Voices of Science

Fred Vine (1939-), geologist and geophysicist, is best known for his work on the magnetic properties of the Earth’s ocean crust. Along with his PhD supervisor Drummond Matthews, he demonstrated that basalt created at a mid-ocean ridge records the current polarity of the Earth’s magnetic field and contributed to the Vine-Matthews-Morley hypothesis, regarded as the first key scientific test ofthe seafloor spreading theory of continental drift. His subsequent career, first at Princeton University and later at the University of East Anglia, included work on palaeomagnetism and ophiolites. He shared a number of honours and awards with Drummond Matthews for their work, including the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 1982.