John G. Ramsay

John Graham Ramsay (* 1931 in London ) is a British structural geologist . Raised in suburban London in the 1930s, he attended Imperial College London and became a full professor there in 1966 . The following year he published his first book, Folding and Fracturing of Rocks , which made him known among structural geologists. During his scientific career he has received numerous science prizes.

Life

John Graham Ramsay received his Bachelor of Arts in geology from the Imperial College of Science and Technology at the University of London and graduated with honors in 1952 under John Sutton . His doctoral thesis dealt with the rock deformation in the area of Loch Monar in the Scottish Highlands , which could be read from the highly deformed and multiply folded rocks of the Moine Supergroup , and the relationship between the folded basement and its overburden ; Ramsay received his doctorate in 1954.

After his military service as a military musician with the Corps of Royal Engineers of Great Britain , he was appointed as a lecturer in the geological faculty of Imperial College in 1957. Much of his fundamental early academic work was done at Imperial College during this time. He later became a full professor at Imperial College, before moving to the University of Leeds as director and professor in 1973 . In 1976 he was appointed professor of geology at the ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich , and is now professor emeritus at both chairs . He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Rennes and the University of Cardiff in Wales.

After retiring from active apprenticeship in Zurich, he devoted himself more to the instruments he had played during his military service, the cello and the tenor drum . He still composes and teaches cello and chamber music in Issirac , France.

Act

John Ramsay is the author and co-author of four books and numerous structural geological papers. He has long been of the opinion that the structures of the rock that are actually visible in the outcrop or thin section are the key to understanding tectonic processes, and concludes that deformation models must be measured against the observed conditions in order to actually be of importance. In all of his work, the theoretical part is followed by experimental simulations, which are then compared with photographs of naturally created examples.

Ramsay has carried out extensive railing work in the Barberton greenstone belt in South Africa and Zimbabwe, and in the East African Rift Valley in Sudan . In addition to his contributions to the structural geology of the Alps before and during his time in Zurich, he mainly focused on the Caledonian mountain belt of the Scottish Highlands.

Even after his retirement he continued his structural geological work and has carried out studies in the Moine Thrust area in the north-west Highlands of Scotland for the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom and Ireland as an Honorary Research Adviser .

Honors

His work in the service of the advancement of structural geology has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Bigsby Medal (1973) and the Wollaston Medal (1986), both awards from the Geological Society of London , and the Prestwich Medal from the Société géologique de France (1989 ), the Arthur Holmes Medal of the European Geosciences Union (1984), the CT Clough Medal of the Geological Society of Scotland (1962) and the Medal of the University of Liege (1988). In 1992 he was named to the Order of Commander of the British Empire on the Queen's Honor Roll . He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1973 , an honorary member of the Geological Society of America , the Société géologique de France, the Indian National Science Academy , the American Geophysical Union , the National Academy of Sciences (1985) and the British Geological Society of London . In 1989 he was elected a member of the Academia Europaea .

Fonts

• Folding and fracturing of rocks . McGraw-Hill, 1967, ISBN 0-07-051170-5 .
• The Techniques of Modern Structural Geology, Volume 1: Strain Analysis . Academic Press, 1984, ISBN 0-12-576921-0 .
• with Martin I. Huber: The Techniques of Modern Structural Geology. Volume 2: Folds and Fractures . Academic Press, 1987, ISBN 0-12-576902-4 .
• with Richard Lisle: The Techniques of Modern Structural Geology. Volume 3: Applications of continuum mechanics in structural geology . Academic Press, 2000, ISBN 0-12-576923-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Famous names in earth science and engineering: John Graham Ramsay, cbe, dsc, frs (1931–), Professor of Geology 1966–1973 . In: Imperial College (Ed.): 1907-2007. A celebration of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London . 2007, p. 20 ( online [PDF; 2.5 MB ]).