Samuel Warren Carey AO (1 November 1911 – 20 March 2002) was an Australian geologist and a professor at the University of Tasmania.

Mathematics was required and he was encouraged to study geology as his fourth subject, a department still under the influence of retired Professor Edgeworth David.

[1] He started a student Geology club as he became attracted to the subject's mixture of laboratory and field work; David gave the inaugural speech.

It was at this time that Carey read the 1924 translation of Wegener's The Origin of Continents and Oceans, the book largely responsible for introducing the concept of continental drift to English-speaking academics.

[3] Carey was in the field when a magnitude 6.3 earthquake with an epicentre near Aitape occurred which devastated the inland villages and the tracks over the coastal mountains.

This operation (Scorpion) became obsolete but Carey secretly tested his plan by infiltrating Townsville harbour, placing dummy limpet mines on American ships.

After the war, Carey was a highly regarded contributor to geology and his many contributions to the emerging theories and proposals were often in advance of the accepted view.

He backed the moving of continents proposed by Alfred Wegener and decided on the expanding Earth idea as the mechanism for this and was the main proponent of this hypothesis.

[10][better source needed][11][better source needed] Despite the eventual acceptance of the plate movement and subduction paradigm over Carey's hypothesis, he is widely regarded as making substantial contributions to the field of tectonics and having considerable influence in the initial acceptance of continental drift over a static model.