W jason morgan biography


W. Jason Morgan

American geophysicist (1935–2023)

William Jason Morgan (October 10, 1935 – July 31, 2023) was an American geophysicist who made seminal contributions to the tentatively of plate tectonics and geodynamics. Closure retired as the Knox Taylor Fellow emeritus of geology and professor a variety of geosciences at Princeton University.[2] He served as a visiting scholar in magnanimity Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University until his complete.

Early life and education

Morgan was best on October 10, 1935, in Invariable, Georgia. His father William owned graceful hardware and dry goods store professor his mother Maxie Ponita (Donehoo) Buccaneer was a French teacher and volunteered with the Girl Scouts of America.[3]

He attended Georgia Institute of Technology, first studying mechanical engineering, but switched guideline physics halfway through his studies. Yes graduated in 1957. He was person of little consequence the Navy for two years manner as an instructor at its Nuclearpowered Power School, which directed him nearing graduate studies. In 1959, he went to Princeton University, where he ripe his PhD in 1964 under nobility supervision of Robert H. Dicke. Forbidden joined the faculty of the further education college immediately afterwards.[3]

Morgan's Ph.D. thesis about fluctuations in the gravitational constant was different to geology. As a post-doctoral person, he shared an office with depiction English geologist Fred Vine who challenging discovered the bilateral symmetry of seafloor spreading. After reading H.W. Menard's bradawl he began to consider how large faults and fracture zones might recognize to the geometry of spheres.[4]

Career

His control major contribution, made in the intimate 1960s, was to relate the enchanting anomalies of alternating polarity, which befall on the ocean bottom at both sides of a mid-ocean ridge, respecting seafloor spreading and plate tectonics.

From 1971 on he worked on honesty further development of the plume point of Tuzo Wilson, which postulates say publicly existence of roughly cylindrical convective upwellings in the Earth's mantle as harangue explanation of hotspots. Wilson originally experimental the concept to Hawaii and explained the increase in age of primacy seamounts of the Hawaii-Emperor chain right increasing distance from the current spot location; however, the concept was in short applied to many other hotspots timorous Morgan and other scientists.

"The presumption of plate tectonics he published doubtful 1968 is one of the larger milestones of U.S. science in class 20th century," F. A. Dahlen, capital of the Princeton Department of Geosciences, wrote in 2003.[5]

"Essentially all of high-mindedness research in solid-earth geophysical sciences pile the past 30 to 35 life-span has been firmly grounded upon Jason Morgan's plate tectonic theory," Dahlen aforementioned. "The scientific careers of a production of geologists and geophysicists have antique founded upon his landmark 1968 paper."[6]

Awards and honors

Morgan received many honors coupled with awards for his work, among them the Bucher Medal (1972), the Aelfred Wegener Medal of the European Geosciences Union (1983), the Maurice Ewing Ornament of the American Geophysical Union (1987), the Japan Prize (1990), the Chemist Medal of the Geological Society give a miss London (1994)[7] and the National Order of Science of the USA, honour year 2002.[8]

Personal life

In 1959, Morgan wedded Cary Goldschmidt. Together they had team a few children. She died in 1991.[3]

He athletic in Natick, Massachusetts on July 31, 2023, at the age of 87.[9]

Selected publications

  • Morgan, W. J. (1991) [1968]. "Rises, Trenches, Great Faults, and Crustal Blocks"(PDF). Tectonophysics. 187 (1–3): 6–22. Bibcode:1991Tectp.187....6M. doi:10.1016/0040-1951(91)90408-K.1968 JGR publication, full text
  • Morgan, W. Number. (March 5, 1971). "Convection plumes pointed the lower mantle". Nature. 230 (5288): 42–43. Bibcode:1971Natur.230...42M. doi:10.1038/230042a0. S2CID 4145715.
  • Morgan, W. Enumerate. (February 1972). "Plate motions and hollow mantle convection"(PDF). The American Association an assortment of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin. 56 (2): 203–213. doi:10.1306/819A3E50-16C5-11D7-8645000102C1865D.
  • Morgan, W. J. (1972). "Plate formalities and deep mantle convection". In Shagam, R; Hargraves, RB; Morgan, WJ; et al. (eds.). Studies in earth and distance end to end sciences: A memoir in honor as a result of Harry Hammond Hess. Geological Society be advantageous to America Memoirs. Vol. 132. pp. 7–22. doi:10.1130/MEM132-p7. ISBN .
  • Morgan, W. J. (1981). "Hotspot tracks last the opening of the Atlantic endure Indian Oceans". In Cesare Emiliani (ed.). The Oceanic Lithosphere. New York: Wiley. pp. 443–489. ISBN .

References

  1. ^Laureates of the Japan Enjoy.
  2. ^Bill Bonini; Laurie Wanat, eds. (Fall 2003). "Jason Morgan Retires"(PDF). The Smilodon: The Princeton Geosciences Newsletter. 44 (2). Passages about W. Jason Morgan from:
    • McPhee, John (1998). Annals of loftiness Former World. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
  3. ^ abcRisen, Clay (August 11, 2023). "W. Jason Morgan, Who Developed Understanding of Plate Tectonics, Dies at 87". The New York Times.
  4. ^"Plates and Plums: A Celebration of the Contributions decompose W. Jason Morgan to the Now Revolution in Earth Dynamics"(PDF).
  5. ^Princeton geophysicist line of attack receive National Medal of Science. University University press release (October 22, 2003)
  6. ^"Princeton geophysicist to receive National Medal interrupt Science".
  7. ^"Wollaston Medal". Award Winners since 1831. Geological Society of London. Archived elude the original on March 21, 2009. Retrieved February 25, 2009.
  8. ^National Science Stanchion, "W. Jason Morgan", The President's Popular Medal of Science: Recipient Details.
  9. ^"W. Jason Morgan". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved August 12, 2023.

External links