who discovered seafloor spreading
Answers
Answer:
Harry hess discovered seafloor spreading...
Answer:
Harry Hess
Explanation:
Nothing could feel more solid than the ground under our feet. Yet the surface of the Earth is not fixed, but rather broken up like a jigsaw puzzle into enormous plates that move. This process is called plate tectonics, and it transformed the thinking of geologists. One of them, Harry Hess, was an instrumental figure in figuring out how plate tectonics worked.
Hess possessed two valuable skills: careful attention to detail and the ability to form sweeping hypotheses. This unusual combination produced groundbreaking work on a number of subjects, including the origin of ocean basins and island arcs, mountain building, and the movement of continents. The idea that the continents might have moved, or “drifted” over time can be traced back to the sixteenth century, when European cartographers compiled world maps based on the seagoing expeditions of that time. This idea was transformed into the theory of “continental drift” by German meteorologist Alfred Wegener in 1912, when he published a treatise with several lines of supporting evidence that went beyond simply matching the continents like puzzle pieces. These lines of evidence included, for example, matching geological formations and paleontological distributions from South America and Africa. Wegener’s critics correctly pointed out, however, that the continents could not simply “plow” though the ocean floor as Wegener had vaguely theorized. It was Hess who determined how oceanic mountain ranges, called mid-ocean ridges, are fundamental to the tectonic movement that results in the drift of continents.
According to his own account, Hess flunked his first course in mineralogy at Yale and was told he had no future in the field. Nevertheless he stuck with it, and was teaching geology at Princeton when World War II was declared. Already a lieutenant junior grade in the Naval Reserve, Hess was called to active duty after Pearl Harbor and was eventually to rise to the rank of Rear Admiral. He soon developed a system for estimating the daily positions of German U-boats in the North Atlantic, and requested duty aboard a decoy vessel in order to test the program. It worked.
He then served as commander of the attack transport U.S. Cape Johnson in the Pacific Ocean, taking part in major landings at Marianas, Leyte, Lingayen Gulf, and Iwo Jima. Ever the scientist, while cruising from one battle to the next, Hess kept the transport’s sounding gear (which bounced sound waves off the sea-floor in order to determine the underwater relief or topography) running day and nig,ht. This led to his discovery of submerged and curiously flat-topped mountains that he named “guyots” in honor of the Swiss founder of the Princeton geology department. It also produced thousands of miles of echo-sounding surveys of the ocean floor.
