Spreading Seafloors - Four Revolutions in the Earth Sciences - page 115

FIGURE 17 . Stripes on the seafloor. Source : D. Raff and R. G. Mason, “Magnetic Survey Off
the West Coast of North America, 40 N. Latitude to 52 N. Latitude,” Geological Society of
America Bulletin 72, no. 8 (1961). Courtesy of the Geological Society of America.
Meanwhile, Mason found that he could explain the pattern as the result of ver-
tical slabs of highly magnetized rock having been intruded into the upper seafloor,
butthatexplanation wascontrivedandhadnobasisinknowngeology.Masonlater
wrote that he could have kicked himself for not being the first to understand the
meaning of the stripes (41). The solution was staring him and everyone else in the