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Alfred Wegener
The originator of the scientific theory of continental drift.
He formulated it on the basis of, among other things, the way in which the forms of the continents seem to fit on either side of the Atlantic Ocean, such as Africa and South America, of what had previously been noticed by Benjamin Franklin and anothers one. -
Alfred Wegener
“The Origin of Continents and Oceans” his book was published -
Harry Hammond Hess
In 1960, Hess made his single most important contribution, which is regarded as part of the major advance in geologic science of the 20th century. In a widely circulated report to the Office of Naval Research, he advanced the theory, now generally accepted, that the Earth's crust moved laterally away from long, volcanically active oceanic ridges -
Keith Runcorn
His paleomagnetic reconstruction of the relative motions of Europe and America revived the theory of continental drift and was a major contribution to plate tectonics. -
Marie Tharp
The publication of the first map of the North Atlantic Ocean Fund was a revolution, but Tharp's contributions were quite silenced, in fact until Heezen's death in 1977, he worked without receiving the scientific recognition deserved as author or Co-author of the published investigations.
In the decade of the 90 his figure began to be appreciated -
Allan V. Cox
he collaborated with another geophysicist, Richard Doell, on rock magnetism. The two were particularly interested in geomagnetic reversals. At the time, very little was known about the timing of reversals. The rock specimens they collected were too young to date accurately until the potassium-argon dating method was developed.
They succeeded in creating the first geomagnetic polarity time scale. -
W. Jason Morgan
His first major contribution, made in the late 1960s, was to relate the magnetic anomalies of alternating polarity, which occur on the ocean bottom at both sides of a mid-ocean ridge, to seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. -
Dan McKenzie
He contributed to the investigation of plate tectonics, the formation of sedimentary basins and the fusion of the terrestrial mantle.
He published several fundamental articles for the development of the theory of plate tectonics, which has become an essential pillar of modern geology, and that explains that the Earth's crust is composed of a few rigid plates that move independientement -
Frederick Vine
Main contributor to the theory of tectonic plates. Vine and Matthews supported Dietz's idea that the enlargement of the seabed was taking place in the mid-depth ridges. Vine and Matthews showed that the basalt created in the pits represents the polarity of the Earth's current magnetic field, transforming the ' conveyor belt ' -
Drummond Matthews
As a fellow at Cambridge, he conducted an investigation into a part of an oceanic ridge in the northwest Indian Ocean. This revealed a pattern of magnetic anomalies running in parallel and virtually symmetrical lines on each side of the dorsal. The most accepted explanation for these anomalies required assuming that the terrestrial magnetic field had changed its polarity again and again in the time -
John Tuzo Wilson
Development of the theory of the supercontinental cycle of Wilson, thanks to its argumentation about the faults of transformation It postulates that every 400-500 million years all the masses of emerged Earth unite, forming a supercontinent.
