Continental drift orogeny at the boundaries of convection cells. By 1967, barely two decades after discovery of the mid-oceanic rifts, and a decade after discovery of the striping, plate tectonics had become axiomatic to modern geophysics. In addition, Marie Tharp, in collaboration with Bruce Heezen, (who initially ridiculed Marie's observations that her maps confirmed continental drift theory), provided essential corroboration, using her skills in cartography and seismographic data, to confirm the theory. Evidence for the movement of continents on tectonic plates is now extensive. Similar plant and animal fossils are found around the shores of different continents, suggesting that they were once
Continental drift Silurian – those of the Potsdam epoch. … and this will probably prove to the case in Primordial time with the other continents also". Dana was enormously influential in America – his "Manual of Mineralogy" is still in print in revised form – and the theory became known as "Permanence theory". This appeared to be confirmed by the exploration of the deep sea beds conducted by the Challenger expedition, 1872-6, which showed that contrary to expectation, land debris brought down by rivers to the ocean is deposited comparatively close to the shore on what is now known as the continental