Drummond Matthews facts for kids
Drummond Hoyle Matthews (born February 5, 1931 – died July 20, 1997) was a British scientist. People often called him "Drum." He was a marine geologist and geophysicist. This means he studied the Earth's oceans and rocks, and how the Earth's physical forces work. He played a very important part in developing the theory of plate tectonics. This theory explains how the Earth's outer layer is made of large moving plates.
Matthews worked with another British scientist, Fred Vine, and a Canadian scientist, Lawrence Morley. Their research helped prove the idea of seafloor spreading. This idea was first suggested by Harry Hammond Hess in 1962. It explains how new ocean floor is created. In 1989, Drummond Matthews received the Wollaston Medal. This is a very high honor from the Geological Society of London.
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Early Life
Drummond Matthews went to school during World War II. He attended The Downs in Malvern. Later, he went to Bryanston School in Dorset. He was a top student at both schools. He even became the head boy.
Discovering Plate Tectonics
For a long time, scientists wondered how continents moved. Back in the early 1900s, Alfred Wegener suggested the idea of continental drift. He thought continents slowly moved across the Earth's surface. But most scientists didn't believe him. They couldn't figure out how the continents could move. There was no good explanation for what caused this movement.
Mapping the Ocean Floor
In the 1950s, scientists started mapping the bottom of the ocean. They found huge underwater mountain ranges. These were called mid-ocean ridges. These ridges stretched all around the world. Scientists noticed that these areas were very hot. They also had many earthquakes.
A scientist named Harry Hess had an idea. He thought that new ocean crust was forming at these mid-ocean ridges. He believed hot, melted rock, called magma, was coming up from deep inside the Earth. This magma would cool and harden, creating new ocean floor. Then, giant currents inside the Earth would slowly pull this new crust away from the ridge. This process would make the ocean basins wider. It would also push the continents apart. This idea was called seafloor spreading.
Matthews' Big Discovery
In 1962, Drummond Matthews was a researcher at King's College in Cambridge. He studied part of an ocean ridge in the northwest Indian Ocean. He used special equipment to measure the magnetic properties of the rocks on the ocean floor.
What he found was amazing! He saw a pattern of magnetic stripes. These stripes ran parallel to the ocean ridge. Even more interesting, the pattern was almost exactly the same on both sides of the ridge. It was like a mirror image.
To explain these stripes, scientists had to consider an idea that was already being discussed. This idea was that the Earth's magnetic field had flipped many times over millions of years. This means that the North and South magnetic poles had swapped places.
Ocean crust is made of a type of rock called igneous rock. This rock contains tiny magnetic minerals, like magnetite. When this hot rock cools and hardens, these minerals act like tiny compasses. They line up with the Earth's magnetic field at that exact time. So, the rock keeps a "fossil" record of the Earth's magnetism.
If Hess's idea of seafloor spreading was correct, then new rock would constantly form at the ridge. As this new rock moved away, it would carry the magnetic record of the time it formed. If the Earth's magnetic field kept reversing, then you would get exactly the kind of parallel, symmetrical magnetic stripes that Matthews found! The ocean floor was acting like a giant tape recorder, recording the Earth's magnetic history.
The Vine-Matthews-Morley Hypothesis
Matthews and his student, Fred Vine, wrote about their ideas. They published their findings in a famous science magazine called Nature in 1963. Their article was titled "Magnetic Anomalies over Ocean Ridges."
After their paper came out, scientists quickly started to accept Hess's seafloor spreading theory. More surveys of other ocean ridges showed the same magnetic patterns. A few years later, scientists also confirmed that the Earth's magnetic field had indeed reversed many times. This not only proved the Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis but also helped scientists figure out how fast the ocean floor was spreading in different places.
The work of Drummond Matthews and Fred Vine was a crucial piece of the puzzle. It helped scientists fully understand and accept the theory of plate tectonics.
Later Career and Awards
In 1977, Drummond Matthews won the Chree medal and prize for his scientific contributions.
In 1982, he became the first scientific director of a group called the British Institutions Reflection Profiling Syndicate (BIRPS). This group was set up to study the Earth's crust deep below the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. They used a method called deep seismic reflection profiling. This method sends sound waves into the Earth and listens for the echoes. It helps scientists create images of what the Earth looks like far beneath the surface.
