Lynn R. Sykes

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Lynn Ray Sykes (born April 16, 1937 in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania ) is an American geologist and geophysicist who made important contributions in the early stages of the implementation of plate tectonics in the 1960s.

Sykes went to school near Washington, DC and studied geology and geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master's degree in 1960. He then went to Columbia University , where he received his doctorate in geology with Jack Oliver in 1965 ( The propagation of short- period seismic surface waves across oceanic areas ). He then went to Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory , where he became Higgins Professor for Earth and Environmental Sciences .

He deals with earthquake origins (e.g. in the context of plate subduction) and prediction and seismic verification of nuclear weapons test stops. In 1974 he was a member of the US delegation that negotiated the test-free agreement, and he was heard several times as an expert before Congress . In the 1960s, his investigations (partly with his teacher Jack Oliver ) on the localization of earthquake sources and the interpretation by plate tectonics were an important pillar of plate tectonics.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the American Geophysical Union , the Geological Society of America , the Geological Society of London, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science .

In 2000 he received the Vetlesen Prize . He was a Sloan and Guggenheim Fellow , received the James B. Macelwane Medal and the Walter H. Bucher Medal from the American Geophysical Union and the Medal from the Seismological Society of America. In 1986 he received the Public Service Award from the Federation of American Scientists for his work on nuclear test stops.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oliver, Bryan Isacks, Sykes Seismology and the New Global Tectonics , Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 73, 1968, p. 5855
  2. ^ Macelwane Award
  3. ↑ Bucher Medal
personal data
SURNAME Sykes, Lynn R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sykes, Lynn Ray (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania