. Wherever possible I have done this using the scientists own words, quoting from statements given to me in the spring of 1972 by many of the authors whose articles are included in this book. No pretense is made of presenting a complete history of research in plate tectonics and geomagnetic reversals. My intent, rather, is to convey something of the feeling of intense involvement and excitement experienced by earth scientists as they contributed to important new ideas.