Frederick Vine
| Frederick Vine | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 June 1939 |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields |
marine geologist geophysicist |
| Institutions | University of East Anglia |
| Alma mater | St John's College, Cambridge |
| Notable awards |
Arthur L. Day Medal (1968) Bigsby Medal (1971) Chapman Medal (1973) FRS (1974) Appleton Medal and Prize (1977) Balzan Prize (1981) Hughes Medal (1982) Prestwich Medal (2007) |
|
Website www |
|
Frederick John Vine FRS (born 17 June 1939) 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.
Vine was born in Chiswick, London, and educated at Latymer Upper School and St John's College, Cambridge where he studied Natural Sciences (BA, 1962) and marine geophysics (PhD, 1965).
Vine's PhD thesis was on 'Magnetism in the Seafloor', supervised by Drummond Matthews. Having met Harry Hess he was aware of sea floor spreading, where the ocean bed acts as a 'conveyor belt' moving away from the central ridge. Vine's work, with that of Drummond Matthews and Lawrence Morley of the Geological Survey of Canada, helped put the variations in the magnetic properties of the ocean crust into context in what is now known as the Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis. Specifically they supported Dietz's (Nature 1961) idea that sea floor spreading was occurring at mid-ocean ridges. Vine and Matthews showed that basalt created at a mid-ocean ridge records earth's current magnetic field polarity (and strength), thus turning Hess's theoretical 'conveyor belt' into a 'tape recorder'. Furthermore, they showed that magnetic reversals 'frozen' into these rocks, as suggested by Allan Cox (Nature 1963), can be seen as parallel strips as you travel perpendicularly away from the ridge crest.
...
Wikipedia