BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



VOL. 33, PP. 327-332 JUNE 30. 1922 



ISOSTASY AND APPLIED GEOLOGY * 



BY JAMES F. KEMP 



(Bead in full before the Society December 29, 1921) 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Fundamental relations 327 



Isostasy and coal formation 327 



Illustrations of isostatic adjustment in engineering work 328 



Isostasy and oil geology 329 



Isostasy and fault production 330 



Mineral veins and intrusive igneous masses v . . . 330 



Relations to limiting depth and conclusion 331 



Fundamental Relations 



The relations of isostatic readjustment with mining geology or with 

 other applications of the science to problems in professional practice are 

 those of large, general character, of fundamental conceptions, and of 

 great first causes, rather than of special service in particular cases. When 

 an ore body is cut off by a fault and the mining geologist has to decide 

 what to do next in order to find the missing part, the conceptions based 

 on isostasy are not of immediate help; but if in his daily work the 

 thoughts of the mining geologist turn to the cause of the faults with 

 which he has to deal, isostatic readjustment must of necessity come into 

 his field of view in a fundamental way. In responding to the request of 

 Mr. Bowie to add a few pages of reflections on these questions to the 

 symposium, I am compelled by the Aery nature of the case to treat the 

 subject in the large way. I may in the end ask more questions than I 

 shall answer. 



Isostasy and Coal Formation 



One of the most important questions with which we have to deal in 

 economic geology relates to coal. Years of study have now established 



1 Manuscript received by the Secretary of the Society January 18, 1922. 

 This paper is one of a series composing- a symposium on isostasy. 



(327) 



