J. Tuzo Wilson

J. Tuzo Wilson was a Canadian geophysicist whose work helped establish plate tectonics. In 1963, he proposed that volcanic island chains form as tectonic plates move over relatively fixed mantle sources.

Hotspot: A long-lived region of anomalous mantle melting that can produce volcanism away from plate boundaries. Wilson proposed hotspots as fixed mantle sources beneath moving plates.
Continental drift: The hypothesis that continents have moved relative to one another over geological time. Wilson helped connect earlier drift arguments to a mechanism involving moving plates.
Alfred Wegener: A German meteorologist who proposed continental drift in the early twentieth century. Wilson’s moving-plate synthesis built on the question Wegener had raised.
Wilson cycle: A model describing the opening and closing of ocean basins through the life cycle of tectonic plates. Wilson’s name became attached to this account of ocean-basin evolution.
Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain: A volcanic chain in the Pacific Ocean recording changes in the motion of the Pacific Plate. Its bend became evidence that the plate’s direction of motion changed.
Sea-floor spreading: The formation of new oceanic crust at mid-ocean ridges as older crust moves away. Evidence for spreading helped make Wilson’s moving-plate interpretation plausible.
Harry Hammond Hess: An American geologist whose sea-floor spreading hypothesis helped establish plate tectonics. Hess’s ocean-floor model complemented Wilson’s account of plate motion.
Newfoundland geology: The geology of Newfoundland, where ancient rocks record the assembly and breakup of tectonic plates. Wilson used Newfoundland’s geology to interpret ancient plate boundaries and ocean closure.
Age progression of the Hawaiian Islands: The pattern in which Hawaiian volcanoes become older with increasing distance from the active Big Island. Wilson’s model predicts this sequence as the plate passes over a hotspot.
Mid-Atlantic Ridge: A mid-ocean ridge system running through the Atlantic Ocean, where new oceanic crust forms. Wilson studied ocean-floor structures that supported a dynamic Earth.

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