George Patrick Leonard Walker

George Patrick Leonard Walker ( born March 2, 1926 in Harlesden, London, † 17 January 2005) was a British volcanologist. His scientific work, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, had a decisive influence on the change in Volcanology from a purely descriptive to a quantitative science.

Life

Walker grew up in London and Northern Ireland. After visiting the Wallace High School in Lisburn, he studied geology at Queen 's University in Belfast and was awarded his doctorate degree in the subject mineralogy of the University of Leeds. In 1954 he began as a lecturer at Imperial College, London, and quickly gained an academic reputation through his studies of Icelandic Zeolithmineralen. The results from Iceland played a role in the development of the theory of plate tectonics, and Walker was later honored for his achievements in the study of emergence Islands with the hawk north.

As a colleague of John Graham Ramsay, John Sutton and Janet Watson at Imperial College Walker dealt with volcanoes and volcanic eruptions, as at Etna, in the Indian Deccan Traps, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Italy and other places. In addition to the study of lava flows and volcanic forms and the assessment of risks related to volcanoes mainly pyroclastic flows were the focus of his research, and it demonstrated that the nature and intensity of volcanic eruptions based on the thickness and the distribution of grain sizes of such pyroclastic deposits can be derived.

Walker left in 1978, the Imperial College and joined a research position at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. In the following years he was able to gain insights into some remarkable prehistoric explosive eruptions of North Iceland, and undertook extensive research on Taupo. His last academic position was the Gordon McDonald Chair in Volcanology at the University of Hawaii, which he held until his retirement in 1996. During this time he studied the formation of basaltic volcanoes such as the Hawaiian Islands and the behavior of flowing lava, and undertook extensive research on the Toba volcano.

After returning to the UK he settled in Gloucester down, and held a position of honor at the University of Bristol. Walker was married and had two children, a daughter and a son.

Honors

In 1975 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1977 he was awarded the Icelandic falcon north and 1982, the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London. He was since 1987 Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and held since 1988 both an honorary doctorate from the University of Iceland and one of the University of New Zealand, and in the same year a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. 1989 awarded him the IAVCEI, the World Association of volcanologists who Thorarinsson Medal and in 1995 he was awarded the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London.

368210
de