Magnetic Anomalies Over Oceanic Ridges Nature 199, 1963, pp. 947-949

London: Macmillan, 1963. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION (FULL VOLUME) OF THE PAPER IN WHICH VINE & MATTHEWS, WITHOUT REFERRING TO IT AS SUCH, SHOW PROOF OF THE OCCURRENCE OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT. Their work is considered "the first scientific test of sea floor spreading, and a crucial development in the theory of Plate Tectonics" (Wikipedia; Geological Society Web Portal: "Pioneers of Plate Tectonics"). "Although Vine and Matthews were not the first to suggest that the sea floor was spreading, their paper was the first to reconcile an unpopular theory with direct palaeomagnetic evidence from seafloor lava flows. In less than a decade, the idea of continental drift was accepted, and earth science was born as a modern interdisciplinary subject" (Nature Website Portal).

The geologist Harry Hess had proposed that new oceanic crust forms as the result of rising molten rock. Working together at Cambridge, the British geologists Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews believed that if Hess was correct, the symmetrical pattern of stripes of magnetic stripes on either side of the mid ocean ridges "was no accident, but indicated that the Earth's magnetic field switches direction over time, from its current (normal) direction to the opposite (reversed) direction" (ibid). In essence, Vine and Matthews believed that the ocean's crust had become something of a ‘tape recorder' of magnetic reversals.

"When material from the mantle rises up through mid ocean ridges and cools, it preserves a record of the polarity of the Earth's magnetic field. This is because magnetite in the basalts is strongly magnetic, and aligns with the field when it cools. In addition when the basalts of the sea floor were dated, they were found to be the same age at similar distances away from the ridge on each side. This suggested that the ocean floor was created at the mid ocean ridges, then was split in half by later activity and pushed sideways.

In 1963 and in this paper, Vine and Matthews published this idea. They "suggest that the pattern of local magnetic anomalies on the flanks of a mid-oceanic ridge is strongly lineated parallel to the ridge, and that these magnetic ‘stripes' represent strips of material in the upper mantle the directions of permanent magnetization of which are alternately parallel and anti-parallel to the present local geomagnetic field. Vine and Matthews suggest that mantle material cools as it rises convectively under a ridge and then spreads horizontally outward. (Backus, Magnetic Anomalies over Oceanic Ridges, Nature 201, 8 Feb, 1964, 591).

The work has come to be known as the Vine-Matthews-Morley hypothesis, and in so doing recognizing the work of the Canadian geologist Lawrence Morley who, working independently, had come up with the same idea.

ALSO INCLUDED: Muirhead, Hilary; Perutz, M. F. "Structure Of Hæemoglobin: A Three-Dimensional Fourier Synthesis of Reduced Human Haemoglobin at 5.5 Å Resolution", pp. 633-638. ALSO: Slee, O. B.; Solomon, Leonard, H.; Patston, G. E. "Radio Emission from Flare Star V371 Orionis", pp. 991-993.

ALSO: Davies, R. E. "A Molecular Theory of Muscle Contraction : Calcium-Dependent Contractions with Hydrogen Bond Formation Plus ATP-Dependent Extensions of Part of the Myosin-Actin Cross-Bridges", pp. 1068-1074. CONDITION & DETAILS: London: Macmillan and Co. 4to (263 x 200mm). Volume 199, complete. Attractively bound in clean and bright red cloth, gilt-lettered at the spine. Tightly and very solidly bound. Ex-library with minimal markings (slight tonal difference at the spine from spine label removal. A few scattered institutional stamps within; light). In-text illustrations throughout. Includes original front wraps for the August 17th, 1963 issue and the September 28th, 1963 issue bound in at the rear. Bright and very clean throughout. Very good + condition.