What is the Vine Mathews hypothesis?

The Vine-Matthews hypothesis, proposed by geologists Jason Vine and Drummond Matthews in the late 1960s, suggests that the Earth's magnetic field undergoes periodic reversals, which can be recorded in the oceanic crust as symmetrical patterns of magnetic stripes. These stripes form as magma cools at mid-ocean ridges, preserving the direction of the Earth's magnetic field at the time of solidification. This hypothesis provided critical evidence for the theory of plate tectonics, demonstrating how seafloor spreading occurs and how continents can drift over geological time.