Earth & Environmental Science · Oceanography
A topic within Oceanography, itself one of 9 topics in that field and part of Earth & Environmental Science.
2 works
Harry H. Hess
Proposes that new seafloor forms at mid-ocean ridges and spreads outward, carrying the ocean basins along like a conveyor belt and giving continental drift a physical mechanism for the first time.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Frederick J. Vine & Drummond H. Matthews
Reads the striped pattern of magnetic reversals frozen into the seafloor either side of the mid-ocean ridge as a tape recording of seafloor spreading, turning Hess's hypothesis into a testable and confirmed prediction.
link checked 17 Sept 2026