Geophysical global cooling
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This article is about the obsolete theory of global cooling. For the conjecture positing an overall cooling of the Earth and perhaps the commencement of glaciation or even an ice age, see Global cooling.
Before the concept of plate tectonics, global cooling was a geophysical theory by James Dwight Dana, also referred to as the contracting earth theory. It suggested that the Earth had been in a molten state, and features such as mountains formed as it cooled and shrank.[1] As the interior of the Earth cooled and shrank, the rigid crust would have to shrink and crumple. The crumpling could produce features such as mountain ranges.