Harmon Craig

Harmon Craig ( born March 15, 1926 in New York City; † 14 March 2003 La Jolla ) was an American geochemist and oceanographer. He turned the isotopic chemistry at many geological, oceanographic and cosmochemical problems.

Life and work

Craig studied geology and chemistry at the University of Chicago ( interrupted by service as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II ), where it was in 1951 received his doctorate with a thesis on the geochemistry of carbon isotopes in Harold C. Urey. The dissertation provided input for radiocarbon dating, in particular by examining the variation of carbon 13 to 12, according to he was at Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, until he went in 1955 at the invitation of Roger Revelle at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where he stayed till the end of his career remained. He was a professor of geochemistry and oceanography.

He made early theoretical contributions to the isotope budget of the oceans and the carbon budget of oceans and atmosphere. He was one of the first to the gas content in ice cores studied and examined the increase of Methanund nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere by the action of man.

From 1970 he was on the side of Scripss institution co-director of the GEOSECS ( Geochemical ocean sections study) program of the Scripps Institution, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ( Derek Spencer ) and the Lamont - Doherty Earth Observatory ( Wallace Broecker ), with the chemical and isotopes of the oceans have been studied worldwide and to date largest amount was collected on data for ocean chemistry.

He discovered hydrothermal vents on geologically active zones on the seabed by isotopic measurements at the surface ( 3 helium, radon ) and by a total of 17 dives with Alvin (DSV -2), including the Mariana Trench. He led a total of 28 oceanographic expeditions, but also studied geologically active zones on land, for example, in the Rift Valley, the Dead Sea, in Tibet, China and the volcanic islands and Vulkangebeiten in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. From there the higher proportion of helium 3 to helium 4 above, he identified sixteen hot spots around the world.

In Chicago, he and Urey, the isotopic composition of chondrites and found that they fell into two groups.

Honors and Memberships

In 1987 he received the Vetlesen Prize and in the same year the Arthur L. Day Prize and in 1983 the Arthur L. Day Medal. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1979 ) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1976). In 1998 he was awarded the Balzan Prize, the 1979 VM Goldschmidt Medal of the Geochemical Society and the 1982 Special Creativity Award for Oceanography of the National Science Foundation. He was an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris and the University of Chicago.

375987
de