Rank the top best scientists of all time. Of all time. [so far]

[Autumnlicious]

The person who formulated a concept of plate tectonics deserving of serious consideration was John Tuzo Wilson. It seems doubtful to me that Wagner's ideas had any critical effect on Wilson. He amazed the evidence of mechanism before he arrived at the effect.

In any case, Plate tectonics is an outcome of modern geology, not the foundation of modern geology. The foundation of geology ought to work whereever there is geology, like on the moon or mars, or venus. This Hutton and Lyell's concept will do. Plate tectonics is merely what the science Hutton and Lyell had created had allowed us to discover on earth. Plate tectonics will have limited application on the moon, for example.

Tectonic activity is indicative of an object with a functioning geomagnetic dynamo. You know, the thing that keeps us alive from being blasted into oblivion by a bombardment the sun's light matter.

So actually, plate tectonics work anywhere.

Also, plate tectonics explain any terrestrial planet with a geodynamo must have a molten core, as the core depends on the (incredibly slow) convection of the continental plates.

This is from what I've learned in astrophysics.