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Vine‐Matthews‐Morley Hypothesis

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Encyclopedia of Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism

Definition

The Vine‐Matthews‐Morley (VMM) hypothesis states that, when ocean crust forms at a midocean ridge (i.e., a spreading center), the cooling crust becomes magnetized in the direction of Earth's prevailing magnetic field as it cools below the Curie temperature of the magnetic minerals (Morley and Larochelle, 1964; Vine and Matthews, 1963). Typically this Curie temperature is between 150 and 300 °C for titanomagnetite, the primary magnetic mineral in the upper oceanic crust, and ∼580 °C for pure magnetite found in the lower ocean crust. The ocean crust moves away from the spreading center through the process of “seafloor spreading” and in this way the magnetic signal recorded in the newly formed crust is preserved (Figure V5). A good analogy is that of a tape recorder where the ocean crust is the magnetic tape and Earth's magnetic field is the signal, which is recorded onto the moving tape. In this way, changes in Earth's magnetic field polarity through time are preserved in the...

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Authors
  1. Maurice A. Tivey
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leeds,  ,  

    David Gubbins

  2. University of Hawaii,  ,  

    Emilio Herrero-Bervera

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Tivey, M.A. (2007). Vine‐Matthews‐Morley Hypothesis. In: Gubbins, D., Herrero-Bervera, E. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4423-6_314

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