Wilhelm Hans Stille

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birth_date = 1876
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death_date = 1966
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nationality = German
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field = Geologist
work_institutions = University of Göttingen
University of Berlin
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Wilhelm Hans Stille (1876-1966) was a German geologist working primarily on tectonics and the collation of tectonic events during the Phanerozoic [Citation
last1 = Hancock | first1 = Paul L.
last2 = Skinner | first2 = Brian J.
last3 = Dineley | first3 = David L.
title = The Oxford Companion to The Earth
publisher = Oxford University Press
year = 2000
isbn = 0-19-854039-6 ] .

Working from the University of Göttingen and, later, the University of Berlin, Stille brought together a table of around 50 geosynchronous orogenic phases that occurred during the Phanerozoic Eon. In the framework developed by Stille, these phases occurred as small pulses during which a portion of the Earth's crust was stabilised, and the continents were enlarged.

Further work studying internal details of the crust led Stille to expand the geosyncline concept. This useful synthesis of geological theory persisted until the mid-20th century, but was ultimately supplanted by plate tectonics. As well as providing a better explanation of tectonic events, this also undermined Stille's notion of globally-correlated phases of orogeny. Notably, seafloor spreading, the mechanism driving what Stille had come to call geosyncline cycles, was only established as such in the year of his death.

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