John Tuzo Wilson

John Tuzo Wilson (October 24, 1908-April 15, 1993) was a Canadian geophysicist and geologist who achieved worldwide acclaim for his theory of plate tectonics, the assumption that the Earth's crust is comprised of plates floating on magma. As part of his theory, he maintained that the Hawaiian Islands were created as a tectonic plate covering the Pacific Ocean shifted in a northwesterly direction over a fixed hot spot over which volcanoes were born.