Question

Passage:
Throughout the early twentieth century, Alfred Wegener’s hypothesis of continental displacement was largely dismissed by geophysical orthodoxy due to the lack of an identifiable driving mechanism. The revival of mobilist theory in the 1950s emerged not from traditional structural geology, but from the nascent discipline of paleomagnetism. Central to this resurgence was Patrick Blackett’s design of an extraordinarily sensitive astatic magnetometer, an instrument originally constructed to detect hypothetical terrestrial fundamental magnetic fields but swiftly repurposed to measure the extremely weak remanent magnetization of sedimentary and igneous rocks.

Using Blackett’s instrumentation, British geophysicist Keith Runcorn conducted extensive surveys of remanent magnetization in British red sandstones. Runcorn demonstrated that the apparent geomagnetic north pole had systematically migrated over geological eras, tracing what he termed an apparent polar wander path. Crucially, when Runcorn and his colleagues subsequently mapped the apparent polar wander path for North American strata of equivalent ages, the two migration curves exhibited matching geometric shapes but were displaced westward by approximately thirty degrees of longitude. Runcorn recognized that this divergence could not be reconciled by a single wandering magnetic dipole on a static globe; rather, it constituted explicit quantitative proof that the continental landmasses had moved relative to one another.

Simultaneously, Warren Carey was developing tectonic reconstructions based on spherical geometry, pointing out severe spatial distortions inherent in planar cartographic projections. In Cambridge, Edward Bullard, alongside J. E. Everett and A. Gilbert Smith, formalized these geometric alignments in 1965 by deploying a numerical optimization algorithm on digital computers. By minimizing the root-mean-square misfit between the 500-fathom bathymetric contours of opposing continental shelves—specifically the South American and African Atlantic margins—Bullard’s team established an objective, mathematically rigorous fit that excluded the subjective biases of earlier coastal matching.

Meanwhile, at the Lamont Geological Observatory, Maurice Ewing and Bruce Heezen compiled comprehensive bathymetric and seismic reflection profiles across the oceanic basin. Their soundings identified a continuous, 65,000-kilometer mid-ocean ridge system characterized by axial rift valleys and anomalous heat flow, providing the physical architectural framework upon which later models of seafloor spreading were synthesized.

Based on the passage, match each researcher or research team to the specific empirical finding or methodological contribution explicitly attributed to them in the text.