Frederick Vine

Vine was born in Chiswick, London, and educated at Latymer Upper School and St John's College, Cambridge where he studied Natural Sciences (BA, 1962) and marine geophysics (PhD, 1965). ==Plate tectonics==

. Vine's PhD thesis was on 'Magnetism in the Seafloor' and supervised by Drummond Matthews. Having met Harry Hess he was aware of sea floor spreading, where the ocean bed acts as a 'conveyor belt' moving away from the central ridge. Vine's work, with that of Drummond Matthews and Lawrence Morley of the Geological Survey of Canada, helped put the variations in the magnetic properties of the ocean crust into context in what is now known as the Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis. Specifically they supported Dietz's (Nature 1961) idea that sea floor spreading was occurring at mid-ocean ridges. Vine and Matthews showed that basalt created at a mid-ocean ridge records earth's current magnetic field polarity (and strength), thus turning Hess's theoretical 'conveyor belt' into a 'tape recorder'. can be seen as parallel strips as you travel perpendicularly away from the ridge crest. ==Academic career==

Vine worked with E. M. Moores on the Ophiolite in the Troodos Mountains of southern Cyprus. He worked with R. A. Livermore and A. G. Smith on the history of the Earth's magnetic field. and graphite-free In 1967, Vine became assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Princeton University. In 1970 he moved to the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, becoming professor there in 1974. He served as dean from 1977 to 1980, and again from 1993 to 1998. After 1998, he was a professorial fellow of the University of East Anglia. and then in 2008 he became an emeritus professor there. ==Death==

Vine died on 21 June 2024, at the age of 85. ==Honours==

Vine's honours included: • Day Medal in 1968 • Bigsby Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1971 • Chapman Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1973) • Fellowship of the Royal Society in March 1974 • The Chree Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (1977) • Hughes Medal of the Royal Society (1982) • International Balzan Prize (1981) • Prestwich Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2007 ==Publications==

• • • • • • First edition: 1990, second edition: 1996. ==See also==