Seafloor spreading
Who
Proposed by geologists Harry Hess and Robert Dietz; its magnetic-reversal proof rests on the geodynamo theory of Walter M. Elsasser, a German physicist of Jewish origin who fled Nazism.
When
1960s
Where
United States
Seafloor spreading — the idea that new ocean crust forms at mid-ocean ridges and moves outward — was proposed by Harry Hess and Robert Dietz in the early 1960s and became a pillar of plate tectonics. Its confirmation came from symmetrical magnetic stripes on the ocean floor recording reversals of Earth's magnetic field. The theory of that field, the geodynamo, was largely developed by physicist Walter M. Elsasser, who fled Nazi Germany as a Jew.
Part of “The Gifts of the Jews” — verified Jewish contributions to the world, with sources.