Linking Grounds and Theory Constellations: An Indiciary–Abductive Model of Interdisciplinary Scientific Discovery

Interdisciplinary discovery succeeds when constraints can travel between heterogeneous evidential regimes without degenerating into analogy or narrative unification. This paper proposes two appraisal units for reconstructing and assessing that travel. A linking ground is a typed inferential warrant that coordinates commitments across regimes by transporting a non-trivial constraint under explicit scope conditions and identifiable defeaters. A theory constellation is a network of linking grounds whose stability depends on transport closure, bidirectional correction, and discriminators: constraints recur across multiple links, coordination generates feedback that revises commitments on more than one side, and the integrated package yields a coordinated consequence profile that separates it from live rivals. The framework couples an indiciary orientation to robust traces with a constrained abductive logic of linkage proposal, and it supplies a compact test battery for distinguishing warranted linkages from warrant-deficient linkages that merely align vocabulary or pictures. The emergence of plate tectonics is reconstructed as a paradigmatic case: dispersed traces (fit patterns, magnetic anomaly sequences, seismic geometries, ridge–trench structure) are shown to function as indiciary prompts that force linkage problems, while the subsequent consolidation is traced to the engineered composition of measurement, kinematic, dynamical, and compatibility linking grounds into a stable constellation. The result is a portable methodology for diagnosing interdisciplinary discovery as an accountable inferential achievement.