After gorging on bear meat, the expedition's scientists bring back evidence that helps prove the controversial theory of continental drift, which gives rise in due course to the science of plate tectonics, which explains why it was that Krakatoa blew itself up--and will do so again, in eons hence.

FORBES: Don't Go Near The Volcano

Plate tectonics, the formation of faults and the moving of the continental crust over a molten interior, is a characteristic unique to Earth and it meant that minerals evolved far beyond those on any other planet in the Solar System.

ECONOMIST: Minerals