The growing number of citations to original publications highlighted their utility across academia, but the dissemination of knowledge from tacit conceptualization to scientific publications and its global applications remains understudied, and the prediction of knowledge trends in a disciplinary context is rare. Addressing the gaps, this paper constructed a tree-like hierarchical model (Geotree) to dissect the knowledge evolution paths of the Geodetector theory (a case) using the Web of Science citation database. Our results revealed that the knowledge evolution of 932 citations to Geodetector was partitioned into periods: a budding period of initial theoretical exploration, a growing period for emerging topics in application, and a mature period marked by significant citation growth. Our test R2 of the predicting model over the next decade, considering the tree-like hierarchy across research directions and disciplines, was 100% higher than that of the other two (from 0.29 to 0.58). The knowledge spreading, from China to North America in 2011, Europe in 2012, Oceania in 2017, South America in 2018, and Africa in 2019, was more associated with a country s production of scientific publications (q-statistic = 0.307***) than its income level. The Geotree modeling of two other cases from space science and physics confirmed the reliability of the source publication-based approach in tracking knowledge diffusion. Our established research framework enriched the current methodology of information science and provided valuable references for policymakers and scholars to enhance their decision-making processes.