| Date Note | Dates from Frankel, p458 & p463, and from McKenzie. |
| Description | File containing two sets of manuscript equations and notes, [c.Oct 1966-Spring 1967], one of which calculates the strength of the lithosphere, compiled as part of the research for McKenzie's paper, "Some remarks on heat flow and gravity anomalies", 'Journal of Geophysical Research', vol 72 (1967), pp6261-6273. |
| Administrative History | McKenzie's first major paper was "Some remarks on heat flow and gravity anomalies" (1967) ['Journal of Geophysical Research', vol 72, pp6261-6273], which was a modification of the problematic seafloor spreading model put forward by others such as the US geologist Harry Hess (1906-1969). McKenzie showed that the generation of a hot plate of finite thickness at a ridge axis could account for the variation of the depth of, and heat flow through, the ocean floor with age. The idea for the paper occurred to McKenzie whilst he was awaiting his viva for his PhD thesis at the end of 1966, doing the thermal calculations using the Eulerian form of temperature equations (on the recommendation of his fellow graduate Bob Parker) and the programming when he was at Caltech at the beginning of 1967. This model, with some later modifications, would form the basis of most of McKenzie's subsequent work on plate tectonics. |