Keith Runcorn

Stanley Keith Runcorn ( born November 19, 1922 in Southport ( Lancashire ); † December 5, 1995 in San Diego ) was a British geophysicist. It dealt among other things with paleomagnetism and found early evidence of plate tectonics.

Life and work

Runcorn first studied in 1940 with a state scholarship as an engineer at the University of Cambridge ( Gonville and Caius College). After graduating in 1943 he worked in the development of radar ( Royal Radar Establishment, RRE ). In 1946 he was a lecturer at Manchester University, where he turned under the influence of PMS Blackett geophysics ( exploration of the earth's magnetic field ), to which Blackett had constructed a very sensitive astatic magnetometer. For his thesis, he demonstrated by measurements in English coal mines, that the Earth's magnetic field increased with depth (which at that time belonged to Dynamo theory of Elsasser and Bullard substantiated and argued against an alternative theory of Blackett itself). 1950 moved to Cambridge and began Runcorn paleomagnetic measurements, as well Blackett, who had moved to the Imperial College. In Cambridge Runcorn built a geomagnetic research group, which also, for example, dealt with next paleomagnetism of magnetohydrodynamics of the Earth's core and other issues. In 1956 he moved to the University of Newcastle, where he was professor of physics and 1988 went into retirement. He then taught three months a year at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (as Sydney Chapman Professor of Physics ).

It was in 1995 in his hotel room in San Diego victim of a robbery.

Runcorn was the first evidence of the periodic polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field found ( they were even around 1905 by Bernard Brunhes in France discovered ).

Runcorns studies of the migration of the poles from paleomagnetic measurements in the 1950s were an early support for the continental drift theory of Alfred Wegener, who had long been viewed with skepticism. Clear indications from the deviations of Polwanderungskurven that resulted from the comparison of rocks in North America and Europe, he received in 1956. This was subsequently confirmed by data from other continents of Runcorns group, as commemorated by Blackett's group ( but not until 1960 that public entered for the continental drift, but was since the early 1950s, supporters of the theory ) was involved. Runcorn had time to overcome resistance, for example, there were heated debates with opponents of continental drift as the U.S. Paläomagnetologen John Graham. Around the same time (1956 ) found with Runcorn and Edward A. Irving (* 1927) from Blackett's group from paleomagnetic measurements of rocks in Scotland early evidence of continental drift.

The mid-1960s he began his area of ​​interest on the returned in the Apollo mission lunar rock samples to relocate, investigated their magnetic properties and came to the conclusion that the moon in the past must have had a magnetic field. Small magnetic anomalies observed the satellites of the moon he interpreted as relics of older magnetizations associated with a polar wandering of the pre-existing lunar magnetic field due to Impakten. He also dealt with convection and magnetic field emergence in other planets.

He also dealt with, for example, the determination of wind directions of ancient sedimentary rocks, the influence of earthquakes on the Magnetpolwanderung, variations in day length from coral fossils, determination of ground currents from discontinued cable laying in the Pacific, causes of polarity events.

In 1995 he received the Emil Wiechert Medal, 1984, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1987, the Alfred Wegener Medal of the European Geophysical Union, 1969 Charles Chree Prize of the Institute of Physics, the John Adam Fleming Medal of the American Geophysical Union ( 1983), the Vetlesen prize from Columbia University and the Napier Shaw prize of the Royal Meteorological Society (1959).

In 1965 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1980 the Indian National Academy of Science, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (where he contributed to the official papal rehabilitation of Galileo Galilei). He was an honorary member of the Dutch, Norwegian and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences ( 1990) and the Royal Society of New South Wales.

1991 to 1993 he was scientific committee for the Biosphere II project in Arizona.

The asteroid ( 4570 ) Runcorn was named after him.

Writings

  • Published by LH Ahrens, K. Rankama: Physics and chemistry of the Earth, 1956
  • Publisher: Methods and techniques in geophysics, 1966
  • Publisher: Continental Drift, Academic Press 1962
  • Publisher: International dictionary of geophysics: seismology, geomagnetism, aeronomy, oceanography, geodesy, gravity, marine geophysics, meteorology, the earth as a planet and its evolution, 1967
  • Publisher Mantles of the earth and terrestrial planets, NATO Advanced Study Institute, 1967
  • Published by DW Collinson, KM Creer: Methods in palaeomagnetism: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Palaeomagnetic Methods, 1967
  • Publisher: Palaeogeophysics, NATO Advanced Study Institute, 1970
  • Publisher: Earth Sciences, 3 volumes, Barking, 1971, Applied Science Publishers
  • Editor with Harold C. Urey: The moon, IAU Symposium on the Moon (Newcastle 1971), Reidel, Dordrecht 1972
  • DH Tarling Publisher: Implications of continental drift to the earth sciences, NATO Advanced Study Institute, 1973
  • Publisher with PA Davies Mechanisms of continental drift and plate tectonics, 1980
  • Publisher: The Physics of the planets: their origin, evolution, and structure, 1987
University of Manchester University of Newcastle (Australia) University of Alaska System (4570) Runcorn Harold Urey
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