Professor of geophysics in the Netherlands, Vening-Meinesz made important contributions to the study of gravity, and was an early advocate of continental drift. In 1926 he discovered large negative gravity anomalies over the Java Trench, and, using earthquake data to support his theory, suggested that the trenches were the result of buckling of the crust, caused by convection currents in the Earth’s interior. Vening-Meinesz’s use of submarines to improve the precision of his gravity measurements was an imaginative and effective innovation.