Researched
Plate tectonics
In the 1960s sea-floor spreading, magnetic stripes and earthquake patterns combined into one theory: the crust moves in rigid plates.
Open in the interactive tree →Harry Hess proposed sea-floor spreading (1962), Vine and Matthews read it in magnetic stripes (1963), J. Tuzo Wilson explained transform faults (1965), and by 1967-68 McKenzie, Parker and Morgan had a full plate model. It explains earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building and ocean basins, and is geology's unifying theory. Satellite measurements now track plate motion of centimetres per year.
Prerequisites
- Seismology: inside the Earth1906
- Continental drift1912
- Radiometric age of the Earth1956
- Mapping the ocean floor1957Mapped ridges and rift valley were evidence for sea-floor spreading
- Seafloor Spreading1962-1963Seafloor spreading and magnetic stripes turned drift into plate tectonics