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Antonio Snider-Pellegrini
He proposed that all of the continents were once connected together during the Pennsylvanian Period. He based this theory on the fact that he had found plant fossils in both Europe and the United States that were identical. He found matching fossils on all of the continents. -
Richard Dixon Oldham
Oldham made two enormous contributions to plate tectonic theory and geophysics, he was able to identify three distinct seismic waves emanating from an earthquake epicenter on a seismic record. The second is that Oldham found that earthquake waves increased in speed as they moved deeper into the Earth, up to a certain point. At that point, below a certain depth, they suddenly move much slower. -
Frank B. Taylor
His analysis of tectonic features foreshadowed in many ways modern thought regarding plate collisions. -
Eduard Suess
He speculated that mountain ranges were formed from the contraction and cooling of Earth. He then went on to try and explain the origins of the oceans, continents, and the similarities of fossils found on separate continents. -
Alfred Wegener
In 1912, Alfred Wegener proposed a theory that the continents had once been joined, and over time had drifted apart. This was the Continental Drift Theory. -
Alexander Logie du Toit
Du Toit compared both the geological and paleontological stratigraphy from the coastlines of southwestern Africa and southeastern South America -
Maurice Ewing
He collected years worth of core data from the world's ocean floors, bringing the ocean basins into view for the first time. Results from his research laid groundwork for further discoveries that would shape plate tectonics in the Earth Sciences. -
Arthur Holmes
I selected renown Geologist Arthur Holmes, because of his geological contributions to the scientific community. Holmes continued the works of Wagener elaborating the continental drift theory, which is now known as plate tectonics. -
Dan McKenzie
He wrote the first paper defining the mathematical principles of plate tectonics on a sphere, and his early work on mantle convection created the modern discussion of planetary interiors. -
Harry Hammond Hess
Harry Hess was a professor of geology at Princeton University (USA), and became interested in the geology of the oceans while serving in the US Navy in World War II. His time as a Navy officer was an opportunity to use sonar (also called echo sounding), then a new technology, to map the ocean floor across the North Pacific. -
Robert S. Dietz
Conducted pioneering research along with Harry Hammond Hess concerning seafloor spreading. -
Frederick Vine
Is an English marine geologist and geophysicist. He made key contributions to the theory of plate tectonics, helping to show that the seafloor spreads from mid-ocean ridges with a symmetrical pattern of magnetic reversals in the basalt rocks on either side. -
Lawrence Morley
Morley worked on the theory of continental drift similar to work by Britons Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews. The three contributed significantly to geology by relating the magnetic properties of ocean crust to the processes involved in the theory of plate tectonics. -
Drummond Matthews
showed how variations in the magnetic properties of rocks forming the ocean floor could be consistent with, and ultimately help confirm, Harry Hammond Hess's 1962 theory of seafloor spreading. -
John Tuzo Wilson
was a Canadian geophysicist and geologist who achieved worldwide acclaim for his contributions to the theory of plate tectonics. -
Xavier Le Pichon
In 1968 published his paper on global clinimatics. In this paper he modeled how the motion of the earth's crust had occurred from the Cretaceous Period to present.
