Burgess concentric ring model

Date: 1925

Creator: Ernest W. Burgess (1886 - 1966)

(Source: Park, R., Burgess, E.W. and McKenzie, R.D. (1925) The City.)

• First published in 1925 in Burgess’ chapter in Park et al. The City.

• First and strongly iconic neo-classical spatial model of urban structure to explain distribution of social classes in the city invoking bid rent curves.

• Came to represent views of the Chicago School and strongly influenced other modellers such as Hoyt, Harris and Ulmann and subsequent quantifiers in Urban Social Geography.

(Source: http://teacherweb.ftl.pinecrest.edu/snyderd/APHG/Unit%206/urbannotes.htm)

The 'Bullard Fit' - hteory of continental drift
Date: 1965
Creators: Edward Bullard (1907 - 1980) and co-workers

(Source: Bullard, E. C., Everett, J. E., & Smith, A. G. (1965). The fit of the continents around the Atlantic. In A Symposium on Continental Drift, Royal Society of London Philosophical Transactions, Series A, 258, 41-51.)

• Published in a 1965 research article by Bullard et al, The Fit of the Continents Around the Atlantic in Royal Society of London Philosophical Transactions.

• Anteceded by numerous mappings of the apparent Atlantic fit of continents (notably Alfred Wegener's Origin of the Continents and Oceans) Bullard and his co-workers produced the first computer-generated map of the 1000 metre isobath fit, and in so doing contributed to the plate tectonic revolution.

(Source: Wegener A. (1915) Origin of the Continents and Oceans.)

Cyclical model of fluvial erosion of landforms
Date: 1909
Creators: William Morris Davis (1850-1934)

Significance:

Source: Davis, W.M., 1909. Geographical Essays. Boston, Ginn and Company.

Time-space geography model

Date: 1970

Creator: Torsten Hägerstrand (1916 - 2004)

(Source: Hägerstrand, T., 1970. What about people in Regional Science? Papers of the Regional Science Association 24, 7-21.)

• Published in Hägerstrand’s influential 1970 article, What About People in Regional Science? in Papers of the Regional Science Association.

• Notion and visualization of space-time paths encouraged a consideration of time as part of social life instead of just an external influence. Continuing influence on wide range of disciplines across social sciences, including in GIScience; e.g. Mei-Po Kwan’s 3D ‘fishtank’ visualisations.
  

Hägerstrand-inspired Kwan’s GIS-generated space time paths, 2004.

(Source: http://geog-www.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/mkwan/Gallery/STPaths.htm)