W. Jason Morgan
W. Jason Morgan ( William Jason Morgan ; born October 10, 1935 in Savannah , Georgia , USA ) is an American geophysicist who pioneered plate tectonics and geodynamics . He is a retired Knox Taylor Professor of Geology and Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University .
CV and main academic achievements
After receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1957, he moved to Princeton University , where he received his doctorate in 1964 under Bob Dicke . He was then taken directly to the university's faculty.
His first significant contribution, made in the late 1960s , was to relate the magnetic anomalies of alternating polarity that the ocean floor exhibits on either side of a mid-ocean ridge to sea floor spreading and plate tectonics.
Since 1971, there has been further development of the Plume model by John Tuzo Wilson , which postulates the existence of approximately cylindrical convective currents in the earth's mantle to explain hotspots . Morgan initially only applied the concept to Hawaii , thereby explaining the increasing age of the seamounts of the Hawaii-Emperor chain with increasing distance from today's hotspot , but the concept has since been transferred to many other hotspots by Morgan and numerous other scientists.
Morgan received numerous awards for his work, including a. the Alfred Wegener Medal of the European Geosciences Union (1983), the Maurice Ewing Award of the American Geophysical Union (1987), the Japan Prize (1990), the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London (1994) and the National Medal of Science of the USA (2002). In 1982 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 2011 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
Important publications
- WJ Morgan: Rises, Trenches, Great Faults, and Crustal Blocks. In: Journal of Geophysical Research. Volume 73, 1968, p. 1959
- WJ Morgan: Convection plumes in the lower mantle. In: Nature. Volume 230, 1971, pp. 42-43
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Morgan, W. Jason |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Morgan, William Jason (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American geophysicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 10, 1935 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Savannah |