200 Seafloor Spreading

Hess theorized that guyots had originally been islands dating back to 800 million years
ago, a period before coral existed. His argument rested, in part, on his hypothesis that continual deposits of sediment on the seafloor had made the sea level rise.
When, in 1956, fossils only 100 million years old were found in guyots, Hess changed
his theory to say that guyots had originally been volcanoes that had eroded to flat tops by
wave action. He abandoned this theory when erosion rate calculations showed that the
guyots couldnt have eroded enough to reach their current depth.
Then his 1957 oceanic core samples showed that the Atlantic Ocean floor was much
younger than the continents and that oceanic sedimentation rates were slower than previously thought. Hessagainhad to search for a new theory.
Luckily, his 1957 survey allowed him to collect core samples from more than 20 sites
across the Atlantic. These tests showed that the age of the ocean bottom grew progressively
older as it moved away from the mid-oceanic ridge and toward either continent.
The seafloor wasnt fixed and motionless as everyone had thought. It had to be spreading, moving as if on a giant conveyor belt, inching year by year away from the mid-oceanic
ridge. Hess argued that magma rose from the earths mantle up through oceanic rifts and
spread out laterally across the ocean floor. As the magma cooled, it formed new oceanic
crust. He estimated the oceanic crust to be spreading apart along the mid-oceanic ridge by
one to two inches a year.
Hesss discovery became known as seafloor spreading and was the foundation of the
plate tectonics revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Fun Facts: The Pacific Ocean is slowly shrinking as the Americas slide
west. Two hundred million years ago, the Atlantic Ocean didnt exist.
South America and Africa were joined, as were North America and Europe. The Atlantic is still spreading and growing. So is the Red Sea. In
150 million years, that currently skinny sea will be as wide as the Atlantic
is now.

More to Explore
Bermen, Howard, ed. The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume N-63.
Clifton, NJ: James T. White & Co., 1984.
Daintith, John, ed. Biographical Encyclopedia of Science. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Norton
Scientific, 1994.
Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York:
Charles Scribners Sons, 1998.
Hess, Harry. History of the Ocean Basins. In Petrological Studies, edited by A.
Engle and H. James. New York: Harper, 1992.
Rubey, William. Harry Hammond Hess. In Yearbook of the American Philosophical
Society (1995). New York: American Philosophical Society, 1996.

The Nature of the

Atmosphere
Year of Discovery: 1960
What Is It? The atmosphere is chaotic and unpredictable.
Who Discovered It? Ed Lorenz

Why Is This One of the 100 Greatest?

Ed Lorenz uncovered a nonlinear, complex, interdependent system of equations that
describe the real movement of the atmosphere. He showed that atmospheric models are so
dependent on initial and boundary conditions (starting data supplied to the model) that even
seemingly infinitesimal changes in them create major changes in the system. In other
words, when a butterfly flaps its wings over Beijing, the models might well predict that it
will change the weather in New York. But everyone admitted that just couldnt happen.
Lorenz discovered not how to make long-range predictions, but rather the forces that
make such predictions impossible. He then developed chaos theorythe study of chaotic
and unpredictable systems. Scientists are discovering that many natural, biological, and environmental systems are best described and better understood under chaos theory than
through traditional forms of analysis.

How Was It Discovered?

Having a computer was enough of a novelty in 1958 to entice many MIT faculty and
students to make the trip to Ed Lorenzs office just to watch the thing work. But excitement
quickly turned to despair for Lorenz.
Lorenz created a set of equations to act as a mathematical model of atmospheric storm
movement and behavior. He noticed that tiny changes in the starting conditions of the
model soon produced enormous changes in the outcome. Tiny starting differences always
amplified over time, rather than damping, or normalizing out.
If the actual atmosphere acted like Lorenzs models, he had just proved that long-range
weather forecasting was impossible since starting conditions were never known with
enough precision to prevent chaotic, amplified error. It was an unsettling and sinking feeling to trade the excitement of finding a new research tool for the despair of proving that your
field and work were both inherently flawed and impossible.

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