Much of the Earth science community continued to believe that continents were fixed in place, thanks to a combination of elitism and some genuine scientific weaknesses with Wegener’s theory, like the lack of a plausible explanation for how continents might move across the Earth’s surface. Though some scientists accepted Wegener’s proposal, it failed to gain much traction during his lifetime.

“Wegener’s hypothesis in general is of the footloose type,” scoffed one geologist, and “takes considerable liberty with our globe.” It suggests that in places such as the Mid-Atlantic, forces at the ridge play an important role in driving newly-formed plates apart.In the early twentieth century, when the Earth scientist Alfred Wegener proposed that the planet’s continents drift - joining to form giant landmasses and retreating away again over long spans of time - most researchers weren’t having it. Professor Mike Kendall added: “This work is exciting and that it refutes long held assumptions that mid-ocean ridges might play a passive role in plate tectonics. It also demonstrates how crucial it is to gather new data from the oceans. It has broad implications for our understanding of Earth’s evolution and habitability. The experiment was funded by NERC (Natural Environment Research Council, UK) and the ERC (European Research Council).ĭr Harmon said: “There is a growing distance between North America and Europe, and it is not driven by political or philosophical differences - it is caused by mantle convection!”Īs well as helping scientists to develop better models and warning systems for natural disasters, plate tectonics also has an impact on sea levels, and therefore affects climate change estimates over geologic times scales.ĭr Rychert said: “This was completely unexpected. The incredible results shed new light in our understanding of how the Earth interior is connected with plate tectonics, with observations not seen before.”ĭr Kate Rychert and Dr Nick Harmon from the University of Southampton and Professor Mike Kendall from the University of Oxford led the experiment and were the chief scientists on the cruises. Lead author, Matthew Agius, a former post-doctoral fellow at the University of Southampton and currently at Università degli studi Roma Tre said: “This was a memorable mission that took us a total of 10 weeks at sea in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The observed signal was indicative of a deep, sluggish and unexpected upwelling from the deeper mantle.

This is one of only a few experiments of this scale ever conducted in the oceans and allowed the team to image variations in the structure of the Earth’s mantle near depths of 410 km and 660 km – depths that are associated with abrupt changes in mineral phases. The data provides the first large scale and high-resolution imaging of the mantle beneath the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Over two research cruises on the RV Langseth and RRV Discovery, the team deployed 39 seismometers at the bottom of the Atlantic as part of the PI-LAB (Passive Imaging of the Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundary) experiment and EURO-LAB (Experiment to Unearth the Rheological Oceanic Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundary).

Mid atlantic ridge plate boundary