Dewey returned to the UK in 1982 as Professor of Geology at the University of Durham, a position he held for four years. As with another Durham geologists before him, Lawrence Wager, Dewey was appointed Professor of Geology at the University of Oxford (and Fellow of University College) in 1986, a position he held until his resignation in 2000. Since then he has returned to the US as Professor of Geology at the University of California at Davis, although he maintains a position as Senior Research Fellow at University College, Oxford.
Dewey, J. F. (1975). "Finite plate evolution: some implications for the evolution of rock masses at plate margins". American Journal of Science. 275-A: 260–284.
Dewey, John F.; Kennedy, Michael J.; Kidd, William S.F. (1983). "A geotraverse through the Appalachians of northern Newfoundland"(PDF). In Nicholas Rast; Frances M. Delany (eds.). Profiles of Orogenic Belts. Geodynamics Series. Vol. 10. American Geophysical Union.
Dewey, J.F.; Shackleton, Robert M.; Chengfa, Chang; Yiyin, Sun (1988). "The Tectonic Evolution of the Tibetan Plateau". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, A. 327 (1594): 379–413. Bibcode:1988RSPTA.327..379D. doi:10.1098/rsta.1988.0135. S2CID122295871.
Dewey, J. F.; Ryan, P. D.; Andersen, T. B. (1993). "Orogenic uplift and collapse, crustal thickness, fabrics and metamorphic phase changes: the role of eclogites". Geological Society of London, Special Publications. 76 (1): 325–343. Bibcode:1993GSLSP..76..325D. doi:10.1144/GSL.SP.1993.076.01.16. S2CID55985869.
Van Staal, C. R.; Dewey, J. F.; MacNiocall, C.; McKerrow, W. S. (1998). "The Cambrian-Silurian tectonic evolution of the northern Appalachian and British Caledonides". Geological Society of London, Special Publications. 143: 199–242.
Dewey, J. F.; Mange, M. (1999). "Petrography of Ordovician and Silurian sediments in the western Irish Caledonides: tracers of a short-lived Ordovician continent-arc collision orogeny and the evolution of the Laurentian Appalachian-Caledonian margin". Geological Society of London, Special Publications. 164 (1): 55–107. Bibcode:1999GSLSP.164...55D. doi:10.1144/GSL.SP.1999.164.01.05. S2CID129574741.