Whose Research Proved Plate Tectonics?

Alfred Wegener proposed in 1912 that continents had once been joined ("Pangaea") and drifted apart, citing fossil, geological, and shape evidence. But without a mechanism, most geologists rejected the idea. The breakthrough came in the 1960s. Harry Hess proposed in 1962 that new oceanic crust forms at mid-ocean ridges and spreads outward ("seafloor spreading"). In 1963, Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews showed that the pattern of magnetic reversals recorded in oceanic basalt on either side of mid-ocean ridges was symmetrical — stunning evidence of spreading. J. Tuzo Wilson introduced transform faults in 1965, completing the geometry of plate boundaries. By 1968, the theory of plate tectonics was established, synthesising continental drift, seafloor spreading, and subduction into a unified framework — arguably the greatest revolution in Earth sciences since geology inception.