Robert D. Hatcher
Robert Dean Hatcher (born October 22, 1940 in Madison (Tennessee) ) is an American geologist and professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville (Tennessee) .
Career
Hatcher graduated from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in 1961 and a master's degree in 1962, and received his doctorate in geology from the University of Tennessee in 1965. He was then a petroleum geologist at Humble Oil and from 1966 Assistant Professor and later Professor at Clemson University . In 1978 he became a professor at Florida State University and from 1980 to 1986 at the University of South Carolina . From 1986 he was Distinguished Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Professor at the University of Tennessee.
He deals with tectonics and stratigraphy of the southern and central Appalachians , stratigraphy in medium to high grade metamorphic rocks, formation of mountain ranges, petroleum geology, engineering geology (e.g. landslides) and geology of radioactive waste disposal. He is also investigating earthquake risks in eastern Tennessee (a seismically active area inside a tectonic plate) and discovered some previously unknown displacements there.
From the 1970s he was a leader in the plate tectonic reassessment of the tectonics of the central and southern Appalachians (Ridge and Valley Region) involved with terran analysis. The research was also motivated by the search for oil and gas after the oil crisis in the 1970s. With the geophysicist Jack E. Oliver (Cornell University) he investigated a seismic transversal in the southern Appalachian Mountains (COCORP). They discovered that the Blue Ridge Mountains formed a thrust over 200 km similar to that observed in the Alps. His geological map of the Appalachians appeared in 1990 and replaced that of Harold Williams . With Harold Williams he wrote a paper on presumed terrane in the Appalachian Mountains.
In addition to the Appalachians, he conducted field studies in the Cordilleras of the USA and Canada, the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, the Caledonids in Great Britain and Scandinavia, the Carpathian Mountains, the Argentine Andes and the Pampas, in the Canadian Shield, the Xinling Mountains in China, the Mexican Cordilleras and in Siberia on Lake Baikal (where ancient Paleozoic mountains were later subjected to the stretching movement in the region of Lake Baikal).
It was essential to the planned Appalachian Deep Hole Project (ADCOH), which in the end was not carried out (deep drilling through the thrusting of the Blue Ridge Mountains was planned), but whose preliminary work brought important insights into the tectonics of the Appalachians and was published in a report .
In 2006 he received the Penrose Medal . In 1993 he was President of the Geological Society of America and in 1996 of the American Geological Institute. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . In 1988 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the GSA, in 1997 the IC White Memorial Award and in 2001 the John T. Galey Award of the East Section of the American Society of Petroleum Geologists. In 1998 he received the West Virginia Governor's Honorary of West Virginia.
1981 to 1988 he was editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Life and career data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
- ^ Hatcher, Williams, Suspect terranes and accretionary history of the Appalachian orogen, Geology, Vol. 10, 1982, pp. 530-536
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hatcher, Robert D. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hatcher, Robert Dean |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American geologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 22, 1940 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Madison (Tennessee) |